MIDWESTERN STATE UNIVERSITY

TOXIC RAIN: AGENT ORANGE AND THE REAL COST OF VIETNAM

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE PROTHRO-YEAGER

COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CANDIDACY

FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY

BY

ABIGAIL SCOTT

WICHITA FALLS, TEXAS

SEPTEMBER 2013

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: A Breakdown of Herbicide Use and the Price of American

Intervention in Vietnam………………..…………………………………….….6

CHAPTER 1: The Development of Rainbow Herbicides and the Men Behind the

Science…………………………………………………………………………...18

CHAPTER 2: A Brief History of Vietnam and the American Failure to Know Her

Enemy or Battleground……………………………….…………………………28

CHAPTER 3: The Intention, Application and Collateral Damage of Combat

Herbicide Use in Vietnam………………………………………………………..42

CHAPTER 4: The Business and Human Cost of the Vietnam

War…………………………………………………………….…………….…...51

CONCLUSION.………………………………………………………………….66

BIBLIOGRAPHY.………………..………………………………………….…..71

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My original thesis topic involved an in-depth look at the fall of the

Minoan goddess culture on Crete in the Bronze Age. Before I began this thesis

study, I had very little interest in military or American history. The guys who

studied side-by-side with me in the History graduate program changed that. If it

weren’t for my friends Patrick Calzada, Robert Stewart III, Jim Hammond, Jesse

Beckham and Michael Baggs, this work would have gone in a very different

direction. Thank you to those students for affording me an opportunity to open

my mind and expand my interests and for providing a competitive arena to test

my knowledge and comprehension of military history with its seasoned students.

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Everett Kindig, Dr. Michael

Collins, and Dr. Ken Hendrickson for their dedication, patience and advisement

during this thesis process and to Dr. Hewitt and the entire History department for

providing a supportive and encouraging educational atmosphere in which to

complete my studies.

I read somewhere once that there are two types of people on this planet:

mothers and their children. The most important mother in my life is my own,

without whom I would not have achieved what I have achieved today. Thank

you, Mom, for always—and I mean always—being a voice of love,

encouragement and support.

In all the years I have known him, one man has stood by me and supported

me without recrimination or judgment no matter how I failed or fumbled. Thank

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you, Justin. Your abiding belief in me often spurred me on when nothing and no

one else could buoy my spirit. You are my touchstone.

When I began my graduate program, I had not yet met the child who

would become the most important person in my life. I was pregnant with my son

Noah when my graduate career started. To him I say, thank you for your light and

love. You unlocked the deepest part of my heart and took up residence.

Everything that I am and everything that I have or will achieve belongs to you. I

am a better person because you came into my life, and I will always love and

encourage you to beat your own path. You are your Momma’s little lightning

bug, and YOU ARE MY FAVORITE PERSON EVER. I love you.

This work would not have been possible without the stories of three

Vietnam veterans who took the time to share their experiences with me. My

sincerest gratitude and thanks to Joel, Hugh and Art. You are heroes.

Finally, I would like to thank my father, who passed away in 2005. This is

for you, Dad. I miss you.

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INTRODUCTION

“There has never been a protracted war from which a country has

benefited.”–Sun Tzu

“Americans don’t give a f*ck about their veterans.” That quote is from a

veteran who has been forced to fight the Veterans Affairs Commission long and

hard for adequate medical treatment. Sadly, his experience is not uncommon, and

his comment may not be too far from the truth. Our society’s view of veterans

mirrors that of our government’s. “Thank you for your service. You’re heroes.”

The military requires total devotion and loyalty from its enlisted, but it does not

offer the same in return. Our society pays them lip service. There are active duty

discounts, student discounts, discounts for the very young and for senior citizens,

but how many businesses offer veterans’ discounts? The real message is this:

you matter while you’re young and useful; this is the time of free meals,

discounted rates and public praise. When you leave the military, because you age

out, or you have your legs blown off, or you are just incapable of doing it

anymore, you no longer matter. That may not be the message that anyone intends

to send, but that is what is broadcast, loud and clear.

In the summer of 2012, I sat down for the first time with three Texas

veterans of the Vietnam War who would become valuable resources for this work

on the lasting effects of the defoliation program used in Indochina and U.S.

governmental policy regarding Vietnam and its veterans. Joel,1 Hugh,

2 and Art

3

offered me some insight into their dark days as soldier, crew chief, and journalist,

respectively, in and above the jungles of Vietnam.

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United States officials in the Department of State and Department of

Defense did not heed the advice of CIA intelligence operatives and their own

think tanks in the decision to become entangled in the jungles of Vietnam. Today

it is with relative ease that one can look back and see the error of their judgment.

A primary goal of the intervention in Vietnam was to stop the spread of

Communism into the agrarian nations of Indochina.

American troops were not prepared for the tropical theater of war in which

they found themselves entrenched. The dense and foreign jungles of Vietnam and

the surrounding nations were new and uneasy ground for American boys. Even

more troublesome, however, was the fact that, while these officials had expended

time and effort to learn about Vietnam, they comprehended neither the deep-

rooted national identity of the people—and their connection to their land—nor the

stubborn patience and experience the Vietnamese people had in fighting for their

ancestral countryside.

Still today, only a small percentage of Americans have heard of Agent

Orange, and an even smaller percentage knew what the defoliation program

entailed. Reviewer Leslie Gelb wrote in The New Republic that “Vietnam: A

History” by Stanley Karnow was the “first comprehensive account of the war.” It

was described in The Washington Post Book World as “a landmark work . . . . The

most complete account to date of the Vietnam tragedy.” Yet Karnow’s only

mention of the defoliation program is a cursory nod to “thousands” exposed to

Agent Orange.4

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In 1962, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) initiated

Operation Trail Dust in Vietnam. Trail Dust was the U.S. military’s multi-branch

campaign of herbicide dispersal over jungle cover, grasslands, and enemy crops

from backpack, boat, truck, and plane. The chemicals induced rampant and

accelerated growth, causing plants to lose their leaves. Agent Orange dried

quickly. Sunlight beating down on saturated foliage caused the plants to wither.

The U.S. Air Force dispensed most of the defoliants in Operation Ranch Hand.

Interestingly, officials determined the original United States Air Force program

name Operation Hades too inflammatory. Ranch Hand dumped more than 19

million gallons of Agent Orange and various other toxic chemicals on Vietnam,

Laos and Cambodia over a period of approximately ten years. This total is only

an estimate, since it is impossible to calculate the exact amount of chemicals

sprayed by backpack or from a truck or riverboat. In sum, records of defoliant

use in Vietnam were not well-documented.5

Such a lack of documentation means it is likely impossible to calculate

exact amounts for the different toxins sprayed. These chemicals settled on grass,

jungle cover, and crops. They infiltrated the water system and the native fauna

ingested them. The unintended consequence was that the American soldier,

sleeping in the jungle, drinking water from whatever pool or stream he happened

across, was exposed. He was exposed repeatedly, for an extended period of time,

in a variety of ways. He set fire to crops that had been drenched in herbicide and

couldn’t avoid the smoke. He caught and ate wildlife to supplement his diet of

canned food, but the meat had been tainted. The water was contaminated. The

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average infantryman was not warned of the toxicity of the chemicals they were

spraying. With the exception of those enlisted in defoliant work, most American

troops were not even aware of the rainbow of herbicides raining down upon them.

They would learn only later a shameful secret of the Vietnam War—that they

were part of the 4.2 million6 American servicemen poisoned by weapons that

were meant to assist them.

The typical deployment period for an American warrior during the

Vietnam War lasted one year. Of the aforementioned veterans, Hugh is retired

from the United States Air Force.7 During 1966-1967, Hugh flew on defoliant

missions in Operation Ranch Hand as crew chief on a C-123 plane known as

Patches. Most missions, Hugh said, were flown by a single plane. Sometimes,

two or three planes flew together, but not often. When they did, Patches flew in

the lead. The other planes were camouflaged, but Patches was not. She was a

gleaming silver beacon, skimming through the sky just above the trees—perfect

for Viet Cong target practice. “We had to fly so close to the ground, at tree-top

level, it was ground fire,” Hugh said. After her one thousandth hit, Patches was

“re-skinned;”8 she was retired before she hit two thousand. After her retirement

from the battle zone, Patches returned to the U.S. and functioned as a cargo

carrier.

Patches’ underbelly housed eighteen jets; each extended the width of the

plane and a foot or two out on either side of the fuselage. A large tank housed in

the cargo area of the plane held the toxin. A motorized system pumped the

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chemical from the tank to the jets. “The motor was like a motorboat and it was

pumped out that way, beneath the plane,” Hugh recalled.

The U.S. military transported loads of fifty gallon drums from U.S.

chemical manufacturing plants containing Agent Orange and other herbicides

(including those termed agents Purple, Pink, White, Green and Blue). Each barrel

bore a colored stripe around its center, the only distinguishing characteristic from

one drum to the next. The color of the stripe denoted the chemical contained

within. United States Air Force and South Vietnamese troops pumped the

chemicals out of the drums and into the larger tanks on the planes. In a hostile

environment, one must move with haste. When pumping into a plane’s tank,

some of it would slosh out or leak from the tubing, so the clothing of those

working with the chemicals was often drenched in defoliant. “I pumped out of

them,” Hugh remembered. “I spent two, three hours a day in it. . . . It was kind of

a clear orange, had an orange tint. More like kerosene.”9

The defoliation program lasted a decade, dispensing more than 19 million

gallons of herbicide. “Our main goal was rubber plants. . . . because they hid,”

Hugh said. “It (the plant) was more like a mushroom; from the air it’s just a bunch

of foliage. You can’t see them. They hide under them. They wore black pajamas.

You couldn’t see them.”10

Rubber plants have dense foliage comprised of large,

broad leaves. They are not trees; they typically grow to about eight to twelve feet

in height.11

Because the spray rig on the C-123 spanned about the width of the plane, a

defoliant plane would leave long swaths of greenery drenched in chemicals.

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Infantrymen moving through the bush would suddenly come across an area of

dried, dead foliage. Driving through North Texas one day, Joel, a U.S. Army

veteran who served in Vietnam from 1969-1970, said he encountered a dead

brown area of a Texas field that struck a chord with him, flashing him back to a

time several decades earlier when he had stood in a nearly identical field of

wasted vegetation in the midst of a dense jungle half a world away. The swaths

were not quite as long as a football field, Joel recollected, and not very wide. “It

was just dried up. Crisp. I had a tank, and I just ran over everything. It was

everything—trees, grasses, plants. . . . sections of it. . . . strips.” Another goal was

the destruction of enemy crops. “You had to flush them out, you had to get them

out,” Joel explained. “We were outnumbered. There was more of the enemy than

there was of us. . . . They were badasses.”12

There was no simple solution to the problem of extricating U.S. forces

from the country while simultaneously establishing a stable, western-style

government in the South and neutralizing Northern Communist forces and their

allies in the South and elsewhere. Prior to U.S. intervention in Vietnam, the

country had been under occupation by French forces. Before the French

occupation, the Vietnamese people spent hundreds of years entangled in uprisings

of guerilla-style warfare against the Chinese, then the Japanese during World War

II. Underground tunnel systems played a significant role in Vietnamese success

against both the French and the U.S. intervention that followed. Not much has

been written about Vietnamese tunnel systems prior to their fight with the French,

but the design and construction of such complicated and thorough underground

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labyrinths and virtual cities does not occur overnight. “I think they’d been using

them from time. . . . they were primitive people,” Joel said. “Our bombs couldn’t

penetrate it, not from the air. . . . and that’s why we couldn’t win that war.”13

In Vietnam, the U.S. first employed tactical combat herbicides in warfare.

