HAWKINSVILLE, Ga. — A Hawkinsville woman spent Memorial Day searching through old medical records, hoping to get her late husband's death certificate changed.
Bonnie Maiden Walker says her husband Marlin's cancer came from his exposure to Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam. The powerful herbicide isn't listed anywhere on his death certificate. Walker says she applied for VA benefits when Maiden was diagnosed, but the request was denied.
Now, she points to new research that could prove she was correct decades ago.
"I'm a military brat, so I always thought I'd marry into the military. And to me, a Marine was the most outstanding guy you could meet," Walker said, remembering when she met Maiden.
When she met him at a drive-in burger joint, there was a definite sizzle.
"Just fell head over heels. I was surprised he picked me," she said.
On that day in early 1970, he did pick her. The veteran just months out of Vietnam visited Walker often as she cared for her horse.
"Just hang around, like, 'Why is this guy hanging around?' You know?" she said.
Wedding bells came later that year, and the couple had a daughter. They enjoyed more than 20 years together before the cancer.
"Acute myelogenous leukemia. It's AML, and you research AML. It's an adult-only leukemia," she said.
Maiden lost his final battle in 1994. She blames the Agent Orange exposure.
"It would just drop right on all of them. It was sprayed on them. It was on their clothes, on their person, on their skin," Walker said.
In the 1990s, the VA didn't classify AML as an Agent Orange presumptive disease. New studies, like one from Dr. Rory Shallis and Dr. Steven Gore at Yale University, point to the pesticide as a possible culprit.
"When I researched the VA and causes of death from Agent Orange, adult leukemia, which sounds real general and broad, is one of them," Walker said. "Well, that's AML."
So, Walker is planning to send Maiden's medical records to the VA for review, hoping to get it right while there's still time.
"I just want them to say, 'Yes, Agent Orange, being sprayed with this chemical, caused his death,'" Walker said.
Walker says the reason it's so important to do this now is because Maiden doesn't have much family left. She wants his memory preserved in history, and an acknowledgement of the pain she says Agent Orange caused her family.
If you're in a similar situation, Walker suggests working with your local Disabled American Veterans chapter. She says they can help you file the correct paperwork and lay each step out with you.