so, i'm dedicating this story to the life of wayne zellers and all the veterans who have suffered from this disease. if you are a veteran diagnosed with als, you may be eligible for benefits and services from the salem va, even if you've never used the va before. you'll want to contact tammy snyder and we've posted her information on the complete after the break mea rather common view today featured plenty plenty of clouds or menominee consists of flurries use it looks like rain but it was snow and often on today assistance in chile chile chile and it's certainly that way tonight is our 24-hour temperature change is still very robust and will continue tomorrow i temperatures will drop by about ten more degrees for daytime highs were arianna pretty good track right now for very cold evening with numbers in the teens and 20s plaques fur down to twenty one now lexington the twenty six in danville at 29 our first alert doppler radar monitoring some snow showers that are working their way around southwest virginia pretty much that favored pathway into the new river valley and is a drop-down

you may remember wayne zellers of radford. wdbj7 featured him and his brother two years ago in a story about serving in the vietnam war. zellers passed away three months ago shortly after being diagnosed with als. ronald lewis from roanoke served in the army in the eighties, but never deployed overseas. in 2013, lewis died from als within a year and a half of being diagnosed. his wife patrice describes the disease that took her husband. patrice lewis/widow "the lack of the use of your arms, the inability to walk, the inability to speak, to drink, to eat, to move." doctor "g" is a neurologist at the salem va and when diagnosing veterans the emg is one test that will confirm als. nat of emg machine testing one of the first questions patients ask, "how did this happen to me?" dr. gullapalli/neurologist "there is an association with military service with als but still it is not clear what the association is." he says he sees about ten to fifteen new military patients with als every year news is never easy. dr. gullapalli/neurologi