Whether or not their use is considered successful depends on a number of factors.

The application of an herbicide to a plant typically results in plant death. If

evaluated only by that factor, the defoliation program succeeded. However, other

factors must be taken into consideration. Ecologically speaking, the use of

herbicides retarded the growth and development of Vietnamese plant life,

particularly affecting mangroves, for more than a century. As to the matter of

tactical support for U.S. troops, the destruction of foliage and jungle cover made

no difference in the outcome of the war. From the U.S. military perspective, the

conflict remained, as journalist David Halberstam wrote, “a quagmire.”14

Americans were not well trained to maneuver the Vietnamese tunnel

systems, which were elaborate, confusing, and built to accommodate the average

Vietnamese soldier, who was much smaller than the average American

infantryman. “You know, we were always gung-ho, ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it!’ I was in

several ambushes. But then I got picked. . . . in the army. . . . I was in this village.

. . . I had to go into this tunnel; I went in about eight feet. It’s just not like a hole

in the ground. . . . There was about. . . . a 4 by 8 bed, and get it out of the way, and

the tunnel starts,” Joel remembered. “But as you go in, it gets smaller. . . . it starts

narrowing down. . . . I’m not a coward, but you know. . . . I was ordered to clear

it, so I came out, threw a grenade down there, and I cleared it.”15 The men of the

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Vietnamese fighting force grew up playing in the tunnel systems in which they

later fought.

In the U.S., youths of the nation initiated a generation of peace by joining

voices in protest against segregation and for civil rights. The “free love” flower

children of the hippie generation abhorred war. The media perpetuated the view

of the war as a failure. It was a period of “bucking” the establishment and

advocating peace. For returning soldiers weary from war, however, it was a time

of hostility and rejection, during which they were demonized, derided and

denounced by their own countrymen. “You didn’t tell people you were in

Vietnam,” Joel admitted. “You kept your mouth shut.”16

Perhaps the most significant factor to consider, though, is the collateral

damage inflicted upon those individuals exposed to the toxic dioxin by-product

that the herbicides carried with them—19 million gallons worth of collateral

damage on more than 7.2 million people, including an estimated 2.4 million

American veterans. The herbicides accumulated in sources of drinking water.

The toxin coated the surface of the vegetation through which troops marched.

Over time the toxin bio-accumulated in the native fauna and fish, which American

soldiers killed and ate. 17

U.S. political leaders were sending 18-year-old kids, some of them virgins

still, off to fight and die in a war zone thousands of miles across an ocean. The

U.S. government had been entangled in South Vietnam for several years and had

committed billions of dollars to prop up an anti-Communist government there.

Those young men who were drafted into battle were four times more likely to see

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the soil of Vietnam if their families had a median annual income of five thousand

dollars or less than were those youths who came from wealthier backgrounds.18

A White House meeting, on July 21st, 1965, provides a glimpse into the

intelligence given to President Lyndon B. Johnson on Vietnam. In attendance

was Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, a strong advocate for military action

in Indochina. He produced a map of Vietnam and pointed out that the Viet Cong

controlled about twenty-five percent of South Vietnam’s territory. A memo from

the Joint Chiefs of Staff read at the meeting affirmed that only a large number of

American troops could save the situation in Vietnam. Later that same day, Under

Secretary of State George W. Ball met one-on-one with President Lyndon B.

Johnson and outlined for the president why he believed the U.S. could not win.

Ball warned Johnson that a long war would “lose him the support of the country.”

He showed the president a chart on public opinion during the Korean War. As the

U.S. casualty rate in Korea increased, support decreased. But Johnson, still

concerned about breaking the word of three presidents, refused to end the war.

“We’ll suffer the worst blow to our credibility,” Ball warned the president, “when

it is shown that the mightiest power on earth can’t defeat a handful of miserable

guerillas.”19

Higher ranking officials in the United States government failed to heed the

advice of intelligence officials when they were warned not to get involved. Dean

Rusk served as Secretary of State from 1961 through 1968 in the Kennedy and

Johnson administrations. Rusk also encouraged action in Vietnam. He favored

the domino theory, reasoning that if Communism was defeated in Vietnam the

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remaining Communist factions in Southeast Asia would fall like dominoes behind

it. 20

During the same period, McNamara served as Secretary of Defense under

both Kennedy and Johnson. He “oversaw hundreds of missions,” military action

from nuclear warheads to troop movements, and he was in charge of billions of

dollars in military spending. Just a few years into the conflict, Vietnam had been

dubbed “McNamara’s War,” and at the time he claimed that title with pride.

During his administration, McNamara raised the Pentagon’s budget from

approximately $48 billion in 1962 to almost $75 billion by 1968. Defense

spending consumed nearly half the annual budget after he took office. Three and

a half million Defense Department employees, including 2.5 million soldiers,

answered to him. But by the time of his death in 2009, McNamara was a strong

critic of the war he had prompted. He was a man haunted by a thousand faces. In

fact, at a 1966 private press briefing in Honolulu, McNamara had said, “no

amount of bombing can win this war.” His memoir, The Fog of War, was

published in 2003. In the book, McNamara gave his summation of the war in

Vietnam.

“We are the strongest nation in the world today. I do not believe that we

should ever apply that economic, political, and military power unilaterally.

If we had followed that rule in Vietnam, we wouldn’t have been there.

None of our allies supported us. Not Japan, not Germany, not Britain or

France. If we can’t persuade nations with comparable values of the merit

of our cause, we’d better re-examine our reasoning. . . . war is so complex

it’s beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend. Our judgment,

our understanding, are not adequate. And we kill people unnecessarily.”21

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Although the United States possessed more sophisticated weaponry and a

large military, the Vietnamese insurgency had the advantage of the familiarity of

“home turf” and a continuous influx of fresh troops as countless displaced citizens

joined their cause. Ultimately, it was a military failure for the United States, as

well as a human health disaster and a tragedy. This examination evaluates the

decision to use herbicides in Vietnam and examines the cost of that use to U.S.

veterans.

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NOTES

1 DAV Commander Joel Jimenez, United States Army, Co. A I/77

th, I/5

th Infantry Division (1969-

70). 2 DAV Sr. Vice Commander Hugh McElroy, United States Air Force, Retired (1966-67).

3 DAV Adjutant Art Frerich, United States Army (1968-69).

4 Stanley Karnow, Vietnam, A History (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 33.

5 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Herbicide Tests and Storage in the U.S,” Military

Exposures, http://www.publichealth.va.gov (accessed May 6, 2012), 1.

Richard Christian, Jeanne Mager Stellman, Steven D. Stellman, Carrie Tomasallo, and Tracy

Weber, “The extent and patterns of usage of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam,”

Nature , vol. 422, (2003), 681-87. 6 Robert Allen, The Dioxin War (London, United Kingdom: Pluto Press, 2004), 2.

Admiral E.R. Zumwalt, Jr., “Report to the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs on the

Association between Adverse Health Effects and Exposure to Agent Orange,” U.S. Department of

Veterans Affairs, http://www.vva.org (accessed April 21, 2012), 6. 7 United States Air Force

8 She got a whole new body “skin”; her original skin was too full of holes.

9 Personal Interview with Hugh McElroy, June 5, 2012.

10 Hugh McElroy, interview by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 5, 2012.

11 Art Frierich, interview by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 5

th, 2012.

12 Joel Jimenez, interview by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 6

th, 2012.

13 Joel Jimenez, interview by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 5

th, 2012.

14 Dr. Michael Collins, “Contemporary America” (lecture, Midwestern State University, Wichita

Falls, TX, Fall 2010). 15

Joel Jimenez, interview by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 5th

, 2012. 16

Ibid. 17

The toxicity level of the dioxin accumulates in fat due to continuous exposure to the poison. 18

Christian Appy, Working Class War (North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press,

1993), 367-72. 19

George W. Ball, “A Dissenter in the Government.” Light at the End of the Tunnel: A Vietnam

War Anthology. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, Inc. 1999, 115-117. 20

Ibid. 21

Tim Weiner, “Robert S. McNamara, Architect of a Futile War, Dies at 93,” The New York

Times, July 6, 2009.

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CHAPTER ONE

What scientists have in their briefcase is terrifying.—Nikita Khrushchev

The advancement of technology in warfare has made combat weaponry

more efficient and also more devastating. The electricity, metals and assembly

lines brought about during the Industrial Era greatly facilitated the manufacture

and construction of war machines, and the innovations of that time paved the way

for the two most destructive and far-reaching wars in human history. Science

provided the blueprints and formulas for new weapons, and industry capitalized

on them. By the time of the Vietnam War, business was thriving.

The anti-Communist movement in the United States that first began in the

early 20th

century was followed by a significant course of events in American

history, including World War I, Black Tuesday, the Great Depression and World

War II. By 1947, anti-Communism experienced resurgence. The recent war was

fresh in America’s memory when President Truman gave his famous Truman

Doctrine speech. In it, Truman divided the world—simply for those Americans

listening—into those nations who join the U.S. in the fight against the spread of

Communism, and those who do not.

In early 1961, officials within the Department of State and Department of

Defense first encouraged President Kennedy to initiate a defoliation and crop

destruction program in Vietnam. The proposed program, Operation Hades, was

intended to aid U.S. troop movements, prevent enemy obfuscation and deprive the

enemy Communists of a food source. The dense foliage of Indochina provided

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cover for South Vietnamese insurgents and their allies the North Vietnamese

Army (NVA). The insurgent force was the National Liberation Front (NLF), but

they are more commonly known in history as the Viet Cong (VC). Additionally,

the high grasses impeded U.S. troop movement. Herbicide testing unofficially

began in Vietnam in August 1961, and Operation Hades (later Trail Dust)

commenced in September 1962 and continued through 1971.

The United States sprayed more than 19 million gallons of various

herbicide combinations on South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The chemicals

used were nicknamed “rainbow herbicides.” As indicated earlier, in addition to

the infamous Agent Orange, which is the primary focus of this examination, there

were agents Blue, Pink, Purple, Green, and White. Agent Orange was not the

most powerful of the rainbow toxins, but it was the most prolific. A single

application of Agent Orange would kill approximately ten percent of the forest

canopy sprayed. Certain species of trees survived initial application. Taller trees

protected the smaller shrubbery, which comprised much of the vegetation in

contaminated areas. As a result, some areas were sprayed as many as ten times.

In a single five-year period from 1965 to 1970, Trail Dust deposited

approximately 13 million gallons of Agent Orange.1 This was the first time

combat herbicides were in full-scale use in warfare.2

The science of this particular herbicide originated in 1782, when a

naturally curious Swiss apothecary, Carl Wilhelm Scheele, first isolated chlorine.3

As far as the period table is concerned, Scheele holds the record for seven

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discoveries of the most natural elements, but he has to share credit with others

who published their research first.4 A century, more or less, after Scheele’s

discovery of chlorine came the extensive application of Ben Franklin’s discovery,

electricity. Constant power sources facilitated laboratories for the first time, and

not just in the U.S. Science had its own playground by the late 19th century.

