Reginald Tyler walked slowly across the living room of his Wilmington home and sat down on the couch.

Still about 30 pounds underweight after having 80 percent of his cancer-ridden stomach removed in 2002 to save his life, Tyler is no longer the energetic soldier he once was.

And yet, the 45-year-old flashed a bright smile and said he feels blessed."The doctors say that about 66 percent of the people who have this operation die within five years," he said. "I feel like I'm getting stronger, though. I feel like I'm going to make it. Every morning when I wake up I thank God for another day."

Tyler spent 10 years on active duty and another 16 as a full-time member of the National Guard. He has been unable to work since his surgery and a lengthy regimen of follow-up treatments. The Army washed its hands of him when it cut him loose from the hospital, and he has been trying for nearly four years to get a disability pension.

For much of that time he fought the military bureaucracy on his own, but he now has two powerful allies -- U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and the Veterans Assistance Program at the Widener University School of Law in Brandywine Hundred.

Biden's staff has been working on Tyler's case, and the senator wrote to the secretary of the Army on his behalf. Tom Reed, a Widener professor and lawyer who specializes in veterans law, has taken his case for free.

"Reggie Tyler should not be in this position," said Reed, a former Marine Corps officer. "Part of the contract we, as a nation, have with enlisted personnel is that if they are injured or become ill while in the military we'll take care of them. In this case, the country isn't doing that and that's outrageous."

Reed has had Tyler's medical records reviewed by a civilian doctor and has now filed an appeal on his behalf. Biden's letter to Army Secretary Francis Harvey prompted Harvey to ask for an internal review of Tyler's case.

'I've been blessed'

Sitting quietly on his couch, Tyler smiled again.

"People have been so good to me and my family," he said, "that I know I've been blessed."

The Army he served for 26 years, however, has not been good to Tyler, a former sergeant. He was diagnosed with cancer as he was preparing to go to Southwest Asia with the Delaware National Guard's 153rd Military Police Company in 2002 and wound up in Walter Reed Army Hospital.

A series of bureaucratic foul-ups by active duty Army personnel resulted in lengthy delays in receiving his paychecks and conflicting orders while he was in the hospital.

His computerized files disappeared four times, prompting even more delays and more conflicting orders. The worst was yet to come, however.

Because his Delaware Guard unit had been activated for overseas duty in the war on terrorism, Tyler fell under the control of the regular Army. After his surgery and follow-up treatments, an Army medical board of three doctors decided he was no longer fit for duty because he could not perform the tasks he'd be assigned.

Tyler then went before another board, this one made up of military officers who are not physicians. That board declared that the Army had fulfilled its obligation to Tyler by performing surgery on him. It accepted the previous board's decision that he could no longer serve in the military because he was permanently disabled, but then said that he was not entitled to a disability pension.

"They said they cured me and then they just cut me loose," Tyler said. "They told me that I should take the money and be happy, and then they told me to just go away."

Few options

Tyler, who cannot work at a civilian job because of his medical condition, appealed that decision. Despite the fact his Army lawyer produced evidence showing that he was entitled to a disability pension, the appeals board rejected his claim. His only two options at that point were to accept a one-year severance payment or wait until he was 65 to receive the full pension he was entitled to based on his 26 years of service.

Tyler and his family, including a son of high school age, were already in debt because of the pay problems he'd experienced while in the hospital. He felt he had no choice but to take the severance payment in 2004, thus forfeiting his rights to the pension he'd earned. The $53,000 severance payment was reduced to $40,000 after the government took its share of taxes. That $40,000 went to pay off debts, Tyler said.

Since then he and his family have been living on about $15,000 a year from Social Security. His wife, Cheryl, recently went to work as a security guard. She could not work before now because she was her husband's primary caregiver.

"They put us in a hole and I don't know if we'll ever climb out of it," she said during a lunch break one afternoon.

Delaware National Guard leaders were able to use a special fund to help the family over some rough spots for a while. But government regulations did not allow them to continue once he was formally separated from the military because he had been on active duty when he was diagnosed with his cancer.

Outpouring of support

That's when members of the community stepped in to help.

Tyler's plight, outlined in a January article in The News Journal, sparked a wave of outrage and support. One Pennsylvania woman, for example, paid the family's rent for a month.

Anonymous donors raised $2,000 to help send his son, a star athlete, to Holland this summer when he was invited to participate in the People to People Sports Ambassador's Program. The program was started by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 as a way to promote increased international understanding.

Appreciation of service

Sue Erni, a Chester County, Pa., wife and mother, spearheaded a drive to collect grocery store gift certificates to help Tyler feed his family. She drove to Wilmington recently to give him $450 in gift certificates that she and five friends had purchased. She left promising to do more for the family.

"I know it's not much, but we just wanted to do something to let Reggie and his family know that people do care about them," Erni said. "We wanted them to know that we appreciate all the years he served protecting us and all the sacrifices they made while he was in the Army."

Tyler said he is hopeful that his case will be resolved favorably -- and soon.

"I don't want much out of life," he said. "I just want to be able to take care of my family. I'm old-fashioned, I guess, but I was raised to think that a man is supposed to take care of his family. In this situation, I can't do that right now and it hurts."

He took a deep breath.

"Life could be better, but I'm not complaining," he said. "I'm alive and that's a blessing."