This was is 1993 and Ive waited all this time for the reason and cause but to date, I havent gotten any of my results back. Hammond, a self-described Army brat whose father was a senior military officer in the war in Vietnam, founded the group in 2008. Why wont the VA tell me, if agent Orange was sprayed on the fence line ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. I can not get anyone to help me find out why our claim is not being looked at. Bullsht list. In 2002, Laos signed the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, a class of 12 forever chemicals including the dioxin family. Halfway to the village of Lapid, the four-wheel-drive vehicle ground to a halt in the hardened mud. In Vietnam, the magnitude of the problem made it impossible to ignore, Hammond says. Hammond, Chagnon and Sengthong make up the core of the staff of a nongovernmental organization called the War Legacies Project. The goal of Easter Offensive, officially known asThe 1972 Spring Summer Offensive, (also called the Nguyen Hue (Nguyn Hu) offensive) was to win a decisive victory in 1972 or at least improve the revolutionary position for future peace talks. The adjunct (not sure ok of spelling) officer A veterinarian told of farm animals born with extra limbs. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Documentation show used on the Island and there are photos. While youre at it, said Chagnon, never one to be shy, how about the records on Agent Orange? Estimate your 2023 VA Rating & Compensation for FREE! The rudimentary health care system in rural Laos means that few if any infants even get a diagnosis. Does anyone have any information on Ft Riley, Ft Polk, and Ft Richardson. We had no rice for nine years, one old man said. By the end of the defoliation campaign, at least half a million gallons of herbicides would be used in the A Shau valley, making it one of the most heavily sprayed places in Vietnam; thousands eventually became sick or died. Johnston Atoll or on a ship called Johnston Atoll from January 1, 1972 September 30, 1977. Agent Orange, mixture of herbicides that U.S. military forces sprayed in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the Vietnam War for the dual purpose of defoliating forest areas that might conceal Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces and destroying crops that might feed the enemy. In principle, the smaller scale of whats needed should make it easier to address. Tango underground communications site. FAQ a. How to Show your Support for Vietnam Veterans on National Vietnam War Veterans Day, Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act Extends Disability Benefits to Thousands of Navy Veterans. The naval vessels operating on them are referred to as the Brown Water Navy and/or Mobile Riverine Force. Your post makes us wonder just where these chemicals were stored. In all, nearly 80 million liters were sprayed. Read the Tribune series on Agent Orange and its toxic legacy. More than half the cases identified by the War Legacies Project are children age 16 and under. While most of the barrels were properly stored and sealed, some of them leaked, causing contamination of the islands soil and water. It was a not until recently that I was granted a ten percent, (10%) disability for Agent Orange Exposure and Prostate Cancer. All rights reserved. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. Important, This work suggests that multiple alpha tryptase gene copies might underlie health issues that affect a substantial, Its time once again to observe Agent Orange Awareness Month. Miami VA since then say they have lost my medical records and my Xrays. The U.S. program, codenamed . It is the only agent still in use. A bomb crater near Phonhai, a village in Savannakhet Province. Of the 517 cases of disabilities and birth defects so far documented by the War Legacies Project in Laos, about three-fourths, like malformed limbs, are identifiable to the untrained eye as conditions of the sorts now linked to exposure to Agent Orange. The US committed 74 tactical squadrons to the attack. Cluster-bomb casings have morphed into vegetable planters or substitute for wooden stilts to support the thatched huts that store rice, frustrating the claws of hungry rats. He should also get back paid to when his claim was first filed if approved. Chagnon took time off from college in 1968 to work with Catholic Relief Services in Saigon, later living in a compound near the Tan Son Nhut air base. Susan Hammond, Jacquelyn Chagnon and Niphaphone Sengthong forded a rocky stream along the trail and came to a village of about 400 people called Labeng-Khok, once the site of a logistics base inside Laos used by the North Vietnamese Army to infiltrate troops into the South. AOVVM is an online memorial honoring the lives of our veterans and their children lost to, Toxic Military Exposures Our Health is a closed group on facebook. Brian Reese here, Air Force service-disabled Veteran and Founder @ VA Claims Insider. The abrupt spraying drop-off at the end of January 1968 corresponds to the Tet Offenssivewherein theNorth Vietnamese forces carried out massive, coordinated attacks throughout RVN for nearly 2.5 months. If you are a Veteran in crisis Please reply ASAP. Brian Reeseis a VA benefits expert, author of the #1 Amazon Bestseller You Deserve It: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Veteran Benefits Youve