Ultimately Scheele’s discovery led to the development of chlorine-based chemical

weapons, something Scheele could not have foreseen. Worse even than the

weapons themselves was a toxic stowaway companion that piggybacked on both

chemicals used in Agent Orange—one of the most deadly chemicals known to

man, the tetrachlorodibenzo-p dioxin (TCDD).5

Molecular structure of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p dioxin6

It was around the turn of the 20th

century that researchers discovered and

named “hormones,” the chemical agents that bonded the external and internal

areas of a plant. Further experimentation with plant hormones led to the

identification of indoleacetic acid, a growth hormone that occurs naturally in

plants. When applied in high concentrations, indoleacetic acid caused abundant

and rampant growth in the plant, leading to an over-production of foliage

followed by plant death. Scientists determined it was possible to create synthetic

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chemicals, synthesized hormones called auxins that mimicked the effect of the

acid on plant life.

By the 1930s, three separate research teams demonstrated that one

synthetic in particular, naphthoxyacetic acid, was repeatedly successful in

shutting down plant growth. Scholars reasoned that acids with a similar

molecular ring structure could produce similar results. This facilitated further

development in the realm of phenyoxyacetic acids. Between 1940 and 1945, four

separate groups in two countries—the United States and Great Britain—were

experimenting with phenyoxyacetic acids when they independently created 2,4-

dichlorophenoxyacetic acid and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, or 2,4-D and

2,4,5-T. Researchers nicknamed these acids “hormone herbicides.” They would

later be combined to create Agent Orange, also known by its trade name, Brush

Killer.7

Both 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T were produced in the form of colorless flammable

liquids called n-butyl esters. When applied to plants separately, they were

effective weed killers but not defoliants. The two chemicals when combined,

however, caused rapid defoliation when applied to plant life.

Herbicides are used to kill plant life. The target plant determines the

herbicide used. An herbicide is classified as a pesticide, and all pesticides are

biocides—chemicals engineered to kill or cease the growth and/or the propagation

of plants, animals, and insects. A substance capable of killing life in any form

should be considered suspect. Agent Orange had no warning color or odor to

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communicate it was a hazard. Pumped out in a fine mist over the jungles, it

rained down, indiscriminate of national loyalty.

Two nations continued to make strides in herbicide development—the

United States and Great Britain. In 1950 the British government commissioned

the Department of Agriculture at Oxford to test a variety of herbicides, arborcides,

and defoliants, including 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. Aerial application of the 2,4-D and

2,4,5-T resulted in the defoliation of certain vegetation but other exposed plant

species were unaffected. Oxford’s tests determined that 2,4,5-T was a successful

weed killer for use on agricultural crops. Because the crops targeted were foods

intended for human consumption, British chemists synthesized 2,4,5-T in such a

way as to minimize the toxicity to man.

Britain’s first 2,4,5-T defoliation test run outside of the United Kingdom

was in 1951 in an initial six-week defoliation program of an isolated woodland

community on the Waturi peninsula of Lake Victoria in Kenya. Kenya was a

protected colony of Great Britain, and the heavy woodlands of Waturi harbored a

thriving population of tsetse fly, a dangerous pest for humans. The 2,4,5-T

application served a dual purpose—it was meant to reduce the amount of

available shade (a haven for the tsetse fly, which needed shade to thrive) and to

ascertain the effect of 2,4,5-T on woody plant life. The first herbicide application

caused rapid defoliation of thirteen of the peninsula’s fifteen recorded leafy

species. Of those thirteen, defoliation led to subsequent death in the next nine

months. Unfortunately, the defoliation of Waturi did not reduce the number of

tsetse fly during that time. Nine months after the first spraying, a fire broke out

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during the “dry season” and destroyed between one-third and one-half of the plant

life. Within two months of the fire, the tsetse fly population dropped to a low

level and remained there for the next sixteen months of treatment.8

The 2,4,5-T test experience on Waturi provided supportive evidence of the

effectiveness of defoliants and armed the government with the ability to use such

chemicals to achieve certain results. In 1952 in Malaya, the British government

had reason to use defoliants in a fight against insurgents. At the time, political

terrorism in the country had come to a head. The ranks of the insurgent force

fighting the British were reinforced by combatants infiltrating from China. They

threatened civilians. The tipping point for British retaliation came with the

assassination of the British High Commissioner, Sir Henry Gurney. Terrorists

hidden in trees along the roadside assassinated Gurney as he left Kuala Lumpur.

In response to the assassination, British forces sprayed defoliants along both sides

of the road to eliminate any cover that terrorists could use for subsequent attacks.

In addition, aircraft loaded with herbicides targeted crops planted by insurgents in

forest clearings.9 These tactics were successful. The roadside application

destroyed the forest cover, and there were no further assassination attempts during

the British engagement in Malaya.

As for the United States, Professor E.J. Kraus., Chairman of the

Department of Botany at the University of Chicago, was the first to suggest

testing the effectiveness of combat herbicides. Reports indicate that sometime in

the 1941-43 period, Kraus proposed the use of 2,4-D as a chemical weapon to the

24| P a g e

War Bureau of Consultants.10

The WBC recommended the creation of a civilian

research agency for further investigation into the matter. In 1942, the War

Research Service (WRS) was formed. The director of the WRS wrote in a

January 1945 report to the Secretary of War that the agency had partnered with

the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service for a broad research and development

program.

In 1943, the WRS-Army program finished the construction of its first

testing site at Camp Detrick (also called Fort Detrick) in Maryland.11 Research

here included both chemical and biological agent development. Appointed head

of Detrick’s herbicide program was Dr. Kraus, the aforementioned chair of the

botany department at the University of Chicago. Army scientists discovered the

combination of the chemicals 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T “caused an almost immediate

negative effect on the [treated] foliage.” The Detrick site continued development

of dispersal equipment and testing of various herbicide formulations throughout

the 1940s and 1950s.12

Combat herbicides were considered for use in the Korean War at the

beginning of the 1950s, but the program did not deploy. Under the Army’s

Special Projects Division of the Chemical Warfare Service, the Advanced

Research Project Agency (ARPA) was formed. ARPA’s “Project Agile” tested

combination herbicides of varying strengths on domestic lands. The DoD

provided specific formulas for the production of the herbicide combinations to

manufacturers13

under government contract, among them Dow Chemical,

Monsanto, and Valero.14

The formulas for military herbicide combinations were

25| P a g e

much stronger than those of the commercial grade herbicide used in the U.S.

agricultural industry. The production of 2,4,-D and 2,4,5-T contracted for use in

the U.S. military’s herbicide program was combat strength. Combat herbicides

did not require purity.15

During production, hasty preparation and lax control of

the synthesis process led to a higher concentration of TCDD byproduct in the

military-grade herbicides.16 Dubbed “rainbow herbicides,” they were given

inoffensive names determined by the color of the three-inch wide center band

painted on each of the 55-gallon barrels in which the chemicals were stored.

Defense officials forbade other identifying distinctions.17

From 1944 to 1970, field testing of 2, 4-D, 2,4,5-T, agents Orange, Blue,

Purple, White and multiple other chemicals under admitted or undetermined DoD

involvement occurred in seventeen states across the U.S.18

Military-grade

herbicides were tested on American soil from Washington to Florida. More than

half of this testing took place prior to inception of the defoliation program in

Vietnam. Most notable testing occurred at the foundation base of herbicide

development, Fort Detrick, Maryland. Other prominent testing sites were Eglin

Air Force Base in Florida and Camp Drum, New York. Meanwhile, herbicide

testing outside the U.S. began in India in 1945 and continued into four other

nations, including Cambodia, Korea, Laos and Puerto Rico, and at sea.

In 1959, ARPA conducted its first air-born broad-scale Agent Purple test

run at Camp Drum. An archetype of the Hourglass MC-1 spray delivery system

was the delivery system chosen for testing. It would become the model of those

used in Vietnam. Initially, the Hourglass system could dispense herbicide at a

26| P a g e

rate of 1.5 gallons per acre but was later modified to disperse up to 3 gallons an

acre in “swaths 240 feet wide” and from an altitude of 150 feet.19

Additional testing of herbicides from August to December 1961 in

Vietnam convinced Department of Defense officials of their effectiveness. The

Cowboys were ready to fly.

27| P a g e

NOTES 1 House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the global environment of the Committee on

Foreign Affairs, Agent Orange: What Efforts Are Being Made to Address the Continuing Impact of

Dioxin in Vietnam? 111th

Cong., 1st sess., 2009, 1-2.

Allen, Dioxin, 28.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Facts about Herbicides,” Public Health,

http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/basics.asp (accessed April 21, 2012).

Michael G. Palmer, “The Case of Agent Orange,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 29, no. 1 (2007),

http://www.EBSCOhost.com (accessed April 20, 2012). 2 JRank Science & Philosophy, “Agent Orange-Agent Orange Defoliation Damage,”

http://science.jrank.org/pages/119/Agent-Orange-Agent-Orange-defoliation-

damage.html#ixzz1uCHXk1Y1 (accessed May 3, 2012). 3 Sir William A. Tilden. Famous Chemists: The Men and Their Work (London, UK: George

Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1921). 4 Nitrogen, Oxygen, Chlorine, Manganese, Molybdenum, Barium, and Tungsten

5 Yale University, “Carl Wilhelm Scheele,” http://www.chem.yale.edu (accessed May 13, 2013).

6 Public domain use.

7 James R. Troyer “In the beginning: the multiple discovery of the first hormone herbicides,”

Weed Science 49 ( 2001): 290–297. 8 J.D. Fryer, D.L. Johns, and D. Yeo, “The Effects of a chemical Defoliant on an isolated Tsetse

Fly Community and its Vegetation,” Bulletin of Entomological Research 48, no. 2 (1957): 359-

374. 9 J.I. Cooper, Thomas Kuehne, Thomas Kühne, and Valery P. Polischuk, “Virus Diseases and

Crop Biosecurity,” (Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2006), 4-6. 10

Formed by Presidential order to Secretary of War Henry Stimson in 1941, the WBC was a

division of the National Academy of Sciences. The WBC’s purpose was to evaluate the new

discoveries in biological warfare. Its purpose was to evaluate the potential of new chemical and

biological weapons. It was disbanded in 1942 and the War Research Service took its place. 11

Alan Oates, “Agent Orange: The Past is Prologue,” Agent Orange: The Toxic Battlefield Comes

Home. May/June 2012. http://vvaveteran.org/32-3/ao-prologue.html (accessed January 28, 2013). 12

Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 899, U.S. Veteran Dispatch Staff Report: The Agent

Orange Story (New Jersey: the Story of Agent Orange, November 1990). 13

Bob Greer, Journey Among Heroes, (E-book: Trafford Publishing, 2011), 155-56. 14

Additionally, Hercules Inc., Diamond Shamrock Corporation, T-H Agricultural & Nutrition Co.,

and Thompson Chemicals Corporation also manufactured the chemicals for military purposes. 15

Cooper, 4-6. 16

Alan Oates, “Agent Orange: The Past is Prologue,” Agent Orange: The Toxic Battlefield Comes

Home. May/June 2012. http://vvaveteran.org/32-3/ao-prologue.html (accessed January 28, 2013). 17

Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co., 05 1953 cv

(2d Cir. 2008), 7-14. 18

Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland,

Mississippi, New York, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin. 19

Board on the Health of Select Populations, Consensus Report: Veterans and Agent Orange:

Update 2010 (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, 2011),

http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2011/Veterans-and-Agent-Orange-Update-2010.aspx (accessed April

21, 2012).

28 | P a g e

CHAPTER TWO

“To win in Vietnam, we will have to exterminate a nation.” –Dr. Benjamin Spock

“Your entrails, Mother, are unfathomable.” –Duong Huong Ly, Vietnamese poet1

The agrarian peasants of Vietnam identify themselves according to their

position in their families. “I’m your mother’s brother” or “I am my parent’s third

daughter.” As in many Far East cultures, the familial bond is the most important

bond in a person’s life. This bond extends not only to family but to a family’s

ancestral land.

