After several years as a midshipman in NROTC during his college years, my husband was on active duty in the '60s aboard the destroyers USS Bristol and USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Our first child was born at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Newport, R.I. Certainly we had no idea that David would serve an even longer "tour of duty" with ALS. He died in 2002. But I am grateful for the assistance we are getting from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the efforts being made to help veterans past and present who have this debilitating illness.