Dave Lindorff: Agent Orange in Vietnam, Ignoring the Crimes Before Our Eyes

[Demeter]

http://blog.buzzflash.com/lindorff/281

On October 13, The New York Times ran a news story headlined "Door Opens to Health Claims Tied to Agent Orange," which was sure to be good news to many American veterans of the Indochina War. It reported that 38 years after the Pentagon ceased spreading the deadly dioxin-laced herbicide/defoliant over much of South Vietnam, it was acknowledging what veterans have long claimed: in addition to 13 ailments already traced to exposure to the chemical, it was also responsible for three more dread diseases -- Parkinson's, ischemic hedart disease, and hairy-cell leukemia.

Under a new policy adopted by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, the VA will now start providing free care to any of the 2.1 million Vietnam-era veterans who can show that they might have been hurt by exposure to Agent Orange.

This is another belated step forward in the decades-long struggle by Vietnam War veterans to get the Defense Department and the VA to acknowledge the American government's responsibility for poisoning them and causing permanent damage to them and often to their children and grandchildren. Dioxin, one of the most poisonous substances known to man, is known to cause many serious systemic diseases, auto-immune illnesses, cancers, and birth defects. (It is also a warning about the general Pentagon and government approach to other hazards caused by its battlefield use of toxins -- most significantly the increasingly common use of depleted uranium projectiles in bombs, shells, and bullets -- an approach that features lack of concern about health effects on troops and civilians, denial of information to troops, and denial of care to eventual victims.)

Missing from the Times article (written by military affairs reporter James Dao that did include mention of the obstructionist role the government has played through this whole sorry saga) was a single mention of the far larger number of victims of Agent Orange in Vietnam -- the people on whose heads and lands the toxic chemical was actually dropped, or of the adamant refusal by the U.S. government to accept any responsibility for what it did to them....

[winyanstaz]

1. This is too late for soldiers like my husband...

He already suffered for over nine years with lung problems which he believed were due to agent orange..and he is dead now.
He was afraid to claim it was agent orange as he thought they would take away his pension if he did...but he said he knew it was. They sprayed his squad many times..knowing damned well they were in the area.
So are a lot of the troops that were sprayed. They are dead and it is a horrible way to go too.
This is how we re payed the men and women that tried to serve this great nation and their families. Just like we are also doing with the gulf war syndrome (which should be called the government experimented on our soldiers syndrome)

[road2000]

3. Condolences, winyanstaz.

I applied for Agent Orange benefits for my 9-year-old son in 1993, after his father died of a brain tumor caused by the chemical. The VA rep told me the burden was on the family to prove where the troop (in this case, a low-ranking sailor on swift boats) was located in Vietnam at certain times. Of course the family could not do that. I filed the necessary paperwork, and the VA never even bothered to respond -- even to refuse the "benefit" -- which was an eyep-popping lump sum of $1,500.

Years later, I read that the VA had loosened up, and that any serviceperson who was diagnosed with one of several qualifying conditions, and who had been in Vietnam (anywhere, any time), would be eligible for benefits. I still don't know if that is true, but both generations of soldiers and their families have suffered immeasurably.

[winyanstaz]

4. Thank you for your kindness. I loved him very much.

I am also sorry you lost your husband and your son had to go through this.
I have never heard of the military admitting anything at all about agent orange. Thanks for the info although it is too late for my husband..perhaps someone else will read this and be able to get some help.
Take care.

[niyad]

5. my deepest sympathies for your loss--spent many, many years dealing with VA on this issue.

did you ever read "Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange" (Paperback)
by Fred A. Wilcox (Author)

basically, he said, as pretty much all of us knew, that the Pentagon, the VA, etc., were just dragging their heels, waiting for all these guys to die off so they wouldn't have to deal with their claims, and the reality of what our military had done to its own, and the people of Vietnam (that is something that so many forget, not only are our people dying from this poison, so are so many in vietnam)

[era veteran]

2. The VA will be glad when 'problem' goes away

When everybody is dead. One thing about agent orange is that it smells evil. The prehistoric part of the brain knows this stuff is bad. The smell and taste runs together. Smell it once and you'll never forget. They were just spraying it on the jungle where peasants; Vietnamese and Americans were. Poor people don't count.

[Demeter]

6. There Are Times and Events That Make Me Hate This Country

and this, and the nuclear testing, and toxic dumps are just a few of them.