Adjuvant Stage 2-3A Breast Cancer With Positive Lymph Nodes

RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy use different ways to stop tumor cells from dividing so they stop growing or die. Colony-stimulating factors such as filgrastim may increase the number of immune cells found in bone marrow or peripheral blood and may help a person's immune system recover from the side effects of chemotherapy. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to damage tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase II trial is studying how well giving combination chemotherapy together with filgrastim and radiation therapy works in treating patients with stage II or stage IIIA breast cancer.