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Old 02-27-2004, 06:21 AM
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MORTARDUDE MORTARDUDE is offline
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Default Canada offers WW2 mustard gas guinea pigs $24K

http://www.canada.com/saskatoon/stor...4-632547B5D7B0


Chemical test scars linger
Feds offer payout to soldiers

Dan Kinvig
The StarPhoenix


Veteran Len Link, displaying his original uniform, was an unwitting participant in mustard gas experiments


Jack Coleman's voice is raspy. He coughs into the phone.

"I'm sorry my voice is like this. It does this once in a while," the 82-year-old veteran apologizes.

Coleman was exposed to poisonous gases in 1942, one of 3,500 Canadian veterans who were unwitting guinea pigs in their own government's chemical weapons experiments during the Second World War.

Sixty-two years later, he inhales emphysema medication whenever he has trouble breathing, which can be up to five times daily.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Paul Martin announced a $50-million compensation package for those subjected to the secret tests. Each veteran would receive $24,000.

That's not enough, say veterans who have filed a class-action suit in the B.C. Supreme Court. Their lawyer, Rodney Pacholzuk, has said they would settle for $50,000 each.

Coleman chose not to be involved in the suit. He said he's satisfied with the offer and plans to accept it.

"It's sure a lot better than nothing," he said in a phone interview from his home in Melfort.

"Mind you, a lot of those boys, they need more than that," he added. "They were burned so bad that they likely never did work or raise a family or anything after."

Coleman spent more than a week at the military testing site at CFB Suffield, Alta., in 1942.

He recalled a plane releasing a poisonous substance on himself and other soldiers lined up in a field.

"It was like spraying a crop for weeds or insects," Coleman said.

Surprisingly, he isn't angry at the government, despite his ongoing pain.

"No, for the simple reason (that the Department of) Veterans Affairs have been fair to me as far as giving me medication and whatever I need," Coleman said.

Len Link of Saskatoon also spent time at Suffield in 1942.

"I feel as if (the government) let us down," he said. "They should have at least let us know what we were up to when we were doing it."

In one instance, officers used an eyedropper to dot his arm with mustard gas.

"They kept asking us, 'Does it burn, does it burn, does it burn?' " he remembered.

"If you get splashed with battery acid . . . that's just what it felt like."

A sore on Link's right arm still flares up every few months because he didn't wipe away one of the droplets quickly enough.

Twice since 1942, his left leg has gone numb and his toenails have fallen off, stumping doctors.

"I guess it must be after-effects of the gas, too," he said.

Link is part of the class action suit and will wait for that process to be completed.

But he'd be willing to settle for $24,000.

"I'd settle for it, because, you know, I'm 83 years old . . . You can't expect to last too much longer," he said.

"I'm happy with it. To be recognized is the main thing."

A patriotic man whose family has a long military history, Link holds little bitterness against the Canadian government or the military for his injuries.

"I'd do it again if I was asked to do it," he said. "But I'd know what I was going through now."

? Copyright 2004 The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
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