'Number one issue for veterans is access to care'

Colonel Noel Pace is a University of Miami and U.S. Army War College student

Published: November 11, 2014, 3:30 PM

MIAMI – Five years ago, Hosea D. Smith was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer that he attributed to work he did while serving in the U.S. Army.

Due to lack of evidence, Smith, 54, a former Miami-Dade bus driver, was denied federal disability benefits twice. With chronic lymphocytic leukemia came chemotherapy and a walker. He didn't have it in him to fight, but Col. Noel Pace did.

"We did a lot of research on his potential exposure to carcinogenic materials back during his time," as a type writer washer and print press repairman, Pace said.

Pace is a University of Miami School of Law and U.S. Army War College student, who lives in El Portal, near Miami Shores. Through a UM clinic, he and attorney Ryan Foley helped Smith get future month payments of $960 and $10,000 disability back pay before Fourth of July this year.

"So far an administrative judge has granted him Social Security disability and now we are working with the VA to get him disability benefits," Pace said.

Smith is one of the many cases that Pace has worked on while at UM. And on Veteran's Day last year, the University of Miami honored the efforts of the aspiring healthcare attorney, who works in the U.S. Army Reserve as the Chief of the Army Reserve's liaison officer to the Army Resiliency Directorate at the Pentagon.

UM law professor Mary Coombs said in 2013 that Pace had "integrated all of the pieces of his professional past to create a coherent legal career path."

Pace was commissioned in the U.S. Army in 1993. He is a graduate of Tulane University's Army ROTC program in New Orleans. He has Master's degrees in administration from Baylor University in Texas and the University of Denver.

As an officer, Pace served in Korea, Honduras, Colombia, Chile and Kuwait. In Korea, Pace commanded the 560th medical company. In Colombia, he was part of Operation Willing Spirit.

When he was in Iraq in 2003, he coordinated medical, surgical and air-evacuation support for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division. He also served as the de facto minister of health for the At'Tamin province.

When he came back from Iraq, he received the Bronze Star Medal and Combat Medical Badge. He was tasked with improving the U.S. Army Trauma Training Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The center trains surgical teams before deployment overseas.

Pace has been studying the Affordable Care Act with the help of UM law professors. In his Linkedin account, Pace said that he is interested on "what can be done to improve it in order to help healthcare organizations, providers and patients alike."