COURTESY OF COURTNEY LINDE'S FAMILY
Air Force Airman Courtney Linde is shown with her latehusband, John, as she prepares for bone cancer surgery after receiving chemotherapy.
Run to benefit cancer
victim facing discharge
OLINDA, Maui >> Maui teenager Kevin Brown hopes a benefit run today will lift his sister's spirits in her recovery from both bone cancer and her husband's death in a terrorist bombing in Gaza four weeks ago.
Brown, 14, and more than 120 students from Seabury Hall on Maui are scheduled to participate in the 14th Annual Terry Fox Run for Cancer Research on behalf of his sister, Air Force Airman Courtney Linde.
The students, gathering at the Four Seasons Resort in Wailea, will be running this morning with orange T-shirts saying, "Walking and Running for Courtney."
Like Terry Fox, who ran across a large portion of Canada to raise funds for cancer research before dying of cancer in 1981, Linde has bone cancer. The cancer is in remission after chemotherapy treatment and bone surgery to replace a kneecap and femur.
Brown family members said because bone cancer has a 70 percent chance of recurring, they fear the cancer might return, and want the U.S. military to continue to provide medical coverage if Linde is discharged from service.
Linde was about to be discharged in late October, but Air Force Secretary James Roche has postponed the discharge pending a review of her case.
Some Air Force officials, who do not want her to have medical coverage if discharged, contend that Linde had cancer prior to enlistment. But the family said they have letters from two doctors that indicate otherwise.
The family said what makes the situation even more tragic is that Linde's husband, John, a former Marine, had taken a high-risk security position in the Middle East to try to pay for her medical insurance once she was discharged. He was killed Oct. 15 when a terrorist bomb tore apart the van he was riding in as he escorted a diplomat on a peace mission.
Kevin Brown said people needed to understand his sister's predicament.
"It's ridiculous what the Air Force is doing to my sister," he said.
Some students said they wanted to participate in today's event because their relatives have had cancer.
Robbie Thibaut, 17, said he was only 12 when his father died of liver cancer.
"It makes me feel happy to help in any way," Thibaut said.
