Climbing Above the Culture Clash

The Corporate Supporter:
Peter McCausland (’74)
Chairman and CEO, Airgas Inc.
Supporter of Operation Homefront
www.operationhomefront.net
and Operation Home and Healing
www.operationhomeandhealing.org
As a father whose son was deployed to Iraq
in 2002 during the run-up to Operation
Iraqi Freedom, Peter McCausland knows
that having loved ones in harm’s way “wreaks
havoc on families and individuals.” So when
a poll of more than 14,000 of his Airgas Inc.
employees showed company-wide support for
backing Operation Homefront, a nonprofit
that provides emergency help for military
families and wounded veterans, McCausland
welcomed the call to corporate action.
In 2008, Airgas pledged $300,000 to
Operation Homefront, to be paid over
three years. The company also aimed to hire
100 veterans of the conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan. In addition, Airgas offered a
“Welding 101” course to any veteran of Iraq
and Afghanistan service who was interested
in a career in welding. So far, Airgas has hired
25 veterans and trained about 10 welders,
numbers that McCausland is confident
will rise quickly as the programs become
established. Airgas associates in 830 locations
across the country work with local chapters
of Operation Homefront on service projects
that include planning fundraisers, providing
back-to-school supplies for schoolchildren
with parents on active service, and sending
care packages to servicemen and women.
After McCausland and his wife, Bonnie,
welcomed their son home from Iraq, Bonnie
decided to found Operation Home and
Healing (OHH), to be offered through the
long-established Council For Relationships.
Funded through the McCausland
Foundation, a private family foundation,
OHH aids veterans living in Pennsylvania
and southern New Jersey. It offers counseling
and therapeutic services to veterans of
Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer from the
emotional after-effects of combat, including
post-traumatic stress disorder. OHH also
provides counseling to family members of
service personnel involved in those conflicts.
“My whole family is involved in this. We
all see this as a pressing need that has gone
unaddressed for too long,” said McCausland.
The Accidental
Advocate:
Anna Schleelein (’08)
Staff Attorney at Shelter
Legal Services
Co-founder, Veterans’
Advocacy Network
Phone: 617.338.0572
Anna Schleelein was a first-year law student
when her boyfriend, now fiancé, retired from
the U.S. Marine Corps in 2005 on medical
grounds. His application for health care and
disability allowances from the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) ended in what he
considered an inappropriately low appraisal
of his level of disability.
With Schleelein’s help, he decided to appeal
the decision. “We didn’t know where to
start,” said Schleelein, now a staff attorney
at Newton-based Shelter Legal Services.
But BU Law librarians helped with research
and bought books on veterans’ benefits for
the library, and Schleelein built a case that
resulted in the VA’s reassessing her fiancé’s
disabled status, with a corresponding rise in
benefits.
Their success encouraged Schleelein to see
fellow law students as “a great untapped
resource” for supporting veterans seeking
benefits. With guidance from Maura Kelly,
then director of the Pro Bono Program
at BU Law, and Susan Prosnitz of Suffolk
Law School’s Rappaport Center for Law
and Public Service, the Veterans Advocacy
Network phone line opened in June 2008,
in partnership with the Massachusetts Bar
Association (MBA). Students who are trained
in basic veterans’ benefits law now staff the
MBA’s phone lines on Mondays from 3
to 5 p.m., and refer veterans to sources of
legal assistance, including a network of 50
volunteer attorneys accredited by the VA.
“You really have to realize that this is
something we owe them,” said Schleelein.
What most strikes her about the service’s
clients, she said, is “the tenacity of these
veterans in the face of tremendous adversity.” •
[Ed. Note: See related story on Schleelein on page 28.]
6 | Boston University School of Law | www.bu.edu/law