THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 10, 1996 TAG: 9602100253
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
As one of the 1,049 military people infected with the AIDS virus, Tim Nichols had a special interest in Friday's announcement that the Clinton administration will back a court challenge to a new law requiring the discharge of troops who test HIV-positive.
``Why did I get out so quick?'' Nichols, of Virginia Beach, was asking himself Friday night.
The 33-year-old former Navy fire controlman retired from active duty Dec. 20, giving up a 14-year career because he was concerned he might be booted from the service and denied his medical and other benefits if he waited for the new law to take effect.
As a father of kids aged 12 and 10, he ``couldn't take the chance'' that he or his dependents would be without health insurance coverage, Nichols said. He also worried that his children might be unable to get Veterans Administration loans and other benefits that will let them go to college.
``That's one of the reasons I joined the military,'' he said.
Other service members infected with the virus voiced similar worries.
Chief Petty Officer Rodney Miller, a Navy yeoman, and Mike Powell, a former sailor who now works as an electrician at Norshipco, said they're worried that the new law could cost them their house in Chesapeake.
If Miller is discharged and can't pay half their mortgage, the men will have to sell, they said. Rep. Robert Dornan, the California Republican who pushed Congress to boot AIDS-infected troops from the military, and lawmakers who supported his proposal ``are not only hurting these guys who are in the military . . . they're striking the civilian sector,'' Powell said.
``We have husbands, wives, kids. They're affecting all of us,'' he added.
Miller dismissed as ``totally bogus'' Dornan's assertion that HIV-infected sailors and soldiers are a drag on the military. He's been promoted twice since he tested positive, he noted.
Miller and Powell said they moved into their home near Greenbrier Mall four years ago, two years after Miller learned he's infected with HIV. He recently told his co-workers on the staff of a vice admiral at the Norfolk Naval Base of his condition, he said, and all have been supportive.
Miller, at 31 a veteran of 11 years in the Navy, said he expects to be listed among the plaintiffs on a suit challenging the law to be filed soon by AIDS Action, an advocacy group for people infected with HIV.
He ``would go into a big panic'' if he had to leave the service, Miller said. He's been checking out civilian jobs that are roughly equivalent to the secretarial work he does as a yeoman; he's found they pay much less than he makes now, Miller said.
Nichols said he would go back to the Navy ``in a New York minute'' if courts find the mandatory discharge law unconstitutional.
Military life ``had its good days and its bad days,'' he said, ``but I could see the good of what I was doing.'' And were he still in uniform, ``I would have been the first one on the steps of the federal court building in Norfolk or Richmond'' to file suit challenging the law, Nichols added.
Nichols tested positive for the AIDS virus in 1991. He has remained healthy, however, and ``with the drugs that are coming down the pipeline, I've got a full life ahead of me,'' he said.
It's a life he'd like to spend as a productive citizen. The product of what he describes as a working-class home, Nichols said he remembers how his parents cut corners during hard times and made a point of staying off public assistance.
``I don't like the fact that I'm drawing a retirement (check),'' he said. ``I know how hard men and women in the United States work for their money. . .
KEYWORDS: AIDS U.S. NAVY by CNB