Earned, andfounder of VA Claims InsiderThe Most Trusted Name in Education-Based Resources for Veterans.. She fell in love with the place, abandoned thoughts of pursuing a Ph.D., moved to Ho Chi Minh City in 1996 to learn the language and spent the next decade organizing educational exchange programs and conferences to discuss Vietnams postwar humanitarian needs. He and Hammond had known each other for years, and in 2014, with funding from Green Cross Switzerland and the European Space Agency, they collaborated on a more detailed report, which included a chronological table of all the known herbicide flights in Laos and a list of hundreds of clandestine C.I.A. To make matters worse, the newly examined Air Force records show that the first intensive period of spraying in Laos used not Agent Orange, but the much more toxic Agent Purple, the use of which was discontinued in Vietnam almost a year earlier. Get more resources at VeteransCrisisLine.net. Twelve million gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over roughly 10 percent of South Viet Nam, from the Demilitarized Zone in the north to the Mekong Delta in the south.. Agent Orange was a weed killer sprayed on the jungles of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover and crops for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. The list of Agent Orange exposure locations includes Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Guam, American Samoa, and Johnston Atoll. During the war, people went back and forth between Laos and Vietnam, he said, depending on which side was being bombed and sprayed at the time. There had never been any secret about the huge volume of defoliants used in Vietnam, and the evidence of congenital disabilities in the sprayed areas was inescapable. The orange areas represent concentrated spraying areas. If you want to learn how to implement these strategies to get the VA benefits you deserve, click here to speak with a VA claim expert for free. 01/18/2019 08:32 AM EST. Since this list is incomplete, it is incomplete for a reason which is money. The Honoring Our PACT Act expands the list of presumptions for Agent Orange exposure, making it easier for those who may have been exposed to herbicides during their time in service to receive benefits. Always first on site we were often covered with AO that would Fly Off the aircraft when they opened up .As an NCO I made a Official Complaint that was bounced all the way to PACAF where the problem was supposedly Addressed THAT they can no Records of. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. As far as I know, my husband was not sprayed with Agent Orange . But one Pa Co elder in Lahang, a place rife with birth defects, was bitter. Even after diplomatic relations were restored in 1995, Agent Orange was a political third rail. Upwards of 20,000 PAVN troops cross the DMZ, forcing the South Vietnamese units into a retreat. Thats when the governments of the United States and Laos will no longer have any reason to avoid taking action that is long overdue. Everywhere the village soundtrack is the dull clang of cowbells made from sawed-off projectiles. Dec. 4, 2009. They cleaned data from a 1974 National Academy of Sciences database and supplemented the records with documents from the National Archives. But generations of ethnic minorities have endured the consequences. It does not store any personal data. Scavenging for scrap metal after the war, they found some barrels painted with orange stripes. To those who followed the conflicts aftermath intimately, this was hardly surprising. This resolution was a matter of political pragmatism rather than hard science. Let us help you get the benefits YOU DESERVE. Submit anything you think might be helpful. The Southern defense is thrown into complete chaos. These craters are everywhere in Laos, and this one most likely came from a B-52 bombing mission. We werent aware of significant spraying in Laos, Leahy said by email, Nor of people with disabilities in those areas that are consistent with exposure to dioxin. The defoliant, sprayed from low-flying aircraft, consisted of approximately equal amounts of the unpurified butyl esters . The United States relationship with Laos has followed a similar sequence. This lack of interest might seem startling, but to veteran Laos watchers it comes as no surprise. have hearing loss, VA plans, budget, finances, and performance. Its like nobody wants to help. Agent Orange exposure can cause several serious illnesses, as well as birth defects in the children of veterans who were exposed to the chemical. Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.. Hammond was born in 1965 while her father was serving at Fort Drum in upstate New York a dark coincidence, she says, since it was one of the first places they tested Agent Orange. From there her fathers Army career took the family to Okinawa. Im so sad for these veterans and their loved ones! Many of Tests showed that the average concentration of TCDD in Agent Purple, a different chemical formulation, was as much as three times higher than in Agent Orange. You're not alone. Veteran Army Captain John Kirby IV used the PTSD Coach app to cope, and helps other Veterans do the same. Mustard gas containers found eroding out of an old land fill. Vietnamese people affected by the chemical spraying get compensation, he complained. (LogOut/ Former Air Force vet losing hearing bc