To: Veteran Issues by Colonel Dan <VeteranIssues@yahoogroups.com> Subject: [VeteranIssues] FW: A soldier's 39-year battle, Ft McClellanDate: Feb 28, 2011 9:14 AM
ALBANY -- Disabled Army veteran Susan Frasier rides an overnight Greyhound bus alone each month to Washington, D.C., to walk the halls of Congress in search of elected officials who will support her where the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and federal courts have not.
Frasier, 60, blames her five months of Army training at Fort McClellan, Ala., in 1970 for decades of crippling health problems. She says toxic chemicals at the base poisoned her, causing her to suffer from fibromyalgia, autoimmune disorders and asthma. She underwent a hysterectomy at age 37, and surgery to remove a life-threatening stomach blockage in 1991, when she was forced to retire from General Electric Co.
Despite her health problems and living on a fixed income, the Albany woman has for eight years traveled to the nation's capital to press lawmakers to examine the health records of Fort McClellan veterans. She also wants state leaders to investigate past corruption of disability claims in the VA's New York office, which has rejected her applications for monthly disability payments stemming from her military service.
Driven by a belief that the VA has abandoned her and others who served, the ex-soldier has turned into a "protester" for veterans rights. Frasier counsels others who served at Fort McClellan, some of whom have also experienced health problems that are similar to those caused by Agent Orange exposure and Gulf War Syndrome.
"My life has been ruined, destroyed," Frasier said.
The Corinth native joined the Army as a healthy, fiddle-playing teenager in 1970. She wanted to serve at a time when women were integrating into new military roles. Like most female recruits and military police near the height of the Vietnam War, the Army assigned her to train at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala. "There was very aggressive recruitment for women to join the military in those days," Frasier recalled. "They promised us a lot."
Principal training center
Established in 1917, Fort McClellan was the home of the Women's Army Corps, Military Police School and the Chemical Corps. As one of the military's principal chemical and biological training centers, some of its troops were subjected to live chemical agents in training, reports say.
The base maintained an annual average population of 10,000 troops, but the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to shut down Fort McClellan, and it closed in 1999.
At Fort McClellan, the Army assigned Frasier to its 14th Army WAC Band. The young private played percussion in a marching band and 12-string guitar in its dance band, which performed at officer clubs. Frasier remembers smokestacks emitting dark smoke and a fog-like haze, but no strange smells or tastes. She was there from July through November of 1970.
What Frasier and tens of thousands of vets who passed through the base didn't know -- and many still don't -- was that the Army's experiments with chemical munitions on the base turned Fort McClellan into a hazardous waste site, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But that's not all.
Anniston, a city about the size of Saratoga Springs, grew into the most contaminated place in the nation, according to scientists. Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, soldiers on the 42,286-acre base drilled just miles from an enormous chemical manufacturing plant owned by Monsanto Corp., which produced and discharged tons of polychlorinated byphenyls -- PCBs -- into the air, soil and water for several decades until 1971, according to the EPA. Located just east from the camp is the Anniston Army Depot, which incinerated nerve gas and contaminated area soil and ground water with cyanide, lead, pesticides and more through the late-1970s, the EPA says.
Disabled U.S. Army veteran Susan Frasier rides an overnight Greyhound bus each month alone from Albany to Washington, D.C., to walk the halls of Congress.
Question
allan
To: Veteran Issues by Colonel Dan <VeteranIssues@yahoogroups.com> Subject: [VeteranIssues] FW: A soldier's 39-year battle, Ft McClellanDate: Feb 28, 2011 9:14 AM
Partial Reprint
http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/A-soldier-s-39-year-battle-1032634.php
ALBANY -- Disabled Army veteran Susan Frasier rides an overnight Greyhound bus alone each month to Washington, D.C., to walk the halls of Congress in search of elected officials who will support her where the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and federal courts have not.
Frasier, 60, blames her five months of Army training at Fort McClellan, Ala., in 1970 for decades of crippling health problems. She says toxic chemicals at the base poisoned her, causing her to suffer from fibromyalgia, autoimmune disorders and asthma. She underwent a hysterectomy at age 37, and surgery to remove a life-threatening stomach blockage in 1991, when she was forced to retire from General Electric Co.
Despite her health problems and living on a fixed income, the Albany woman has for eight years traveled to the nation's capital to press lawmakers to examine the health records of Fort McClellan veterans. She also wants state leaders to investigate past corruption of disability claims in the VA's New York office, which has rejected her applications for monthly disability payments stemming from her military service.
Driven by a belief that the VA has abandoned her and others who served, the ex-soldier has turned into a "protester" for veterans rights. Frasier counsels others who served at Fort McClellan, some of whom have also experienced health problems that are similar to those caused by Agent Orange exposure and Gulf War Syndrome.
"My life has been ruined, destroyed," Frasier said.
The Corinth native joined the Army as a healthy, fiddle-playing teenager in 1970. She wanted to serve at a time when women were integrating into new military roles. Like most female recruits and military police near the height of the Vietnam War, the Army assigned her to train at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Ala. "There was very aggressive recruitment for women to join the military in those days," Frasier recalled. "They promised us a lot."
Principal training center
Established in 1917, Fort McClellan was the home of the Women's Army Corps, Military Police School and the Chemical Corps. As one of the military's principal chemical and biological training centers, some of its troops were subjected to live chemical agents in training, reports say.
The base maintained an annual average population of 10,000 troops, but the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted to shut down Fort McClellan, and it closed in 1999.
At Fort McClellan, the Army assigned Frasier to its 14th Army WAC Band. The young private played percussion in a marching band and 12-string guitar in its dance band, which performed at officer clubs. Frasier remembers smokestacks emitting dark smoke and a fog-like haze, but no strange smells or tastes. She was there from July through November of 1970.
What Frasier and tens of thousands of vets who passed through the base didn't know -- and many still don't -- was that the Army's experiments with chemical munitions on the base turned Fort McClellan into a hazardous waste site, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But that's not all.
Anniston, a city about the size of Saratoga Springs, grew into the most contaminated place in the nation, according to scientists. Located in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, soldiers on the 42,286-acre base drilled just miles from an enormous chemical manufacturing plant owned by Monsanto Corp., which produced and discharged tons of polychlorinated byphenyls -- PCBs -- into the air, soil and water for several decades until 1971, according to the EPA. Located just east from the camp is the Anniston Army Depot, which incinerated nerve gas and contaminated area soil and ground water with cyanide, lead, pesticides and more through the late-1970s, the EPA says.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-soldier-s-39-year-battle-1032634.php#ixzz1FGijlbrc
From: Robert P Walsh [
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 6:40 AM
To: ALLISON
Subject: A soldier's 39-year battle
From: Chuck Palazzo [
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2011 10:39 PM
To: Chuck Palazzo
Subject: A soldier's 39-year battle
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/A-soldier-s-39-year-battle-1032634.php
Disabled U.S. Army veteran Susan Frasier rides an overnight Greyhound bus each month alone from Albany to Washington, D.C., to walk the halls of Congress.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/A-soldier-s-39-year-battle-1032634.php#ixzz1FDlYLQ3T
"Keep on, Keepin' on"
Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL "Colonel Dan"
See my web site at:
http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/
http://www.facebook.com/dan.cedusky
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