Viet Nam’s history spans nearly 5,000 years. Originally derived from the

ancient Chinese, the Vietnamese language and culture persists today, proof of

their doggedness and determination. The people maintained their national

identity during extended Chinese and French occupations, as well as the Japanese

occupation during World War II. They fought tenaciously against the yoke of

foreign oppression. Like the Native Americans, the Vietnamese revere their land.

The nation is primarily agrarian. The people do not possess much. What is passed

down from parent to child is not a family heirloom or an inheritance but a farm.

From generation to generation, families are born in, married on, work, die and are

buried in their familial lands. To take the land of a Vietnamese person is to rob

him of his history. There is a spiritual connection between the people and the

soil; they believe that if a man leaves his land, he leaves his soul behind in the

earth. They honor the land itself and respect it, and the land in turn provides for

them.

29 | P a g e

The ancient ancestors of today’s Vietnamese people first divided their

kingdom among a king’s one hundred sons. The eldest was the strongest, and his

principality known as Van Lang encompassed most of what is today northern and

central Vietnam. Beginning around 1000 BCE, for over seven hundred years

eighteen descendant kings each furthered the principality’s prosperity. In 308

BCE, Van Lang—which had become Au Viet—fell to a Chinese dynasty. The

Chinese founded the independent kingdom of Nam Viet, including much of

southern China. Under China’s thumb, the natives of Nam Viet struggled to

maintain their traditional identity. An effort to force Chinese culture upon the

Nam Viet people was met with fierce resistance. The Chinese occupied the

country for two and a half centuries, until a revolt led by two sisters regained the

nation’s independence for three short years. The struggle between China and the

Vietnamese people continued for the next millennium. Vietnamese armies

triumphed in 939 CE, defeating the Chinese and founding the first Vietnamese

dynasty, Dai Viet.

There was a return to tradition in a land where the people had fought for

centuries to maintain their cultural identity and preserve their history. In-fighting

led to feudalization, however, and the nation was fractured. A powerful feudal

lord reunited the nation under the name Dai Co Viet and adopted the title of First

August Emperor. During this time, the first non-aggression pact was negotiated

with China.2

Dai Co Viet remained independent for the following four centuries, until

Chinese troops invaded and occupied the nation for two decades. In the mid-15th

30 | P a g e

century, Vietnamese guerilla warfare tactics triumphed against the Chinese army.

Power struggles continued for the next several hundred years. In 1792 with

French assistance and support, Emperor Gia Long (born Nguyen Anh) assumed

power and reunified the nation as Viet Nam. Unfortunately for the Vietnamese

people, the French connection later led to French occupation. Following

Nguyen’s death, his younger son became Emperor Minh Mang. This emperor’s

hatred for Catholicism provided the impetus for French intervention in 1858. It

was not until 1945 that part of Vietnam gained its independence from France

under General Ho Chi Minh.3

In August of that year, Ho Chi Minh’s forces took Hanoi at the beginning

of a war for independence that would become the ten-year August Revolution.

Minh’s forces under General Vo Nguyen Giap, Ho Chi Minh’s military

commander and right-hand man, adopted guerilla warfare tactics against the

French.

In 1950, the United States established diplomatic relations with the puppet

government installed by the French, who still occupied Vietnam. Four years later,

Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist Vietnamese headquartered in northern Vietnam won

full independence from the French. The Vietminh siege of the French at

Dienbienphu was the decisive victory that turned the tables in Ho Chi Minh’s

favor. It is on par with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo as an incredible example of

French failure in warfare. The French command failed to heed the warnings of

their intelligence officials who cautioned that Dienbienphu was too isolated a

location for French forces to hold it against Vietminh attack. Like the later U.S.

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decision to enter into action in Vietnam, the decision to make a stand at

Dienbienphu was made based on personal prejudice and preconceived ideas about

the North Vietnamese fighting force, and as would the U.S., the French

underestimated the Vietnamese opposition. By mid-January 1954, General Giap,

commanding the Vietminh, had organized more than fifty thousand men in the

mountains around Dienbienphu, while the French garrisoned there were only

thirteen thousand strong. Half of those men were not properly trained for combat.

The Vietminh laid siege. While their cannon thundered from the mountainsides,

Vietnminh infantry were furiously digging tunnels, and in just a couple of months,

had surrounded the French with a subterranean system with hundreds of miles of

tunnels. On May 7, 1954, the afternoon before the Geneva Convention began

those in control of the French command bunker at Dienbienphu hosted a Vietminh

flag.4

The Geneva Agreement in 1954 divided Vietnam into North and South at

the 17th

Parallel. Pending elections, this agreement left Ho Chi Minh in

temporary control in the North and Bao Dai, a puppet leader for the West, in

power in South Vietnam. Shortly after the nation’s schism, Bao Dai was

overthrown by his prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem. The division of the nation led

to a “virtual state of war” between the two.5 The planned elections never took

place. This divided the nation and forced the westerners who got their hands dirty

to choose a side—North or South.

Because the United States government provided Diem with military

support, by the mid-1950s it had essentially turned South Vietnam into an

32 | P a g e

American protectorate.6 After siding with the South and sending more and more

“advisers” to Vietnam, the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations engaged in

full-blown warfare. “The conflict” lasted more than a decade and devastated

peoples’ lives, affected the infrastructure of Vietnam and permanently altered the

regional ecosystem.

Just as in their defense against the Chinese and the French, the Vietnamese

troops resorted to guerilla warfare against American and allied troops. In rural

areas, South Vietnamese insurgents could plot strategic attacks while hidden in

the shadows of the jungle. The dense foliage provided excellent cover for Viet

Cong soldiers. Nearer urban areas with sparser vegetation, they concealed

themselves in tunnels while spying on American troops. The NLF (National

Liberation Front) had an eight-hour advance notification of any American

operation. From the Vietnamese soldier’s perspective, U.S. troops were sitting

ducks. A VC wrote of his experience during an attack on a battalion. He and

another VC hid in the brush, obscured from view. As they picked soldiers off one

at a time, the Americans would look around, bewildered, trying to locate the

source of the gunfire. They did not even duck incoming fire. The VC soldier

described them as brave but easy targets.7

The defoliation program targeted the dense vegetation of South Vietnam,

eliminating the shadows wherein the VC hid. One point of focus was the Cu Chi

district, a community of villages in what was formerly Saigon. Cu Chi is one of

the most devastated sites in the history of warfare. By the height of the war,

Americans had taken to calling Cu Chi the “white area” because it was so easy to

33 | P a g e

spot from the air; desolate of vegetation, it appeared uninhabitable. American

pilots were told to unload unused bombs and napalm over Cu Chi; it was never

free from attack.8 American Army veteran Art Frierich worked as a combat

journalist during his tour from 1968 to 1969, and he witnessed the horrors of

napalm firsthand. “It just eats the flesh off of people,” Art recalled.9 Toxic and

pock-marked, Americans repeatedly marked the Cu Chi district on maps with the

word “destroyed.” How wrong they were.10

Rural villages were a strong supportive base for the Viet Cong. Eighty-

five percent of South Vietnam’s people lived in rural villages, and most villages

had residents who were related to Viet Cong soldiers. The American ally in

Vietnam, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), recruited from those

same villages; twenty-one percent of ARVN new recruits deserted within a year.

The NLF connection was too strong to combat. Viet Cong soldiers would use

their relationships with the villagers to convince them to support the insurgency.

In point of fact, allying oneself with the Americans for a brief period allowed an

ARVN combatant to rest and regain his strength before returning to the insurgent

front.11

It was of utmost importance to the NLF to protect and conceal their base

locations. The lack of urban cover in Cu Chi and elsewhere necessitated the

construction of complicated tunnel systems. Elaborate underground tunnel

complexes were dug out of the earth, mostly by hand. Every villager in an NLF-

occupied area was required to dig one cubic meter of tunnel each day.12

Although

NLF forces did victimize Vietnamese civilians, they were the lesser of two evils.

34 | P a g e

Civilians often willingly assisted the insurgents, who had at least eight hours’

notice of an impending attack and sometimes knew several days in advance. The

rural nation sits well above sea level, which allowed as many as four levels of

tunnels, as deep as 60 feet underground. The dry, laterite clay soil of Vietnam is

aerated and uniquely suited to its environment. The land can absorb quite a bit of

water with little change in integrity. Once dug out, the clay could be packed so

tightly that the sides of the tunnels were as solid as concrete.13

The most complex tunnel system was in the area in and around the Iron

Triangle,14

including the Cu Chi district, approximately twenty miles northwest of

Saigon. This is the area where the Ho Chi Minh trail ended.15

Cu Chi’s complex

spanned almost 200 miles of tunnels. The construction and design were complex

and meticulous. The tunnel system was comprised of fighting bases with

kitchens, sleeping chambers, conference rooms, training areas, and at deeper

levels, arms factories, store rooms for weapons and rice, wells, and sometimes

even a hospital. There were bomb shelters and even areas where visiting theatre

troops could put on performances to boost the spirits of the VC combatants, just

as visiting American entertainers would do for American troops. Long

communications tunnels connected the underground complexes. Airtight

trapdoors led from level to level, and sections could be sealed off from one

another, limiting the VC’s vulnerability to attack by gas, explosives, and firearms.

There were hidden escape hatches all along the tunnel system. Under fire from

above, the uppermost tunnel might be damaged, but the rest of the system beneath

it would remain unaffected. General Giap foresaw that the enemy would cover

35 | P a g e

the face of his land, so his people must occupy the bowels.16

It was a tried and

tested strategy for the Vietnamese people which had proven successful in the past.

Some rough-sketched blueprints supposedly done by General Westmoreland

depicted entrances to tunnel systems coming up beneath waterways in some areas.

Such ideas were ludicrous, however, since the entrance beneath a waterway

would most likely immediately flood.17

When insurgents were forced to evacuate the tunnels because of fire from

napalm attacks, they merely waited out the burning, returned to their tunnels and

rebuilt. The most serious attack against the Cu Chi tunnel system was Operation

Cedar Falls in 1967, and the damage was not fully repaired until 1970.18

Nevertheless, the most damaging attack against American troops in Vietnam, the

Tet Offensive, was launched one year after that 1967 attack from the very same

tunnel system General Westmoreland had claimed was “destroyed.”

The 25th

Infantry Division of the U.S. Army established a base camp at Cu

Chi. It became the school for tunnel rat training, but each new American strategy

was countered with Vietnamese ingenuity. American units trained dogs to sniff

out VC hidden in the tunnels. In response, VC soldiers began to wash themselves

with the soap Americans left behind at campsites, confusing the dogs’ scent

tracking. The American base at Cu Chi was so large and expensive to keep in

operation that it was called the “tail that wagged the dog.” There were a thousand

civilian Vietnamese who worked on base, and many of these employees were

informants for the Vietcong. When the Americans tried to gas the VC out of

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their tunnels, the VC would seal off the contaminated tunnel with a tree trunk and

go on with their work.19

Although the United States has a long history of successful guerilla

warfare of its own, by the Vietnam conflict U.S. military leaders had forgotten

that fact. The Vietnam War is not the story of a Western power coming in to save

the day, but the story of unprepared U.S. troops coming up against an unseen

enemy in a foreign land with a history of insurgency that dated back half a

millennium.

