DOVE<\/a>, a nonprofit that works to secure living kidney donations for veterans, is leading the charge to get Dana a transplant. Living-donor kidneys last longer. The average wait-time for deceased-donor kidneys is five to eight years.<\/p>\nDana\u2019s first application for disability benefits was denied, but his second quickly resulted in a 100% disability classification. Dana, 60, and Donna, 57, said the Veterans Administration has made sure he gets any treatment he needs.<\/p>\n
This wasn\u2019t always the standard. In 2022, I reported the story of Dalton native Scott Laird, a major in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and Bronze Star recipient who died of colon cancer in 2021. He was 40 and left behind a wife and two young sons. A VA oncologist connected Scott\u2019s cancer to toxic exposure from burn pits, but the government denied his claim that his illness was service-related.<\/p>\n
A year after Scott\u2019s death, the Honoring our PACT Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden, who believed his son Beau\u2019s fatal brain cancer was connected to toxic exposure from burn pits.<\/p>\n
\u201cBurn pits\u201d is an absurdly understated description. In March 2004, Times-Tribune Photo Director Mike Mullen and I were embedded with the Scranton-based 2nd Battalion, 103rd Armor of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard. We spent 31 days in Kuwait and Iraq telling the stories of local soldiers at war and breathing the same fetid air.<\/p>\n
Some \u201cpits\u201d were the size of football fields, filled with trash, plastic, construction rubble, ruined vehicles and human waste. They were doused in jet fuel and torched, fouling the air for miles around. \u201cBurn pits\u201d were also used in Afghanistan, but until I met Dana I had no idea they were standard in the Gulf War, too.<\/p>\n
How Dana met Donna is a love story worthy of a Hollywood \u201crom-com.\u201d They connected on aol.com in the days of dial-up internet. Dana was living in Washington state. Donna was teaching at the dePaul School in her native Scranton. He was intrigued by her screenname: \u201cSheReadsalot.\u201d Their correspondence graduated from emails to phone calls and Dana eventually invited Donna to visit him in Seattle.<\/p>\n
Donna had reservations about flying 2,300 miles to visit a guy she met on the internet, but when she saw a delivery truck with \u201cWashington\u201d on the side, she decided to go.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my sign,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Dana was a goner from the get-go.<\/p>\n
\u201cI met her and I said, \u2018That\u2019s it. I\u2019m moving to Scranton,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you were actually \u2018Sleepless in Seattle?\u2019\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d Dana replied with a broad grin.<\/p>\n
Dana took a job at Lockheed Martin and they made a home in Scranton with Chessie, a Lab mix, and Benny, a pugnacious pug. It\u2019s a good life, punctuated by four-hour dialysis treatments three times a week. Dana is in end-stage kidney failure. Without a transplant their good life together will end sooner.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s every day,\u201d Donna said. \u201cYou have to schedule everything around dialysis and doctor appointments and being there for him.\u201d She said her employer has been \u201cwonderful\u201d in giving her time and support and family has rallied to make sure she and Dana have the help they need.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really does take a village,\u201d Donna said.<\/p>\n
Dana has a daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren in Washington and other family in California, Kentucky, New Hampshire and Idaho. The pandemic postponed a planned trip to visit far-flung relatives, including some Dana hasn\u2019t seen in more than a decade. A transplant is the ticket to making the trip a reality. More importantly, it\u2019s the key to keeping Dana and Donna\u2019s rom-com rolling.<\/p>\n
Before parting ways on the 250th birthday of the Marine Corps., I asked Dana a question I\u2019ve posed to dozens of veterans whose health was ruined as a result of their service.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you ever regret serving?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
I get the same answer every time.<\/p>\n
To help Dana, visit dovetransplant.org<\/a> or call 551-233-1611 for information.<\/p>\nCHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, salutes all who serve, including their families. Organ donors, too. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Bluesky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday was Veterans Day and across the region and the country ceremonies rightly honored the service and sacrifices…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1590,201,182,139,1559,1560,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-31771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-chris-kelly","9":"tag-lackawanna-county","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-opinion-columnists","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-scranton","16":"tag-scranton-headlines","17":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Disabled](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/STT-L-KELLY-1112-01.jpg\")
Disabled Marine Dana Nelson\u2019s service in the first Gulf War cost him both lungs. Now he needs a kidney transplant. He and his wife, Donna, are seeking a living donor to save Dana\u2019s life. (CHRIS KELLY \/ STAFF PHOTO)<\/p>\n