VETERAN'S MOM FIGHTS FOR COLD WAR MEDAL -- SAYS GOVERNMENT

MUST RECOGNIZE THOSE WHO SERVED IN COLD WAR

Here's a story of one mother's fight to make sure her son is remembered.

Story here... http://www.townonline.com/abington/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=404011&format=&page=1

Quote of note:  Joanne Wheeler gets up every morning with a mission: to ensure that her son is finally recognized as the war hero she knows he was. And despite bureaucratic lip service to the contrary, she won’t rest until the fight is over.

James Wheeler loved his country. He served in the U.S. Navy for four years, helping fight one of the longest-lasting wars this country had ever fought. Although he passed away from a service-related illness, the United States government does not recognize him or thousands of veterans like James as being wartime casualties because they are veterans of a different kind of war: the Cold War. James was living in Abington at the time of his death.

His mother is continuing the battle for her son and scores of Cold War veterans who seek the passage of House Section 565, which would authorize the Secretaries of the Military Departments to award a Cold War Victory Medal to eligible persons who performed active or inactive duty training during the Cold War from 1945 to 1991.

Another quote of note:   Wheeler said it took her eight years through the Veterans’ Administration to get to the appeals court, since survivors’ benefits were not granted to Cold War veterans with the same availability as other war veterans.

"After eight years the request was remanded, which means they can’t deny it but said they needed to look into it further before making a decision," Wheeler said. "It was remanded a total of four times."

"When I got into office about five years ago, Joanne came in and told me how Jimmy had died and her journey to get his death service-connected," said Canton Veterans Agent Tony Andreotti. "Cold War veterans have always had a problem in that if you didn’t serve in a ’war’ you were unable to get benefits such as admission into the VA system and state benefits. Recently the state changed that so the gaps between the wars have been eliminated, but the federal government continues to not honor those veterans. They should, because these men and women showed up and served to maintain the peace; it was during the Cold War that we defeated communism and these laws need to be changed. I don’t think I’ve ever met a mother so dedicated [as Wheeler]. I admire her."

Larry Scott

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