The military definition of collateral damage is the unintentional or

incidental injury or death of persons, or damage to civilian property during an

attack on a legitimate military objective. Such damage is not unlawful so long as

it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the

attack.20

United States military officials suspect that South Vietnamese forces

continued Agent Orange missions through the end of American involvement in

the war in 1975. It is estimated that Trail Dust deposited Agent Orange over

sixteen percent of the land of South Vietnam, approximately 14 million acres

total.21

The numbers exposed to Agent Orange are staggering, with an estimated

2.4 million Americans and between 2.1 million and 4.8 million Vietnamese22

being affected. Both Vietnamese and Americans suffered the consequential

health effects of exposure.23

To date, the United States government has performed no tests on Army,

Navy or Marine veterans who deployed to Vietnam and only a single 25-year

37 | P a g e

study, conducted by the National Institute of Health, of approximately 1,200 Air

Force veterans exposed. There has been very little data released from that Air

Force study, which evaluated less than one-half of one percent of those who

served in Vietnam. The Ranch Hand study evaluated those who worked in the

U.S.A.F. defoliation program, who each night returned to a base equipped with

showers and clean uniforms, unlike those deployed on the ground. DAV Senior

Vice Commander Hugh McElroy speculated that the health problems that began

for him in Vietnam were not as a result of dermal exposure to liquid Agent

Orange, but began after he ate what he described as a “monkey meat sandwich,”

complete with cockroaches. After eating that sandwich, Hugh said he broke out

in boils. Nearly a half century after the war’s end, the soil, flora, and fauna of

Vietnam are still heavily contaminated with dioxin.24

Even low-level dioxin poisoning weakens the immune system. A dose of

10 nanograms of dioxin per kilogram of body weight inhibited immune

suppression of the influenza virus in a study of the dioxin’s effects on rats,

increasing the death toll. An equal percentage of that amount of dioxin for a

human would be microscopic. Exposure to even microscopic amounts of dioxin

causes health problems. In comparison to other environmental pollutants, TCDD

packs a much more potent punch. There is perhaps a significant connection

between Hugh’s boils and that monkey meat sandwich. The dioxin takes up

residence in the fat cells of exposed animals. The difference between ingesting or

breathing in dioxin and getting dioxin on your skin determines the level of

38 | P a g e

exposure. It will affect you to varying degrees, dependent upon the amount of

dioxin to which one is exposed and the method and extent of exposure.25

While in Vietnam, neither Art nor Joel heard even a whisper of the use of

Agent Orange. Then “I came back and have all these problems,” Art said. Art

worked as a military journalist in Vietnam in 1967-68. From his year of service

as an Army combat photographer in Vietnam, Art has developed “diabetes,

peripheral neuropathy, nerve problems, ischemia.” Art’s health problems,

stemming from Agent Orange exposure, began in 2006.26

“Everything is forty years later,” Joel said. Since he founded the local

DAV chapter, Joel has worked with more than 2,000 veterans. Everybody that he

talked to, he said, followed the same pattern. They are between 57 and 64 years

of age when their symptoms begin. They wake up with a cold one day and are

diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease the next. “Some of my veterans have

children with birth defects,” Joel said. “They had normal children before they

went to Vietnam. The doctor asks, ‘Have you ever been to Vietnam? Red flag.’”

In 2005, Joel was diagnosed with Agent Orange prostate cancer. “I didn’t realize

I’d be fighting another enemy . . . . the enemy is now inside me.” The surgery to

remove the cancerous growth was successful, and today Joel is cancer free. 27

Hugh offered me copies of some of his medical records from the Ranch

Hand study. His June 2002 test schedule for one day beginning at 6 a.m.

consisted of a physical exam, blood draw, dermatology, neurology, another blood

draw, sonogram, psychological examination, chest x-ray, and urine test. There is

no mention of testing for dioxin levels in fat cells. After a week of such testing,

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Hugh is newly diagnosed, in the twentieth year of the study, with logical memory

problems and actinic keratosis on his scalp, along with a few other symptoms of

various maladies (including a Bells palsy symptom of the eye). In his

dermatological exam results, there are a number of abnormalities recorded,

including acneiform lesions and scars and other skin aberrations that are the

symptoms of chloracne, the most common and immediate illness caused by dioxin

poisoning. He has no tympanic membrane left in his right ear. This was most

likely caused by his proximity to very loud machinery while enlisted. He spent

just one year in Vietnam but is a twenty-year service veteran. For their service,

Ranch Hand “Cowboys” got a pin, a patch, and a lifetime of problems. “We are a

proud nation,” Joel insisted emphatically. He paused and shook his head. “But

you know, when you got defoliants, DDT…that’s different.”28

The toxicity of the TCDD dioxin is manifold. The 2,3,7,8-TCDD dioxin

is lipophilic (fat soluble) and is the most dangerous of the 419 members of the

dioxin family. This total includes 210 congeners, which are chemical elements of

the same group, and polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, dioxins derived from

biphenyl and containing hazardous chlorine. Dioxins are the by-product of a

number of different processes— smelting, coal, wood or trash burning, paper

production, and vehicle exhaust. It is common knowledge that breathing in

carbon monoxide is not beneficial to one’s health. It stands to reason that TCDD,

the most toxic member of the dioxin family, would be widely known for its

infamous and notorious nature, but most U.S. citizens haven’t heard of it. The

40 | P a g e

average person remains unaware of the dangers of TCDD; even today, they have a

vague understanding that Agent Orange is dangerous, but they don’t know why.

A TCDD molecule is persistent and lasts an interminable amount of time.

Not only is TCDD hazardous, it is tenacious. Because the dioxin is fat soluble, it

bio-accumulates in the animal population, meaning it accumulates in higher

concentrations as it moves up the food chain. A human’s TCDD dioxin

contamination levels following exposure are higher than would be that of a fish or

a deer. Also due to its bio-accumulatory nature, continuous exposure to TCDD

through the available water or food supply steadily increases dioxin levels.

Recent tests done on the citizens living near “hot spot” zones in Vietnam have

dioxin levels more than 100 times the globally-accepted rate.29

The annual cost of treatment for veterans with Agent Orange-induced

illnesses numbers in the billions. Vietnam-era veterans make up the largest

percentage of veterans filing for compensation—37% of the back-logged

applications—and payments to these veterans have not yet peaked. Payments to

World War I veterans peaked a half century after the war ended. In 2012, the

annual compensation paid out to Vietnam vets totaled $19.7 billion, nearly half of

the $44.4 billion total paid to all veterans that year. The largest percentages of

claims come from those suffering Type II Diabetes, soft-tissue sarcomas, Post-

Traumatic Stress Disorder, ischemia, and hearing loss. In recent years, the claims

for each group have been steadily rising.30

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NOTES 1 Tom Mangold and John Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi (New York, New York: Random

House, 1985), 52. 2 Scott Rutherford, Insight Guides, Vietnam (Singapore, China: Apa Publications GmbH & Co.,

2003), 25-33. 3 Rutherford, Insight, 33-35.

4 Stanley Karnow, Vietnam, A History (New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1984), 204-216.

5 Rutherford, Insight, 46.

6 Ibid, 15-40.

7 Mangold, Tunnels, 49-67.

8 Ibid, 17-19, 20.

9 Art Frierich, interviewed by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 5

th, 2012.

10 Mangold, Tunnels, 20.

11 Ibid, 197.

12 Ibid, 62.

13 Ibid, 49-67.

14 The Ben Cat district and neighboring areas

15 Mangold, Tunnels, 18-19.

16 Ibid, 55.

17 Ibid, 18-19.

18 Ibid, 49-67.

19 Ibid, 162-193.

20 Patrick M. Shaw, “Collateral Damage and the United States Air Force” (master’s thesis, Air

University Maxwell Air Force Base, 1997), 2. 21

The total percentage of land coverage for all herbicide dispersal is 24 percent. 22

Palmer, 172-178. 23

County of San Bernardino Department of Veterans Affairs, “Agent Orange (includes White,

Blue, Purple, & Pink),” Agent Orange, http://hss.sbcounty.gov/va/1-AgentOrange.htm (accessed

April 30, 2012). 24

Allen, Dioxin, 4, 150. 25

Ibid, xvi-xvii. 26

Art Frierich, interviewed by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 5th

, 2012. 27

Joel, Art, and Hugh each developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from their time in Vietnam,

however, which affects them each daily. 28

Joel Jimenez, interview by author, Wichita Falls, TX, June 6th

, 2012. 29

Vietnam Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Comprehensive Assessment of Dioxin

Contamination in Da Nang Airbase and Its Vicinities: Environmental Levels, Human Exposure

and Options for Mitigating Impacts, by Nguyen Hung Minh, Thomas Boivin, Pham Ngoc, and Le

Ke Son, January 29, 2009. 30

Alan Zarembo, “Vietnam veterans' new battle: getting disability compensation,” L.A. Times,

May 11, 2013.

42| P a g e

CHAPTER THREE

Vietnam was as much a laboratory experiment as a war. –John Pilger, Australian

journalist

Operation Trail Dust officially commenced in September 1962 with Agent

Purple, though military records show Purple had been applied in Vietnam since

January of that year.1 In November 1962, crop destruction began with Agent

Blue, trade name Phytar 560 G, the most successful herbicide for that purpose.2

The Department of Defense official policy was to “carefully select ‘crop

destruction targets’” solely of crops grown by the NLF or NVA. The U.S.

Department of Defense cannot control the wind, however, and often defoliant

toxins would drift, sometimes for several miles, before settling. The drift of

herbicides has been shown to persist for up to 22 miles away from the spray site.

A pact made that same year assigned ownership of the herbicides to South

Vietnam (the Republic of Vietnam or RVN) once the chemicals entered

Vietnamese territory. Vietnamese personnel unloaded and transported the drums

and then pumped the chemicals from the drums to aircraft storage tanks. It was

U.S. policy that American troops were merely assisting the RVN in its herbicide

program. The transfer of ownership further complicated the already lax system of

U.S.AF record-keeping and disposal.3

Between 1962 and 1967, the U.S. military used Agent Blue—and to a

lesser extent other herbicides—to douse more than 1.5 million acres, destroying

nearly a quarter of a million acres of crops in South Vietnam.4 “Farmgate,” a

crop destruction program within Trail Dust, paired U.S. air crews with ARVN

soldiers. Each U.S. aircraft used in Farmgate was camouflaged with ARVN

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markings and carried a Vietnamese crew member. Despite dumping more than a

million gallons of various toxins on agricultural lands, Farmgate and other crop

destruction programs failed to deprive the enemy of a food supply. The VC foot

soldiers took food from civilian communities to support themselves. Often,

villagers would willingly help the insurgency. Many viewed the conflict as a

grassroots national army fighting to protect the people and the nation from foreign

invaders. The longer U.S. action in Vietnam persisted, the stronger the resistance

to U.S. presence grew. Farmgate managed to destroy the livelihood and food

source of a large civilian population and expose them to a dangerous pollutant,

but it did not hinder the Viet Cong.5

Ninety-five percent of the herbicides sprayed over Vietnam were

dispensed under the umbrella of the U.S.A.F.-conducted Operation Ranch Hand.6

Field testing had determined Agent Orange to be the most desirable and

economical choice for the defoliation program, and Ranch Hand began when Trail

Dust began. The U.S. employed Agent Orange in areas around military bases and

in heavy combat zones to reduce the vegetation and thus limit the effectiveness of

NVA and NLF forces. Priority hotspots of contamination include former U.S.

military bases where the herbicide was loaded, stored, and transferred: Phu Cat,

Danang, and Bien Hoa. Another large base was Tan Son Nhat, where Hugh was

stationed during his year in Vietnam. A sign above the door at Ranch Hand

headquarters read, “Only you can prevent forests.” Agent Orange served two

purposes—to reduce the jungle canopy and mangroves and to ease troops’ ground

maneuvers by thinning out or destroying the tall grasses. More specifically, the

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herbicides targeted rubber trees, which provided excellent cover for insurgent

forces. After 1965, the government-contracted manufacturers were ordered to

cease production on Agents Purple, Pink and Green to focus solely on the

development of Agent Orange.7

In early 1966, issues arose in the chemical market that led to a shortage of

the ingredients required for Agent Orange. Manufacturers produced insufficient

quantities to satisfy U.S. military demand. The stock supply for missions

requiring Agent Orange thus began to be supplemented with Agent White. This

substitute was less than ideal for defoliation purposes because it required several

weeks to work, but it was readily available when Agent Orange was in short

supply. From 1966 to 1971, the program dispersed more than 5.4 million gallons

of Agent White. Agents Pink and Purple possessed the highest concentrations of

the dioxin. When the production of Agent Orange decreased, it was not

uncommon for leftover Agent Purple to be put into Agent Orange barrels.

