By Phil Luciano

The federal government finally heard Gary Combs' desperate cry for help. It's ridiculous that Combs had to raise a ruckus with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. And it's crazy that he had to ask a newspaper for help in getting the disability benefits he so obviously deserved.

Then again, when you're dying of lung cancer, your breathing gets hard and your voice grows weak. It's even worse when the country you served won't to listen to you.

But that changed last week, after a column here about Combs' plight. The VA suddenly decided to give Combs what he had coming.

"I just couldn't believe it, eight hours after the column came out," says his wife, Melinda Combs.

Gary Combs, 59, was drafted by the Army in 1968 and sent to Vietnam. After his tour, he re-enlisted. During his time there, he was repeatedly exposed to Agent Orange, the U.S.-sprayed defoliant later found to be highly toxic to humans.

He returned to Illinois in 1971 and worked several occupations, the last being construction. Fifteen years ago, he married Melinda, and they live with two teenage daughters in the Mason County town of Easton, about 35 miles southwest of Peoria.

In late 2005, his back started to hurt badly enough to stop him from working. Last April, after days of coughing, he went to a hospital for X-rays. The tests showed lung cancer, plus tumors in his back. The next month he applied for disability benefits from the VA. He qualified automatically on two grounds: All Vietnam vets are considered to have been exposed to Agent Orange if they spent even one day there, and lung cancer is one of 13 diseases that the VA considers connected to Agent Orange.

The only question remaining: how much disability? That seemed easy enough to see, just by one visit to Combs' modest home. He spends all of his time lying down, with oxygen tanks barely keeping him alive.

Still, the case languished -- in part because the VA lost his paperwork, and Combs had to resubmit documents. His family worried that Combs would die before the VA would make its decision. Though his wife would be eligible to claim posthumous benefits, proving that case would be hard if Combs were dead and buried.

A disability of 100 percent pays $2,610 a month. Without it, Melinda Combs -- whose manufacturing jobs grosses less than $500 a week -- feared she would lose her house.

But after the column ran, she got a call from the office of U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Rock Island. Though Combs lives in another congressional district, months ago he had contacted Hare's predecessor, Lane Evans, who sat on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs -- as Hare now does. Hare spokesman Tim Schlittner told me, "Obviously, we saw your column out here."

Hare's office and the VA discussed the matter that day. The VA decided to give Combs 100-percent disability benefits -- plus $16,829 in retroactive payments dating back to the date he submitted the original paperwork.

"It's a case that's really been bothering Congressman Hare," who served in the Army Reserves, Schlittner says. "Veterans Affairs is important to him. It's personal to him."

Hare's office called Melinda Combs about the decision. Stunned, she held the phone up to her weak, prone husband's ear so he could hear firsthand. "I started crying," she says.