Mother fights VA for justice
Joanne Wheeler possesses the virtue of patience. That is a necessary quality in anyone who plans to battle with the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy.
''I happen to be someone who perseveres," she said yesterday. That's an understatement.
Not that she asked for this fight. Her son, James M. Wheeler, joined the US Navy in 1981, becoming a maintenance technician on nuclear submarines. Approximately four years after his discharge in 1985 he was dead, his life claimed by acute lymphocytic leukemia. His family is convinced that his fatal illness was the direct result of radiation he was exposed to in the Navy.
Sixteen years after James's death, Joanne Wheeler is still fighting to get the military to accept responsibility and award benefits to his widow. She has amassed a vast store of evidence. It suggests that exposure to ionizing radiation is the only plausible explanation for her son's cancer, which is highly unusual in adults. Military judges have repeatedly found that her claims have merit, but Veterans Affairs has yet to rule definitively that Wheeler's death was service-related, the key to awarding benefits.
''All cases that go to the VA are slow and tedious," observed US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, who has taken up Wheeler's cause. ''I have to credit the family for their perseverance here," he said. ''It's been a long struggle, and there's been denials, and one would think they might give up at some point. But they have not, and I admire that."
James Wheeler joined the Navy at 19 as a welder. He was assigned to the New London Submarine Base in Groton, Conn. His job there was to repair and perform maintenance on nuclear submarines. Because he was not a nuclear technician, he did not wear a dosimeter, the device used to detect exposure to radiation.
After 15 months in Groton, Wheeler was transferred to the USS Barbey, a California-based frigate. While stationed in California, he began to suffer from knee injuries related to his physically demanding duty. In August 1985, he was discharged because of his knee problems. At 23, he returned home to Massachusetts. He enrolled in Massasoit Community College. He wanted to become a structural engineer.
It didn't work out that way. Wheeler suffered a crushed right foot and broken bones in a motorcycle accident, injuries that despite his youth and relative good health refused to heal. Soon his wounds developed infections. He eventually began to suffer numbness in his chin and lower lip. Doctors couldn't find the cause.
Finally, after a harrowing trip to the emergency room at Brockton Hospital, he was diagnosed with leukemia and was told he had five years to live, at most. Fifteen months later he died.
Three weeks before Wheeler passed away, his mother met a military veteran in a leukemia support group. The man, a former Green Beret, said that most of his unit had died. They had been exposed to Agent Orange. It started Joanne Wheeler wondering if her son had been exposed to something hazardous. She says she asked her son the next day if he had been exposed to radiation, and he said yes.
''They weren't supposed to talk about it, so he never had," she said.
James Wheeler was survived by a wife and a young son. His son died in a motorcycle accident when he was 19. Wheeler's widow lives in Brockton and has tried to move on with her life. Wheeler says she and her daughter-in-law seldom communicate, except when there is a development in the case.
Earlier this month, a military judge remanded the Wheeler case to the VA with an order that resolution should be expedited. That would be a first in this slow-moving case of justice both delayed and denied. The VA did not return calls seeking comment.
Joanne Wheeler insists she will not go away, though she sometimes gets the impression that is what the government would like.
''Every time it comes up, I go through all the heartache again," she said. ''It's like I can't put him to rest yet."
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
