[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 25201-25202]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   HELPING A VETERAN FAMILY WITH AIDS

  Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. President, I had the great pleasure of sitting in 
the Presiding Officer's chair yesterday when one of our colleagues said 
goodbye, the distinguished minority leader. It was a very stirring and 
moving speech about what this institution is all about.
  I sat in the Senate when the senior Senator from Oklahoma said 
goodbye after 20-something years in this institution. I was in the 
chair when the candidate for the Vice President of the United States 
said goodbye after serving one term in this institution.
  It is pretty humbling, to understand how incredible it is to be part 
of this body and all the things that one can do.
  I am standing right now to say thank you to a Member who is still 
serving, who I hope will serve for a long time, the Senator from 
Missouri, Mr. Bond. Sometimes we wait until folks leave until we 
express our deep appreciation for all they do and all they have 
accomplished. For me, I feel moved to do this for a little act of 
kindness, of help he gave some constituents of mine.
  In the Omnibus bill we will vote on, hopefully, sometime this 
afternoon, there is $388 billion laid out to be spent in that bill. The 
very last item of the 133 pages of the section that appropriates funds 
for the Veterans Administration and HUD, had to do with two individuals 
from Minnesota, Brian and Eric Simon, to receive $200,000, to be split 
between them. That constitutes 1/20,000th of 1 percent of the 
allocations in that bill, but to those young men it is so important. 
Let me tell a little story about why it is important and who these 
young men are.
  In 1983, Douglas Simon, the father of Brian and Eric Simon, served in 
the Army National Guard at Fort Benning, GA. He was injured. He 
required emergency medical surgery. Mr. Simon's surgery was performed 
at Fort Benning, GA. As part of the surgery, a blood transfusion of 
nine units was required. The blood he received was not screened and 
contained the AIDS/HIV virus.
  In 1984, Mr. Simon married Nancy and they had three children 
together, Brian, Eric, and Candace. Before the virus took their lives, 
and ultimately the lives of Candace, the daughter, and the mom Nancy, 
the Simons were a smalltown American family: hopeful, conventional, 
meat and potatoes, church every Sunday, Roman Catholic family with a 
Virgin Mary statute in the front yard. Old Glory hung on the flagpole 
every clement day.
  I am reading from and reflecting on an article written in 1994 about 
the Simons.
  Doug and Nancy had met in high school. They got married after they 
graduated. He joined the Minnesota Army National Guard out of high 
school. He had an accident and underwent surgery. Nancy was older than 
a year by Doug and grew up close by, a place called New Prague, MN, 1 
of 11 children. She was quiet, timid.
  When she and Doug first got married, they dreamed of having lots of 
kids. The oldest son is Brian. He was 10 in 1994 and he is 19 now. I 
got to know him. He was born before Doug and Nancy were infected. Eric 
escaped the virus, although he was born after Nancy had been infected.
  They were just regular kids, lived a regular life, with a mom and a 
dad. They had a young sister, Candy. Candy was diagnosed with AIDS when 
she was 18 months old, in 1989. The doctors had treated her for a 
number of conditions. She had persistent diarrhea. She failed to 
thrive. She had countless CAT scans and blood tests. She learned how to 
push the plunger of a syringe as the

[[Page 25202]]

