I went to a public meeting where the Army announced that we had weapons of mass destruction in our community, and that their proposal was to burn them in the middle of our community. They said that anyone who had any questions should raise their hand. And I've still got my hand up.

There was a lot of interest in our community about this proposal, and subsequently there were a number of scoping meetings -- public meetings required by the National Environmental Policy Act -- and it became apparent to us that the Army was just going through the motions, and weren't really interested in what anyone had to say. And there were literally thousands of people who showed up to these meetings in Kentucky, which is unusual because it's a fairly conservative state -- it's relatively patriotic and so on.

Well, frankly, it wasn't a new concept to me. I had a rather jaded military career -- I was never demoted or court-martialed or anything, but I've never shied away from confronting authority if I thought something was wrong. I don't automatically grant that someone has the right answers just because they're in charge of something. So it didn't bother me at all that they were the Army. I just knew that the principle of what they were proposing was dangerous for my family and for my community, and that basic guiding principle has motivated me all these years.

It's been the focus on solutions, rather than just opposition. If you go into a situation and take out the light bulb, you're much more effective if you replace it with another one, rather than leaving everyone in the dark screaming at each other. I'm not a scientist or a chemist or an engineer, but we recruited people with expertise and worked with them to generate viable solutions to what was being proposed. Over the course of time, we convinced people in power -- in the legislative process, and in the military itself -- that these were safer solutions.

Well, my wife's still with me after 20-some years of this, so that's pretty significant. Clearly, we're proud to have turned around Pentagon decisions. I mean, we have four people who work on this full-time -- four people who are paid -- and the Pentagon has a few more than that. We have a budget of under $200,000 a year, while their program for this project is now pegged at around $40 billion.

I think we'd be in the shape of communities where these incinerators are operating. Even though the Army likes to pretend that everything's rosy, the bottom line is that these facilities emit toxic materials into the environment on a chronic basis, even when they're operated as designed. Often there are small quantities -- or more -- of actual chemical warfare agent that come out of the smokestacks of these facilities and drift into these communities. Low-level, chronic exposure to these things is known to create neurological problems, and the other emissions -- of which there is quite a lengthy list -- include some of the most hazardous stuff known. In our community we're using a controlled, low-temperature approach, which allows you to control the waste stream that includes these very lethal materials. So we're clearly in a safer and more protected position.

Well, there's nothing wrong with being validated. Honestly, what it means to me, more than anything else, is that it raises our visibility on this issue, and provides an even greater level of credibility for us.