Medical care available to veterans affected by wartime chemical exposure
By ELENA GRIMM
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egrimm@daily-chronicle.com
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| Vietnam veteran Lonnie Stojan cleans off sawdust from his glasses Wednesday while working on a chest for one of his granddaughters inside the garage of his Sycamore home. Earlier this year, a tumor was found in his left lung, a presumptive after-effect caused by Agent Orange. (Rob Winner – rwinner@daily-chronicle.com) |
Lonnie Stojan was feeling tired, that’s all.
He had no idea that his lack of energy was a result of something that happened more than 40 years ago, when he was a spry 19-year-old caught up in the jungles of a different world, his mind set on home.
But 40 years since packing up his uniform and getting on with his life, it came back to haunt him. It came back in the form of a tumor, attached to the wall of his left lung.
Stojan, 61, was diagnosed with lung cancer in June. He’s the kind of guy who refuses to see a doctor, but a bout of pneumonia changed his mind. When he was told that it was cancer, Stojan thought “go figure.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs presumes that all military personnel who served in Vietnam were exposed to Agent Orange, and federal law presumes that certain illnesses are a result of that exposure.
Some veterans, like Stojan, can be healthy for years before a disease takes root. Even when Agent Orange – the main herbicide used in Vietnam to kill foliage named for the orange stripe on the storage drums – was first being studied for its effects on humans, Stojan was skeptical.
His wife, Bonnie, pushed him to join VietNow, an organization started by Vietnam vets in Rockford and devoted to veterans’ issues. It wasn’t until then that he learned what was happening to other veterans because of the chemical exposure. Still, the research was brand new, and it wasn’t enough for him.
“Here I am, the one that wanted proof positive on the Agent Orange stuff 20 years ago, now I’m getting it myself,” Stojan said.
Thinking of home
Lonnie and Bonnie Stojan weren’t high school sweethearts, but that’s where their story begins. Lonnie grew up in Genoa, and Bonnie in DeKalb. She came to Genoa Days with her cousin, Lonnie’s classmate, and he worked up the nerve to ask her on some carnival rides.
Lonnie graduated from Genoa-Kingston High School in 1966 and enlisted in the Army that fall. He saw his friends getting drafted left and right and knew it was just a matter of time before his number was called.
He didn’t see Bonnie again until the week before his deployment. He left on his 19th birthday and returned on his 20th, and letters from home – especially from Bonnie – kept him going the 364 days in between.
A heavy equipment operator with the 70th Combat Engineers, Stojan cleared jungle, fixed roads and built berms. The closest thing to danger he faced was a land mine that blew up next to him, blasting shrapnel and knocking him unconscious.
“I figured this is going to be a long year, if I’ve only been here three weeks and this happened,” Stojan recalled. “But I got through it. I kept thinking of back home and taking it one day at a time.”
Pushed aside
A week after Stojan returned, he and Bonnie were married. He did exactly what he planned to do after his service: Put away the uniform, start a family and get on with his life.
Bonnie was the one who pushed her husband to join VietNow. He dragged his feet to a meeting, and it was “the best thing I ever did.”
“I learned I wasn’t alone in this whole thing,” Stojan said. “The doors seemed to be shut to all the Vietnam vets when we came back: Get on with your lives, don’t [complain] about the war, don’t holler about the way things are. We did, we pushed it aside for a number of years.”
But many pushed back.
Sandra Davis and her husband, John, also a combat engineer who served in Vietnam, helped pioneer the Agent Orange movement; John was one of the founders of the DeKalb chapter of VietNow in 1985.
Bonnie Stojan and Sandra Davis had known each other since junior high, but the war their husbands faced bound their lives together even more.
Sandra has served as the VietNow National chairperson on Agent Orange issues for years. She was involved in a class-action lawsuit in the early ‘80s against herbicide manufacturers, which was settled out of court.
She also worked at getting legislation passed in 1991, in which Congress set up guidelines to scientifically review the effects of Agent Orange exposure.
But what personally got her involved was her son, Randy, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at age 5 and died at age 22.
“Randy was just an amazing child. He was in a wheelchair all of his life,” Davis said.
While aging vets are having their own set of health problems, their children have been susceptible to a range of birth defects. Children with spina bifida are covered by VA benefits, and 18 birth defects are covered for female veterans, Davis said.
And the fight continues: Research on the effects of exposure continues to the third generation, the grandkids of Vietnam veterans.
“The only commonality is these are all children fathered by Vietnam veterans who are having offspring with some unusual kinds of birth defects,” Davis said. “We don’t know where it goes; we assume it’s damaged DNA.”
The perpetrator is dioxin, a highly toxic byproduct of Agent Orange during the manufacturing process.
“The things frequently that will cause cancer is they affect DNA or chains so cells don’t die as easily as other cells,” said Dr. Robert Molokie, a hematologist and oncologist at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center in Chicago and a professor of medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “Because they have this abnormal growth – which doesn’t follow normal signals – they continue to proliferate.”
Because dioxin can alter the DNA’s instructions to make normal cells, it can lead to a number of diseases.
Molokie added that it’s unclear why some people are afflicted while others remain healthy, or why some people get mild chloracne while others get cancer or diabetes.
“Unfortunately, in spite of all the money and things that have gone on, it’s not clear why one person may get it more than others,” he said.
Some aren’t willing to take those chances. Davis’ daughter has decided not to have children for fear that Agent Orange’s effects may carry on.
Getting help
When Lonnie Stojan had surgery in July to see if the tumor in his lung could be removed, he had Herb Holderman on the phone almost immediately. Holderman, the superintendent of the DeKalb County Veterans Assistance Commission, told Stojan to come into his office as soon as he was back home.
They filled out a claim, and Stojan was on his way.
The county’s Veterans Assistance Commission is working with roughly 60 Vietnam veterans on their medical claims and benefits, though there are an estimated 9,000 or more Vietnam veterans in the county, Holderman said.
It’s difficult to know how many more have Agent Orange-related health issues because the commission has record of only those who walk through the door.
As a veterans service officer at the DeKalb County office, Steven Scoughton spends a lot of time persuading reluctant veterans to stop in and see him.
In order to be eligible for VA benefits, veterans had to have their “boots on the ground” – meaning in Vietnam for at least one day between 1960 and 1975, Scoughton said.
“Because of that, it’s a presumptive condition by the VA that they were exposed to the chemical Agent Orange,” he said. “Because of that exposure, there’s a laundry list of 15 diseases they can contract. It doesn’t mean they will. Knock on wood, a lot of them haven’t got anything.”
But many veterans with health problems may not understand that there could be a connection with Agent Orange, and that they’re entitled to benefits if there is one, Scoughton said.
Others simply don’t want the extra help.
“A lot of them say they’re afraid they’re taking it away from someone else,” Scoughton said. “It’s a benefit. They’re not taking it away from someone else. It’s owed to you.”
Stojan is cancer-free after treatments of radiation and chemotherapy earlier this fall. He goes in for a checkup every two months, and for now, is trying to build his energy back up. He still gets winded after an hour of building his granddaughter’s toy chest, but hopes to be back to work by December.
He said the seven weeks of treatment were the hardest seven weeks of his life. He couldn’t eat or sleep, and after five weeks at the hospital, he couldn’t handle being away from home.
The last two weeks he commuted from Sycamore to the VA hospital in Milwaukee every day. Being home each night made a world of difference.
“I didn’t realize how miserable I was getting ‘til I got home,” he said.
Thoughts of home got him through a war in the jungles of Vietnam, and home again is getting him through a battle with lung cancer 40 years later.
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