Lingering effects of anthrax, Agent Orange wage war on Valley families’ lives

By Elise Franco

efranco@vindy.com

Memorial Day is a time for families to celebrate those lost to war, but for complete strangers Heather Bowser and Colleen Village, the holiday is a reminder of the effects war has waged on their families.

Bowser, 38, of Canfield, and Village, 35, of Austintown, both have family members who served in past wars. Both women have seen, felt and are living with the consequences of combat.

Village, a mother of three sons, spends most of her days at Northside Medical Center in Youngstown at the bedside of her 41-year-old husband Michael Village, who is diagnosed with Gulf War Syndrome.

Village said her husband served in the Army Reserves, and in 1991, fought for less than one year in Iraq.

She said continual exposure to anthrax during that time eventually took its toll on his body.

“It was just chemical warfare over there,” she said. “He has these chemicals festering in his body, and now they’re attacking.”

Michael Village, once perfectly healthy, was diagnosed in 2001 with Hodgkin’s Disease, his wife said. He’s had two heart attacks, congestive heart and kidney failure and has had seven emergency surgeries since the beginning of May.

Now he’s in an induced come, which family members say he may never come out of.

But Village is not alone.

She said out of 400,000 soldiers who fought in the Gulf War, 100,000 of them are sick or dead, and many of their offspring — though none of her own — have suffered complications.

Bowser is a second-generation victim of Agent Orange exposure.

Agent Orange is the chemical defoliant sprayed heavily in Vietnam by plane, helicopter and hand by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War to deny the enemy cover.

Bowser, who has become an advocate of Agent Orange education and awareness, was born two months premature and missing her right leg below the knee, several fingers and a big toe.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com