ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996 TAG: 9601030089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: NEW RIVER
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE PHONES are called "sip and puff," and they let some paralyzed veterans take a call from The General last month.
Retired Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf wanted to know how the weather was in Richmond.
Paralyzed World War II veteran Arlin H. Gardner, speaking by telephone from the McGuire Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Richmond to Schwartzkopf in Tampa, Fla., told him it was a nice day.
The conversation may have been routine, but Gardner's telephone was high-tech.
Gardner and veterans in VA hospitals in Richmond; Bedford, Mass.; Chicago; and White City, Ore., spoke in a conference call in December with Schwartzkopf using ``sip-and-puff'' phones. Totally paralyzed people can use the phones by blowing or sucking on tubes.
The Communications Workers of America are donating the phones to VA hospitals around the nation through a program started by Frank Dosio, a Vietnam veteran and telephone lineman for NYNEX Corp. in New York.
The conference call Dec. 19 with Schwartzkopf marked the latest installation of the phones around the country. CWA Local 2201 in Richmond, working with some other organizations, raised about $40,000 to install 63 of them in McGuire's spinal cord injury unit. The phones cost $230 each, plus $150 each for mounting brackets.
Schwartzkopf chatted briefly with each veteran, making small talk about bass fishing, about the Tampa football team and about the weather.
``Arlin, how's the weather in Richmond?'' he asked. Gardner replied that it was a sunny day. ``Any snow up there?'' Schwartzkopf asked, adding, ``My son goes to school in Richmond, and I tell you what, he's happy to be down here in Florida where it's nice and hot.''
His son, Christian Norman Schwartzkopf, is a freshman at the University of Richmond, where Schwartzkopf has been a member of the board of trustees since 1993.
LENGTH: Short : 45 linesby CNB