I entered the United States Army Infantry Reserves for six years. I spent six months of my time on active duty and the rest was spent in the local reserves, which consisted of meeting one weekend a month and two weeks active duty service at Camp A.P. Hill Virginia. I received an honorable discharge from the Army Infantry Reserves on June 20, 1966.

September 23, 2008

The Department of Veteran Affairs issued regulations that establish ALS as a disease entitled to presumptive service connection. This means that if a service member is diagnosed with ALS his or her condition will be presumed to have occurred during or been aggravated by military service and as such be entitled to service connection and full benefits. The VA will presume service connection to veterans with at least 90 days of active service and who were diagnosed anytime after their separation from the service. I was diagnosed with ALS in 1997 and I served at least 90 days active sevice duty so I applied for VA disability compensation on February 8, 2009 under the new regulation.

March 25, 2009

I was notified that I would receive compensation. However, on July 15, 2009 the VA severed compensation, stating that since I was a peacetime veteran and my active duty service was active duty for training, I was not entitled to benefits. Needless to say, I was extremely upset with the decision and did not expect to be treated this way after everything I contributed to the Army. On July 16, 2009, I appealed the decision and did not hear from the VA for several months after so I decided to call and did not have any luck with that either. I finally received a letter from the VA onNovember 20, 2009 stating that I would need to meet with a decision review officer.

December 21, 2009

My son in law and myself met with the decision review officer. I explained how I met all of the qualifications of the regulation. In addition, I explained that my company consisted of one-third enlistd men, one-third draftees, and one-third reserves and we all went through the sametraining. The officer informed me that I would have to take my case to the Court of Veterans Appeals in Washington DC.

January 2, 2010

I appealed to the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and i am still waiting to hear from them.
Veterans are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ALS than the general public and I am urging all veterans that read this to help me change the VA interpretation of the new regulation and to help me assist other veterans with ALS by writing to your congressman. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Mikolajcik, who was diagnosed with ALS six years ago, said “No is not an acceptable answer, not when it affects the lives of all veterans who have served their country.” I think overall, that the VA does a good job at what they do, although they are slow in responses. However when it comes to the ALS regualtions, they have it all wrong!

Keep in touch and I will post the outcome, as soon as, the appeals board lets me know.

We discussed the main points that we wanted to include in the article to raise awareness for ALS and some of our goals as a non-profit/non-stock organization.

The story is going to be in Our Town newspaper the week of June 30, 2010.  Pick up a copy and read about what we are doing to help people diagnosed with ALS. I will link a copy of the article once it is released! I hope you all are having a great week!

For more information you can read this article. “VA sees connection between ALS and Military Service“

The Miners’ Memorial Weekend is an annual event to honor the coal miners who died in the mines. The event attracts many visitors from around Southwestern PA and beyond. Events include a parade, antique car show, motorcycle show, street dances each night featuring area bands, food and craft vendors, children’s activities area and petting zoo.I decided that this event would be a great way for me to sell the ALS t-shirts and raise money for ALS. I had my daughter call the committee that organizes the event and reserve a booth so we could sell the shirts. My whole family helped me prepare for the event. Sarah, my granddaughter made a sign; Sandro, my son-in-law got two tables from my sister Millie; my wife, Joyce organized the shirts; and I scheduled friends and family to work the booth with me.

There was a good crowd after the parade on Saturday and we had a lot of people stop by the booth and ask questions. They asked what ALS was and we explained to them what it was and a donation of $10 got them an ALS t-shirt. I had a lot of help from John, Nick, Sarah, Steve, Sandro, and Joyce. They all interacted with the crowd and helped me sell the t-shirts. On Sunday there was a car show and that drew a huge crowd. I had a lot of help this day from Millie, Sandro, Sarah, Steve, John, Dave, Joe, and Joyce. A lot of people and friends stopped by to chat, everyone had a great time and we received many donations. The crowd started to thin out around six o’clock and we packed up our booth for the day and headed home. I feel like we did a good job getting our message across to people and collecting donations for ALS.

The Miners’ Memorial Weekend is an annual event to honor the coal miners who died in the mines. The event attracts many visitors from around Southwestern PA and beyond. Events include a parade, antique car show, motorcycle show, street dances each night featuring area bands, food and craft vendors, children’s activities area and petting zoo. I decided that this event would be a great way for me to sell the ALS t-shirts and raise money for ALS. I had my daughter call the committee that organizes the event and reserve a booth so we could sell the shirts. My whole family helped me prepare for the event. Sarah, my granddaughter made a sign; Sandro, my son-in-law got two tables from my sister Millie; my wife, Joyce organized the shirts; and I scheduled friends and family to work the booth with me.

There was a good crowd after the parade on Saturday and we had a lot of people stop by the booth and ask questions. They asked what ALS was and we explained to them what it was and a donation of $10 got them an ALS t-shirt. I had a lot of help from John, Nick, Sarah, Steve, Sandro, and Joyce. They all interacted with the crowd and helped me sell the t-shirts.

On Sunday there was a car show and that drew a huge crowd. I had a lot of help this day from Millie, Sandro, Sarah, Steve, John, Dave, Joe, and Joyce. A lot of people and friends stopped by to chat, everyone had a great time and we received many donations. The crowd started to thin out around six o’clock and we packed up our booth for the day and headed home. I feel like we did a good job getting our message across to people and collecting donations for ALS.

We had three Grayhound therapy dogs at our last session. It was different kind of meeting and we enjoyed that very much. The dogs were very quiet and seemed to enjoy all the petting and attention they were getting. Summer is starting and we habve specific plans – so as things develop I will be in touch again,

She and her husband Randi have a farm. They have two boys (Logan 15 and Mitchel – 13 ) and daughter (Karly – 9). The boys are active in sports so off we went to their practice sessions and to Karly’s color guard practice sessions. We had so much fin with all that we hated to leave when it was time to go

My older sister does bring my mothers’ favorite dishes. It was so much fun. My granddaughter plays the violin and my grandson plays the guitar with my son in law playing the keyboard. We sang Christmas songs(a little out of tune for this gang) but we had fun.