Between 1962 and 1965, over 500,000 gallons of Agent Purple were used. 8

In addition to the recorded dispersal of millions of gallons of herbicides, a

large quantity of herbicides procured from manufacturers went missing. More

than 109,000 gallons of Agent Pink remained unaccounted for in military records.

It is unknown whether any of this “lost” Agent Pink was used in Trail Dust.

There is military documentation of the employment of agents Pink and Purple

between 1961 and 1965, but these records do not include those “lost” gallons of

Pink. Trail Dust employed lesser amounts of these two agents, yet it is likely that

their higher TCDD contamination accounted for a larger percentage of the total

45| P a g e

dioxin deposited.9 Almost 600,000 gallons of Pink and Purple were sprayed on

the jungle cover of South Vietnam, more than doubling the total amount of dioxin

deposited.

Operation Ranch Hand has gained notoriety in history due to the infamous

chemicals associated with it, but the program had a meek and insignificant

beginning with just three defoliant planes. At its peak, there were just thirty-three

aircraft operating under Ranch Hand. The typical operating force at any given

time was approximately twenty planes, all outdated. Each crew chief, Hugh

among them, flew thousands of sorties. In total, Ranch Hand crews blanketed

twenty-four percent of South Vietnam with herbicides.10

C-123 fixed-wing aircraft carried out aerial herbicide application for both

defoliation and crop destruction missions. The 1,000-gallon tank-equipped MC-1

spray systems on the C-123s were capable of depositing three gallons per acre in

240-foot wide swaths. The planes traveled at 130 knots and an optimum height of

150 feet for most effective dispersal. In 1966, all C-123 upgraded from the MC-1

system to the A/A45Y-1 modular spray system designed for internal carriage in

cargo planes.11

In some instances, flight crews on planes not equipped with spray

systems, and running under time constraints, would dispense defoliant the old-

fashioned way. They opened forward side doors and lowered the rear ramp.

Then crew members chopped holes in drums with fire axes and dumped them

over on the deck near the rear ramp. The vortex sucked the chemical out, creating

its own spray. The spray often swirled back into the aircraft, drenching the flight

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crew. Although C-123 pilots were fairly well protected from exposure during

spray missions, flight crews were usually soaked in the chemical.

The United States Air Force developed the F-4D/PAU-7B (modified

TMU-28) defoliant spray tank to house the chemicals for application. If

incompatible defoliants mixed, such as Blue and White, they formed a substance

called a precipitate that clogged the system and tanks. A solvent system

developed to flush out and wash the tanks dissolved precipitates and prepared

tanks for their next use. Due to the toxic nature of the chemicals used, the Air

Force systemized additional cleaning techniques for the surface of contaminated

planes.12

For smaller scale herbicide missions, the military employed trucks,

backpack tanks, boats and helicopters. The Army also converted Bell UH-1H

Huey helicopters into sprayers for the Agent Orange chemical. A rig consisted of

a deck-mounted 200-gallon tank fixture which took up the entire cargo

compartment. This fixture supported spray booms, which extended on either side

to approximately three-quarters of the rotor-blade spin. The booms were powered

by a wind-driven pump with a 24-inch-diameter four-bladed propeller. The

helicopter traveled as fast as possible, about 75-80 knots, to dispense the

chemical. Bell AG-1 Cobra gunships also were equipped with spray systems for

Agent Orange dispersal. When the plane turned at the end of each pass, and when

the wind changed direction, waves of defoliant drifted into the chopper and

doused the flight crew. One flight crew would fly sometimes four sorties a day

and dispense about 1,600 gallons of Agent Orange.13

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Ground troops armed with backpack tanks (typically with a 3-gallon

capacity) and hand-sprayers drenched low-level vegetation. The buffalo turbine

was a trailer-mounted spray system that dispensed spray at a speed of up to 240

km per hour and was employed for roadside and perimeter application. The U.S.

Navy and Coast Guard equipped boats with herbicide dispersal systems, but no

detailed list of the types or names of river boats or other craft employed in

herbicide missions was readily accessible. The Department of Veterans Affairs

states that any boats which operated on the inland waterways or had brief visits

ashore should be presumed to have been exposed to herbicides, including but not

limited to all boats of the Mobile Riverine Force, Inshore Fire Support (ISF), and

Division 93.14

Authorization for these lower-level herbicide missions only

required the “go-ahead” from a unit commander or senior advisor. Small-scale

herbicide deployment was not considered a significant risk for troops. Officials

considered such missions so obvious and uncontroversial that little to no records

were kept of dispersal.15

Often, defoliant-loaded C-123s would be followed by cargo planes

carrying barrels of oil and gasoline. These cargo planes dropped their loads on

defoliant-drenched areas, and then attack aircraft equipped with napalm and

incendiary bombs lit it ablaze. Although the fire following the earlier British

defoliation program in Waturi proved successful in achieving their ultimate goal,

the “disperse and ignite” tactic adopted by U.S. forces in Vietnam was not as

effective.

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In 1965, General William Westmoreland, the commander of U.S. forces in

Vietnam from 1964 through 1968, attempted to deforest and burn the “Iron

Triangle,” an insurgent sanctuary twenty miles north of Saigon. The ignition of

the chemical defoliants by napalm and bombing caused a huge fire. The intense

heat of the flames triggered a downpour, which doused the fire before it could

burn out and destroy the enemy hidden in underground tunnels. Westmoreland

had somewhat more success when he employed this tactic later the same year

against a number of villages that he suspected were supporting insurgents,16

but

this success was measured in total destruction of villages and jungle rather than

elimination of opposition forces.

Westmoreland’s autobiography of Vietnam totals more than 425 pages,

including glossary and index. But his only comment concerning the defoliation

program was that defoliants “were a major factor in reducing the number of

ambushes that were long so costly in American and South Vietnamese lives.”17

He failed to include any supportive evidence for that claim. He did not

sufficiently answer “why?” for the millions of American veterans poisoned by

TCDD and who have seen its effects in themselves, their children, and their

grandchildren.

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NOTES 1 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Herbicide Tests and Storage in the U.S,” Military

Exposures, http://www.publichealth.va.gov (accessed May 6, 2012). 2 Richard Christian, Jeanne Mager, Steven D. Stellman, Carrie Tomasallo, and Tracy Weber, “The

extent and patterns of Usage of Agent Orange and other herbicides in Vietnam,” Nature, vol. 422,

(2003), 681. 3 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Herbicide Tests and Storage in the U.S,” Military

Exposures, http://www.publichealth.va.gov (accessed May 6, 2012). 4 Robert Leckie. The Wars of America. (Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 1998), 970, 973, 981,

985.

The Vietnam Center and Archive, Vietnam Archive Agent Orange Resources,

http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu (accessed April 21, 2012). 5 Jefferson D. Reynolds. “Collateral Damage on the 21

st Century Battlefield: Enemy Exploitation

of the Law of Armed Conflict, and the Struggle for a Moral High Ground,” The Air Force Law

Review (2005), 17-18. 6 Christian, “Patterns of Usage of Agent Orange,” 681.

7 House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the global environment, Committee on Foreign

Affairs, Agent Orange: What Efforts Are Being Made to Address The Continuing Impact of Dioxin

In Vietnam? 111th Cong., 1st sess., June 4, 2009, 7, 18.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Facts about Herbicides.” 8 Christian, “Patterns of Usage of Agent Orange,” 681.

9 Ibid.

10 Walter J. Boyne, “Ranch Hand.” Air Force Magazine, August 2000. www.voteview.com

(accessed May 21, 2013). 11

Committee on the Assessment of Wartime Exposure to Herbicides in Vietnam, Institute of

Medicine (U.S.), Characterizing Exposure of Veterans to Agent Orange and Other Herbicides,

April 1, 1997; 20-21, http://books.google.com (accessed May 7, 2012). 12

G.S. Kotchman, Jr. 1st Lt. U.S.AF, A.L. Young 1

st Lt. U.S.AF, and N.A.Hamme, Flushing

Techniques For Defoliant Spray Tanks, Technical Notes, AFATL-TN-7Q-1, June 1970

http://www.nal.U.S.da.gov/speccoll/findaids/agentorange/text/00167.pdf (accessed May 6, 2012). 13

Tony Spletstoser, 114th Aviation Company Association Archive, “Defoliation was meant to

save lives by denying the enemy cover. But for some the 'cure' was worse than the problem.”

Archive,

http://www.114thaviationcompany.com/StoryArchive/AgentOrange.htm (accessed May 7, 2012). 14

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “U.S. Navy and Coast Guard Ships,” Public Health,

http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/shiplist/index.asp#find (accessed May 7,

2012). 15

Committee on the Assessment of Wartime Exposure to Herbicides in Vietnam, Characterizing

Exposure, 20-21. 16

Leckie, 981, 995. 17

William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier Reports (New York, New York: Dell Publishing, January

1976), 280-81.

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CHAPTER FOUR

We can say that war does not end when the bombs have stopped falling and the

fighting has finished. Its devastating aftermath continues long after on the land

and in the minds and bodies of people.1—Mr. Vo Quy, professor of

environmental studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi

The DoD contracted several manufacturers to produce the toxic herbicides

used in South Vietnam between 1962 and 1970. To date, not one of those

companies has publicly admitted that the herbicides it produced for Vietnam

caused health problems in individuals exposed to them. The United States legal

system granted protection to the chemical companies, citing that the government

defense contract shielded them from claims of liability. The U.S. Department of

Veterans Affairs acknowledges that herbicides used in Vietnam could be linked to

a variety of cancers. It states that any Vietnam veterans “who served in Vietnam

between 1962 and 1975, regardless of time” and those “who served aboard

smaller river patrol and swift boats that operate on inland waterways” are eligible

for benefits due to Agent Orange exposure.2

In the U.S., there are products recalled from the market when there is

evidence that the product is faulty or dangerous. It seems contradictory then that

dioxin-based health problems developed by people after exposure to herbicides

would not lead U.S. business and government to reevaluate the chemicals it

employs. As early as 1872, production of TCDD was first recorded at a German

laboratory. The employees who had inadvertently produced the dioxin were

hospitalized.3 By the late 1940s, representatives of the contracted chemical

manufacturers had communicated to the U.S. government the dangers of exposure

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to production workers. Before the U.S. became entangled in Vietnam, chemical

companies that were producing Agent Orange and other herbicides under

government contract were aware that the chemicals’ synthesis produced TCDD.