myriad of medications increased. She went through a lot. She was, as 
her brothers tell me, a mischievous little girl, hamming it up, wearing 
Elton John-like oversized sunglasses, or a poster-child angel, always a 
mommy's girl.
  Three months before preschool started, she complained about stomach 
pains. You know why it hurts? Because I have a bad tummy.
  For her doctors, it was a little more puzzling than that, and x rays 
revealed spots on her colon the size of chicken pox. She suffered 
greatly. She suffered greatly. I almost tear up as I reflect on what 
this young girl went through. She died on June 25, wrapped in her mom's 
arms. She was a couple days shy of her sixth birthday. The mother also 
contracted AIDS and went through great pain and great suffering. Mom 
ultimately died of AIDS.
  I got to know the family. My predecessor, Senator Wellstone, worked 
in trying to do something for them.
  The VA provides health care to some 2,800 veterans who have 
contracted AIDS in the manner that Mr. Simon contracted AIDS. They 
provide disability compensation to veterans with AIDS and death and 
education benefits to the families of veterans who have succumbed to 
AIDS. In this respect, the VA treats AIDS like other service-connected 
health conditions.
  But in an important way, AIDS is different. It is not like other 
connected services; it can be transmitted to the spouses and unborn 
children of servicemen. That is what happened here with Doug Simon. By 
law, the VA cannot provide any sort of benefits for illnesses 
contracted by these family members.
  Last year, I introduced S. 1509, the Eric and Brian Simon Act. I 
thought it was a starting point to give a fair deal to veterans and 
their families with AIDS to provide a one-time $100,000 benefit to 
veterans who receive AIDS as a result of a blood transfusion from the 
service-related injury. For spouses who contracted AIDS from contact 
with the infected veteran, and offspring of the veteran or spouse 
infected with AIDS at birth, in the event that the veteran or family 
member has already succumbed, compensation would be given to survivors.
  That is what has happened here. Douglas Simon is still alive. He is 
wheelchair-bound, and he suffers from AIDS and AIDS-related conditions, 
but mom and Candy are gone.
  We could not get the bill through. We worked hard. I went to my 
friend and colleague. We actually had a hearing on this, thanks to the 
goodness and magnificence of Senator Specter. It was an opportunity for 
Mr. Simon and the boys to come forward and explain what happened. We 
were not able to move the bill forward, but I met with my friend, 
Senator Bond, champion of the VA/HUD appropriations committees and laid 
out this story, this great tragedy of two young men whose lives have 
been just so excruciatingly painful but not as painful as what their 
little sister suffered, not as painful as what their mom suffered. Why 
I am so moved by this issue is perhaps because I have a sister who died 
from AIDS. I know what this is about, and I know the great pain.
  So my colleague, Senator Bond, said: We have to try to figure out a 
way to help. So in the very last portion of the $388 billion bill, 
there is a provision to provide this $100,000 benefit for these two 
individuals.
  In terms of the scope of this bill, this is a little nothing. But in 
terms of two kids from Minnesota, who have been through so much, whose 
dad served this country and suffered such great pain, this is 
something.
  We work on a lot of things in this body. We deal at times with 
millions and billions of dollars. I have sat with my colleague, Senator 
Talent, to my right, and at different points we talk about millions or 
tens of millions of dollars, and it gets almost abstract. It gets 
almost so impersonal at times. But the ability to help one family, to 
touch that one life, to make a difference in that life, to put a smile 
on their face, to say we are doing our best to correct an injustice, 
something that went wrong, to be able to deliver on that is very 
meaningful. It is very special.
  As I look at what has come out of that Omnibus bill, and with this 
provision, it certainly has made we very proud to serve in this body. 
It has made me appreciative of the kindness and the consideration of my 
senior colleagues, such as Senator Bond, and I must say his staff 
member, Jon Kamarck, who worked on this legislation.
  We often wait until folks say their goodbye, and we hear very moving 
and very stunning reflections on lives of service and what it means to 
be a part of this magnificent institution, the greatest deliberative 
body in the world, the U.S. Senate. I am humbled to be here, I am 
thankful to be here, and I am deeply appreciative of the actions and 
the conscience and the heart and the ability of my colleagues, and in 
this particular case of the chairman of the Appropriations VA-HUD 
subcommittee, the senior Senator from Missouri.
  I just wanted to take this time to say thanks, to say it on the 
Record, to say it very loud and clear, to speak for two young Minnesota 
men who will be getting a little something back. You cannot take away 
and compensate for all the pain and all the suffering, but you can show 
that we care, and in this body we do care. I am honored to be part of 
this body.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allen). The Senator from Ohio.

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