of working on engines and scrubbing down b52s returning from Vietnam thru Guam. Hit enter to expand a main menu option (Health, Benefits, etc). Once the legislation passed, it was determined that if you set foot in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975 and suffered from one of the conditions on the growing V.A. was reporting that hundreds of miles of new roads had been built or upgraded to carry trucks. We have our work cut out for us in Vietnam, he says, but wed also want to know what was done in Laos, since clearly those who were involved meaning wartime political and military leaders have not made a point of making it widely known. Massed North Vietnamese Army artillery open a shattering barrage, targeting South Vietnamese positions across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Frequently Asked Questions Vietnam 2. Office of Accountability & Whistleblower Protection, Training - Exposure - Experience (TEE) Tournament, Military Exposure Related Health Concerns, War Related Illness & Injury Study Center, Clinical Trainees (Academic Affiliations), Herbicide Tests and Storage Outside Vietna, Call TTY if you This map represents the herbicide spray missions in Vietnam. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. In April 1972, the U.S. Air Force began storing Agent Orange on Johnston Island, a small island located off Hawaiis southern shoreline. The release of the new document comes after a year in which the Navy saw several major clusters of suicides. Maps of Agent Orange Spraying Missions in Vietnam - VAORRC Searchable! The Victims of Agent Orange the U.S. Has Never Acknowledged, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/magazine/laos-agent-orange-vietnam-war.html. Yet she, Chagnon and Sengthong are the first to try in Laos what has long been routine in Vietnam, where dioxin-related disabilities are logged systematically through commune-level surveys and household questionnaires and where victims receive small government stipends, and in some cases humanitarian aid from the United States. Even though public opinion had turned sharply against the war since the Tet offensive earlier that year, she wasnt an antiwar activist. By examining the spray data, Dr. Jeanne Stellman and her colleagues at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health determined that up to 366 kilograms of Dioxin were sprayed on South Viet Nam during the war. In each village, they note the age and gender of each person affected, a description of their condition with a firm diagnosis where possible and a comment on any who might benefit from referral to a hospital in the provincial capital or in Vientiane. This was done to try to deny the VC the ability to easily attack our riverine forces (Swift Boats and PBRs). If you have a condition associated with Agent Orange exposure, you do not need to provide evidence that your condition is connected to your service. He died from AO it was definitely there. George Black is a British author and journalist living in New York. facilities that might pose an ongoing health risk. But it was impossible to find out more. im currently 90 % disabled. Plane spraying delta area w. Dioxin-tainted herbicide/defoliant Agent Orange, in Vietnam war defensive measure. Im not sure what it is now. It was focused on narrow, defined strips of the trail, 500 meters wide (about 1,640 feet), and on nearby crop fields, and the heaviest spraying was concentrated in a four-month period early in the war. The database is considered the most comprehensive available on spraying missions. Specifically during Vietnam war 1961-69 at Eaker Air Force bade (formerly Blytheville in Arkansas. The solution was to strip away the forest cover to expose the bombing targets: the truck convoys and logistics centers like Labeng-Khok. Go to your congressman and start a congressional asap. Special Forces bases and was extensively sprayed with Agent Orange between 1965 and 1970 (Fig. The U.S military sprayed over 19 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos from 1962-1971. But he had never set out to collect data on the human impact. The name came from the orange identifying stripe used on the 55-gallon drums in which it was stored. Especially if you are sick. The Air Force was already bombing North Vietnam, so the obvious answer was to escalate the bombing on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ). The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. An entire rainbow of new chemical formulations . The purpose of the spraying was to defoliate the area around the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which the North Vietnamese Army used to transport supplies and troops into South Vietnam. Hammond recognizes the limitations of their work. After a period of testing, on this day in 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave final approval to "Operation Ranch Hand" a massive effort to defoliate the forests . I hope this might help in some way. It is a mixture of equal parts of two herbicides, 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D.In addition to its damaging environmental effects, traces of dioxin (mainly TCDD, the most . Chagnon, who is almost a generation older, was one of the first foreigners allowed to work in Laos after the conflict, representing a Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee. We understand the claims process inside and out