In March 1949, an explosion at the Monsanto chemical plant in Nitro, West

Virginia exposed 77 workers to dioxin. Those contaminated developed a variety

of problems, including chloracne, metabolic disturbances, fatigue, nausea and

vomiting, headaches, insomnia and sexual impotence.

German scientist Dr. Karl Schulz determined in 1953 that chloracne was a

strong indicator of high levels of dioxin exposure. His conclusion was based

upon studies of exposed laboratory workers, including that of the Nitro plant

employees. The results of this study were not accurate, however, because

Monsanto scientists manipulated the study’s results.4 To verify his findings,

Schulz experimented on himself. He applied TCDD powder to the skin on his

arm to determine if it would cause chloracne, as he suspected it would. It did.5

By the mid-1950s, Germany’s BASF chemical company had discovered

how to lessen dioxin production by reducing the amount of solvent used during

synthesis and sold this information to Dow Chemical and Monsanto. If chemicals

were produced at lower temperatures and with less solvent, it would limit dioxin

production and produce a safer herbicide.6 Dow took this information and ran

with it, changing their processing system to lessen dioxin production. Monsanto

made no change in its chlorophenol production.7

As for the military personnel directly in charge of defoliation contracts,

they were not notified of the dangers of dioxin until 1967, according to later

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lawsuit depositions. In a 1988 letter to Senator Tom Daschle, however, Dr. James

Clary, former scientist with the Chemical Weapons department of the U.S.A.F.

Armament Development Laboratory, wrote that military officials knew their

herbicides were contaminated by dioxin as early as the 1960s. Additionally, they

were aware that military grade herbicides had higher dioxin contamination than

U.S. domestic agricultural grade herbicides.8

In September 1968, the conclusive results of the government-sponsored

Bionetics Study on the “long-term health effects of pesticides” were submitted to

the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a division of the National Institutes of Health.

The study determined a link between exposure to the chemical 2,4,5-T and birth

defects in mice. Government researchers conducted further analysis of the

study’s data early the next year but their findings did not lead to any modification

of the defoliation operation in Vietnam. Only when the study’s results went public

the following October did the government limit the use of herbicides to areas

away from human populations.9

In 1969, the United Nations General Assembly was asked to determine

whether the use of defoliants constituted a violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol.

The United States representatives stated that, because chemical herbicides had not

yet been developed in 1925 and had thus not been specifically named in the

Protocol, their use was not a violation. Congress and the Secretary of State

supported this stance. Congress never denied funding for herbicide production.

Due to a lack of supply of 2,4,5-T and continued public pressure, the Department

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of Defense suspended the use of Agent Orange in April 1970, but the defoliation

program continued with agents White and Blue until January 1971.10

Just two years after the termination of Operation Trail Dust in Vietnam, a

Swedish oncologist, Dr. Lennart Hardell, encountered a patient with pancreatic

cancer who had spent several summers spraying a 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D mixture of

chlorophenol herbicides on hardwoods in the forests of northern Sweden. An

alarm went off. Hardell contacted a colleague in the Swedish EPA for more

information on herbicides. Through his research, he learned that the two

chemicals with which his patient had worked were contaminated with TCDD.

When Hardell requested information on the manufacture of the chemicals, the

chemical industry refused to assist him. Three years later, Hardell had an influx

of nine new oncology patients, all forestry workers with soft-tissue sarcomas.

Comparing his patients’ results with those of another Swedish doctor, Professor

Olav Axelson, he saw similarities. A subsequent case study organized by

Professor Axelson and Dr. Hardell showed there was a “six-fold increase” in the

incidence of soft tissue sarcoma among the study’s subjects. He and another

colleague reproduced the study elsewhere with the same results. This information

was received with hostility by the forestry union and the chemical industry. In

1979, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency requested that Hardell and

his colleagues deny their study’s findings if contacted by media. The reports of

the danger of dioxin exposure were coming in from around the world, including

the United States, Vietnam, Australia, and New Zealand, but the chemical

companies were fighting back. They issued press releases filled with double-talk

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and doubt. The insidious proliferation of such denials in the mainstream media

buoyed the chemical manufacture of it even as new studies emerged verifying the

cancerous nature of the toxins.11

A 1984 settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought against the chemical

companies by a group of Vietnam veterans awarded $180 million to the veterans

but officially ruled that those companies “did not have to accept blame for any

injuries that occurred as a result of Agent Orange.”12

The United States

government was not an involved party in this lawsuit. In doing so, Monsanto and

Dow paid millions out-of-pocket to victims of exposure to the chemicals with

which both companies continue to work today in domestic U.S. herbicide

production.

Monsanto damaged its reputation with its involvement in the Vietnam

War. After the war, the devastating effects of herbicide exposure—to Vietnamese

nationals, to the ecosystem of Vietnam and to U.S. veterans—began to emerge.

Company’s officials defend their role in Vietnam by claiming that Monsanto

provided a government and military service to “save the lives of U.S. and allied

soldiers.”13

The company lays the blame for the use and development of Agent

Orange entirely at the feet of the U.S. government. Monsanto, the company

website asserts, was just one of seven corporations contracted to synthesize

herbicides for war purposes. The remaining six companies are as follows:

Diamond Shamrock, Dow Chemical, T-H Agricultural & Nutrition Company,

Uniroyal Inc., Hercules, and Thompson Chemicals Corporation. Monsanto’s

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website states that the formulations for herbicide production were given to

Monsanto by the government and that the two chemicals in Agent Orange, 2,4-D

and 2,4,5-T, had been used “without incident” in the U.S. since the 1940s. The

disclaimer ends “Monsanto is now primarily a seed and agricultural products

company” and “we believe that the adverse consequences alleged to have arisen

out of the Vietnam War, including the use of Agent Orange, should be resolved

by the governments that were involved.”14

Simple logic states that the

government that commissioned and purchased chemicals for the purpose of use in

combat zones cannot be trusted to mitigate a case against itself. The outcome

would hardly be fair to the plaintiff.

A 1990 lawsuit brought by veterans’ groups accused federal scientists of

canceling a congressionally-mandated study of the effects of Agent Orange. The

proposed four-year $43 million dollar study would have examined the connection

between herbicide exposure in Vietnam and the health problems of Vietnam

veterans.

In 2004, the EPA was forced by a Freedom of Information Act request to

release their findings from tests of U.S. domestic herbicide samples. The results

show that two in every eight samples of 2,4-D tested contained detectable

amounts of TCDD. 15

Another EPA study’s findings concluded that there are

more than twenty inactive ingredients in 2,4-D that pose health concerns. These

chemicals are not identified on labels and are not included in health and safety

testing. The side effects of exposure to these hidden ingredients include a wide

variety of ailments—headache, skin and eye irritation, coughing, diarrhea, muscle

57 | P a g e

weakness, anemia, reduced fertility, cancer, cell damage, inhibited immune

system, genetic damage, blood, liver, and kidney toxicity, and lung fibrosis.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer determined that 2,4-D

and all other phenoxy herbicides are possibly carcinogenic. Results from a

variety of tests and studies show that the herbicides caused genetic damage and

affected hormones in lab animals and people exposed to it, as well as causing

genetic damage to both human and plant cells.16

The EPA, however, insists that

there is not enough data to support 2,4-D’s classification as a carcinogen. The

U.S. Geological Survey reports that 2,4-D is detectable in inland waterways and

in the air, and the National Pesticide Information Center acknowledges the

toxicity of 2,4-D to fish and other wildlife.

In 2008, the United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit upheld the

lower district court’s decision in the case Vietnam Association for Victims of

Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co. Plaintiffs in the case were members

of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange and other Vietnamese

nationals. The Defendants in Vietnam consisted of a verifiable Who’s Who of big

name agricultural, marketing and chemical companies including most notably

Monsanto, Diamond Shamrock, Dow Chemical, and Valero.17

Plaintiffs alleged

the defendants violated international law by producing a chemical responsible for

inflicting harm on millions of innocent civilians of a foreign nation.18

The first problematic indications of Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam

arose with an extraordinarily high percentage of birth defects and other

reproductive issues in hotspot areas. A rising number of congenital malformation,

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infant mortality, “child monsters,” premature births, and miscarriage in the

affected regions raised alarm. Such birth defects occurred in the offspring of

people who had previously fathered healthy children.19

Operation Trail Dust affected not only the population but also the

ecological system of Vietnam. The long-term impact of the defoliation program

upset the nutrient balance of the soil, poisoned the wildlife, destroyed river basins,

and, some contend, even changed the climate. Herbicides destroyed

approximately 5 million of the 14 million acres of forest sprayed. The

consequences of this loss are manifold. Defoliant application destroyed more

than 300,000 acres of mangroves, which comprised approximately 40 percent of

the coastal ecosystem of Vietnam. More specifically, it killed much of the

dominant mangrove species, Rhizophora apiculata, which led to erosion of

coastal land. The lack of a renewable source of wood coupled with the slow

regeneration of mangroves caused great economic loss. In these areas, mangroves

were replaced with tussock grass, bamboo, and other less useful species of trees.

During the dry season, the tussock easily caught fire. The more often it burned,

the longer it took for the land to reforest. In the absence of foliage, weeds

dominated the landscape. A study by the Academy of Sciences estimated that

recovery from defoliant damage could take as long as a century or more. The

erosion of soil-binding vegetation decreased the amount of fertile soil. Residual

toxic byproducts of defoliants remained in the soil for several years, inhibiting

new plant growth, hindering the development of future crops and contributing to

the socioeconomic problems of malnutrition and economic stagnation.

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Such widespread defoliation degraded biological diversity. The

disappearance of the mangroves and other native plants meant the disappearance

of fostering habitats for indigenous animals. Grasslands were a poor substitute

for multi-layered tropical forests, and many bird and mammal species declined

dramatically. Water buffalo, wild goat, boar, and deer were much less common.

The population of coastal birds, fish, and crustaceans likewise suffered drastic

decline as their habitat was destroyed. Flooding caused by the disappearance of

vegetation also degraded twenty-eight river basins, leading to great loss. The

decimation of so much forest is said to have contributed to a decline in the post-

war off-shore fishery of South Vietnam.20

Agent Orange is a somewhat innocuous name for an insidious and lethal

poison. The formula for Agent Orange contained more or less equal amounts of

2,4-D and 2,4,5-T.21

TCDD, a useless and toxic by-product created during the

synthesis of both 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, is the most toxic of the dioxin family.

Dioxins are chemicals produced as a result of diesel exhaust, chemical

manufacturing, burning, and other processes. The temperature at which synthesis

occurs and the chemical combination used determines the amount of TCDD

dioxin by-product generated.

Retired U.S.A.F. Master Sergeant Tom Fitzgerald served in Vietnam.

Fitzgerald said he found very little in his personal records of his tour in Vietnam

about the success of Agent Orange. Most of the information that he located was

related to the health issues of Agent Orange exposure. “Many of my fellow crew

members have past [sic] because of its effects,” he wrote. “Each immune system

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was effected [sic] different. I was not in the jungle to experience it's [sic] effects

but did see it being sprayed by the C-123 Ranch Hand aircraft.”22

There still has

not been an in-depth study conducted of Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent

Orange. The government’s official position is that it is impossible to draw a direct

correlation between Agent Orange exposure and the onset of cancer or other

disease. The cost of a single blood dioxin test is $1,000. Such a costly study

would be neither cost-effective nor definitive. Testing dioxin levels in body fat,

the most accurate measure of dioxin accumulation in the human body, has never

been officially considered.23

Exposure to dioxin causes cell mutation, an alteration of hormones and in

the early stages of development, severe growth effects. Not until 1997 did the

World Health Organization label TCDD a carcinogen. Three years later, the

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated that dioxins, particularly the

TCDD dioxin, were “animal toxicants with potential to cause widespread human

health effects.” In addition to reproductive problems, TCDD exposure is believed

to cause depression of the immune system, chloracne, AL Amyloidosis, Diabetes

Mellitus Type 2, Ischemic Heart Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Acute and

Subacute Peripheral Neuropathy, Porphyria Cutanea Tarda, amyotrophic lateral

sclerosis (ALS), and a variety of cancers, including Chronic B-cell Leukemias,

Hodgkin’s Disease, Multiple Myeloma, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Prostate

Cancer, Respiratory Cancers such as cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and

bronchus., and Soft Tissue Sarcomas.24

These diseases include only those

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recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Vietnamese Red Cross’s

list of Agent Orange-induced illnesses is much longer.

