Jeanie Seubert: USO and GBM

My sister Jeanie (Mary Jean) Seubert died of GBM on December 19, 1999, at the age of 57. She had fought a courageous battle against the intruder for approximately 2 1/2 years.

Jeanie worked for the USO for approximately 25 years after getting her bachelor’s degree. During that period, she was assigned as an administrator and coordinator in Dallas, Providence, RI, Utapao, Thailand, Naples, Italy, Okinawa, Germany, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and USO Headquarters in D.C.

While in Utapao, Thailand, Jeanie could have been exposed to AGENT ORANGE. Utapao was a B-52 staging base for bombing Vietnam as well as spreading AGENT ORANGE. During this time, Jeanie visited Cambodia and Vietnam on business and personal trips. While at the USO Headquarters, Jeanie developed and wrote the USO Outreach Program.

Upon leaving the USO, Jeanie received her master’s degree in adult education from St. Thomas University, Miami, Florida, and her PhD at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, in 1995.

Late in 1996, Jeanie started feeling weakness in her extremities and was admitted to the hospital in Glen Burnie, Maryland, in the spring of 1997. She was diagnosed with GBM and in the course of 2 1/2 years had three major brain surgeries in Baltimore, Maryland. Nothing further could be done for her and she succumbed to the brain cancer on the morning of December 19, 1999.

Jean tried numerous programs and procedures at Johns Hopkins but to no avail. GBM is such an insidious cancer that there was little hope for a cure. Jeanie gave her whole body, mind, and spirit toward finding remission or a cure. Her brave journey should have some physical honor to have been bestowed in her memory.

Recently, GBM has been added to those diseases affecting service men and women, that can be compensated for, but since Jeanie was a USO volunteer, there is no recompense.

My family and I hold Jeanie in high esteem and pray for a cure for this dreadful disease so that her struggle was not in vain.

Thank you for allowing me and my family to recount her life and times. Excelsior!

William J. Seubert (brother)

Opinions expressed within this story belong solely to the author and do not reflect the views or opinions of the National Brain Tumor Society.