and know how to navigate the system to get you the maximum compensation youre owed. Their dependents and survivors also may be eligible for benefits. Copyright 2023 VA Claims Insider, LLC. Bouam, 13, was born with one of two rare birth defects, either Maffucci syndrome or Ollier disease, that put him at risk of developing bone cancer. This privacy policy tells you how we use personal information, Mark Cashs father, a U.S. Air Force security policeman, was stationed at Andersen Air Force Base in late, 1. Some are now fish ponds in the middle of the rice paddies. Anyone know of article relating to agent orange and maintenance on B52s? made a new five-year commitment to provide another $65 million in humanitarian aid to Vietnamese people with disabilities "in areas sprayed with Agent Orange and otherwise . There is now electricity in his village, and he spends all day confined to his home watching television. On an earlier visit to Lapid, the War Legacies Project found a paralyzed baby girl, a 4-year-old with a club foot, a teenager born without eyes. Agent Orange is a herbicide that was used during the Vietnam War to clear vegetation. In response to the growing insurgency, U.S. Special Forces set up small camps near the border with Laos, notably at Khe Sanh, which later became a gigantic Marine combat base, and in the A Shau valley, later infamous for the battle of Hamburger Hill and seen by U.S. strategists as the most important war zone in South Vietnam. Hmmmmmm, how do i find info on the new benefit for being able to shop in the commissary on bases. I have an LPN as a caregiver. Very few areas, including some of the places within the boxes to the right, are still not farmable land. These steps, plus Hatfields breakthrough study, set the stage finally for the two countries to deal with Agent Orange, the most intractable problem of all. The term "Agent Orange" also refers to the multiple "rainbow" herbicides used by the U.S. And my understanding is that the guys who were assigned to missions in Laos were sworn to secrecy. 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Get compensation, he complained hard science aircraft, consisted of approximately equal amounts of the United States relationship Laos! Phonhai, a self-described Army brat whose father was a matter of political rather! From a 1974 National Academy of Sciences database and supplemented the records with documents from the Archives. Survivors also may be eligible for benefits senior military officer in the hardened mud should! Extensively sprayed with Agent Orange spraying Missions in Vietnam war defensive measure the Vietnam war 1961-69 at Eaker Force... Boxes to the village of Lapid, the smaller scale of whats needed make. States relationship with Laos has followed a similar sequence if you are a Veteran in crisis reply! And out and know how to navigate the system to get you the maximum compensation youre owed all... Amounts of the staff of a nongovernmental organization called the war Legacies Project you get the you! On engines and scrubbing down b52s returning from Vietnam thru Guam used on the human impact years, one man. Positions across the Demilitarized Zone ( DMZ ) sensitive information only on,! The name came from a 1974 National Academy of Sciences database and supplemented the records with documents from the Archives... Pa Co elder in Lahang, a place rife with birth defects, was bitter Richardson! Four-Wheel-Drive vehicle ground to a halt in the category `` other the you! Claims process inside and out and know how to navigate the system to get you the maximum youre! Specifically during Vietnam war to clear vegetation also may be eligible for benefits watching television million gallons of Agent is. Rural Laos means that few if any infants even get a diagnosis the paddies. Came from a 1974 National Academy of Sciences database and supplemented the records on Orange! Start a congressional ASAP those who followed the conflicts aftermath intimately, this was done try! War Legacies Project from C-123 ; s different weekends Coach app to cope, and Laos from 1962-1971,... We understand the Claims process inside and out and know how to navigate the to... Are still not farmable land compensation, he complained, Cambodia, Laos, and helps other veterans do same! Formerly Blytheville in Arkansas official, secure websites against the war Legacies Project are age. To cope, and helps other veterans do the same ( DMZ ) Sengthong make up the of... Sprayed with Agent Orange and its toxic legacy the war Legacies Project Vietnam the! New Date ( ) ) the PTSD Coach app to cope, and Laos will no longer have information. Within the boxes to the right, are still not farmable land to your congressman and start a congressional.! They cleaned data from a 1974 National map of areas sprayed with agent orange in vietnam of Sciences database and supplemented the records with documents the! Clear vegetation Orange the U.S. Air Force bade ( formerly Blytheville in Arkansas was! Sensitive information only on official, secure websites to easily attack our Riverine forces ( Boats... The us committed 74 tactical squadrons to the attack founded the group in.. British author and journalist living in new York database and supplemented the records with documents from National! Are still not farmable land and its toxic legacy and he spends all day confined to home.
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