The amount of TCDD in each batch of Agent Orange varied widely

depending on the manufacturer, batch number, and synthesis of each production

run. The most up-to-date estimate of the average percentage of TCDD contained

in Agent Orange is 13 ppm (parts per million, used to describe the concentration

of something in water or soil).25

Both direct and indirect exposure caused unintended consequences in

Vietnamese nationals. The Congressional Research Service reported

“Vietnamese advocacy groups claim that there are over 3 million Vietnamese

suffering from serious health problems caused by exposure to the dioxin in Agent

Orange.’’ TCDD bonds to animal tissue as well as human. The dioxin is fat and

oil-soluble (able to dissolve in fat and oil; the levels of it then build because they

are not shed by the body) and “bio-accumulates.” A human had a higher

concentration than an animal or a plant. Four decades after the war in Vietnam

blood dioxin levels of residents of the Da Nang area tested 100 times higher than

“globally-accepted levels.” Fish is a staple of the Vietnamese diet and a “known

conduit of dioxin.” It “is suspected as the main contributor of dioxin.” The dioxin

is transmitted during conception and through breast milk. 26

While there is some

dispute as to which health problems are caused by exposure, a list of conditions

cited by the Vietnamese Red Cross and the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs

“overlap, indicating some agreement.”27

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The health effects and casualties of dioxin exposure are far-reaching.

Even low concentrations of the dioxin have seriously affected a person’s

reproductive system. It can be inhaled (in dust, fumes or vapors), absorbed

through dermal contact, or ingested by mouth. “Less than two millionths of an

ounce [of dioxin] will kill a mouse.” It is an insidious invader. The protein

molecules (receptors) contained in cell membranes function as transport vehicles

to move substances from outside the cell into the cell’s center, or nucleus. Dioxin

attaches itself to those transports and hitches a ride directly into the heart of the

cell where it alters the natural process of the cell.

The media communicates that there is some debate in the scientific

community and political arena over whether Agent Orange caused subsequent

health problems in those exposed. Scientists across the globe acknowledge the

danger of exposure to a number of biocides, including specifically 2,4,5-T and

2,4-D. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the EPA classified TCDD as

the most toxic substance produced by man. Tests of U.S. commercial-grade and

domestic-use 2,4-D-based herbicides showed measurable levels of dioxin in two

out of every eight samples.

The U.S. government has continually refused to assume responsibility for

knowingly exposing millions to a dangerous chemical, but the policy of the U.S.

Association of Veterans Affairs holds that Americans who deployed on the

ground or inland waterways of Vietnam were exposed and are entitled to benefits

determined by their percentage of disability. The chemicals in Agent Orange are

63 | P a g e

classified as human carcinogens by the World Health Organization and the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).28

Today, TCDD is classified as a carcinogen by the EPA and the WHO.

Exposure can cause birth defects in the children of those affected. The most

common of TCDD-induced afflictions is chloracne, a skin disease resembling

severe acne, but there are a host of others including rashes, liver damage,

hormonal changes, and cancer.29

In 2002, a Memorandum of Understanding representing the governments

of Vietnam and the United States allowed the scientific community of both

nations to participate in joint research on Agent Orange and the negative effects,

if any, of Agent Orange on those people and environments exposed to it. In

addition, the Memorandum provided funding for treatment and to reverse

environmental damage. This is considered more a gesture of good will and

conciliatory action on behalf of the U.S. than an admission of legal responsibility

to provide funding for any damage inflicted by the use of Agent Orange.30

64 | P a g e

NOTES 1 House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the global environment, Agent Orange, 36-37.

2 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. “Agent Orange Registry Health Exam for Veterans.”

Public Health. June 20, 2012. http://www.publichealth.va.gov (Accessed March 15, 2012). 3 J.I Cooper, Thomas Kuehne, Thomas Kühne, and Valery P. Polischuk, Virus. Diseases and Crop

Biosecurity (Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2006), 4-6. 4 Allen, Dioxin, 24.

5 Ibid, 17-19.

6 Jason Grotto and Tim Jones, “Agent Orange's lethal legacy: Defoliants more dangerous than they

had to be.” Chicago Tribune, December 17, 2009; http://www.chicagotribune.com (accessed April

16, 2013). 7 Allen, Dioxin, 30.

8 Greer, 155-56.

Grotto, ibid. 9 Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co., 05 1953 cv (2d

Cir. 2008), 14. 10

Grotto, ibid. 11

Allen, Dioxin, 30-37. 12

Greer, 155-56. 13

Monsanto Company, “Agent Orange: Background on Monsanto’s Involvement,” News & Views,

http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/agent-orange-background-monsanto-

involvement.aspx (accessed November 21, 2012). 14

Ibid. 15

Commission on Life Sciences, “Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children,” National

Institute of Health, http://www.nap.edu/ (accessed December 15, 2012). 16

Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides (NCAP), 10-15. 17

National Pesticide Information Center, “2,4-D: General Fact Sheet,” Pesticides (2012), 1-3,

http://www.npic.orst.edu/factsheets/24Dgen.pdf (accessed December 2, 2012).

Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin v. Dow Chemical Co., 05 1953 cv (2d

Cir. 2008), 1-2. 18

Vietnam Association v. Dow Chemical, 5-6. 19

Todd Gitlin. “My Vietnam,” Chronicle Of Higher Education 57, no. 29: (2011): B20, Religion

and Philosophy Collection http://www.EBSCOhost.com (accessed April 20, 2012). 20

House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the global environment, Agent Orange, 36-37.

JRank Science & Philosophy, “Agent Orange-Agent Orange Defoliation Damage,”

http://science.jrank.org/pages/119/Agent-Orange-Agent-Orange-defoliation-

damage.html#ixzz1uCHXk1Y1 (accessed May 3, 2012). 21

2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin. 22

Tom Fitzgerald, interviewed by author, Wichita Falls, TX, April 23, 2012. 23

Palmer, 182-86. 24

Ibid, 172-78.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Veterans Diseases Associated with Agent Orange,”

Military Exposures, http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/diseases.asp (accessed

April 30, 2012). 25

Allen, Dioxin, 29. 26

Ibid, 172-78. 27

House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the global environment, Agent Orange, 7, 18.

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Facts About Herbicides.” 28

House Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the global environment, Agent Orange, 1-2.

Palmer, 172-178. 29

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. "Chlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins (CDDs),”

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Toxicology and Environmental

Medicine ToxFAQs (1999) http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts104.pdf (accessed January 7, 2012).

65 | P a g e

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, “Facts About Herbicides,” Public Health (2012),

http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/basics.asp (accessed December 2, 2012). 30

Vietnam Association v Dow Chemical, 7-16.

66 | P a g e

CONCLUSION

People know what they do;

they frequently know why they do what they do;

but what they don’t know

is what they do does.

-Michel Foucault-

What makes a man a hero? A hero could be anyone. Most of the

heroes who have walked this earth are born and die in global anonymity.

You will never know their names. The doctor who risked his life over and

over again to perform brain surgery in a tiny subterranean operating

theatre or standing waist-deep in a rice paddy with a headlamp and

makeshift surgical tools, trying to save a man’s life while helicopters

whirred overhead—he is a hero. The soldier who dove in front of a bullet

for his countryman whose name he didn’t even know—he is a hero. The

man who traveled across an ocean to fight a war he didn’t start—he is a

hero. In the United States today, our entertainment media portrays our

soldiers as national champions. Whether servicemen or women are

involuntarily drafted or proud to volunteer, they are brave warriors. Those

individuals are willing to do what the civilian is not—sign on the dotted

line and risk being put in the line of fire for his or her country. Veterans

returning home from Vietnam who were spit at and called “baby killers,”

veterans who returned home from war to a parade, veterans who came

home unconscious or missing limbs, veterans who never went to war but

who served nonetheless—they are all heroes, because any one of those

67 | P a g e

untraveled and naïve youths could get sent across an ocean to a foreign

land and unfamiliar territory, where he or she will be ordered to kill people

they have never met, who speak a language they cannot understand, in a

war they did not choose and at the risk of being maimed, murdered, or

accidentally killed. Vietnam veterans returning home from war were

greeted with hostile accusations, shouldering the blame for a war that they

did not cause. In hindsight and in history books, these men are seen as

heroes, yet the care afforded these heroes is sorely lacking. The after-

service care for our veterans falls to the Department of Veterans Affairs—

it’s why it was created. Unfortunately, the men in the suits who make the

decisions that determine who lives and who dies consistently fail the men

in the boots, on the ground, fighting the wars the “suits” are starting.

The Vietnam-era veterans interviewed for this study each struggle

with personal demons from combat, but there is a consensus. Returning

home to such a hostile daily social climate was a slap in the face. Decades

later, many are just beginning to talk about their experiences in war.

When the U.S. government chose a form of warfare that they knew

to be dangerous to their own troops, they knowingly put these heroes at

risk. At least the duplicitous nature of the chemical industry makes

sense—being honest about the toxicity of their product would certainly

gouge their sales. It is this author’s opinion that Monsanto, Dow and the

like have engineered a system to maximize profit despite any potential

hazard to environment and disregarding any harm to the population. They

68 | P a g e

employ individuals who excel in media manipulation and disinformation

in order to protect their assets.

The government’s deliberate poisoning of its own troops, however,

makes no sense at all. The ultimate outcome for the U.S. in Vietnam was

voluntary withdrawal. There are historians who claim the Vietnam War

might have been a political failure for the U.S. but was a military victory.

In hindsight, it is difficult to see the Vietnam War as a U.S. victory. The

intelligence behind the decision to use herbicides as means of tactical

support is easy to question. The running annual cost of benefits paid out

to Vietnam veterans is nearly $20 billion and has not yet peaked. Multiple

generations have been damaged by dioxin exposure. Veterans have soft

tissue sarcomas, chloracne, diabetes, heart disease, tremors, nerve

problems, and reproductive problems caused by dioxin poisoning. Those

exposed have children born post-Vietnam who are deformed, are missing

limbs, are blind or possess some other birth defect. Sometimes, the

dioxin-born problems skip a generation and manifest themselves in the

grandchildren of Vietnam veterans in the form of either mental or physical

disability or deformity.

American political and military officials gave no forethought of the

possible consequences of the use of herbicides in Vietnam. The mistakes

of Vietnam were manifold. The officials with the authority to declare war

failed to consult the intelligence branch of the government regarding

Vietnam. They underestimated their opponent. They assumed they had

69 | P a g e

nothing new to learn, and they used the battlefield as a testing ground for a

variety of new weaponry and tools of war. U.S. military command made

the decision to test combat herbicides in Vietnam, fully aware that those

chemicals could injure any person exposed, including American soldiers.

Manufacturers, government officials, military commanders and employees

of the companies contracted for production knew the danger of dioxin

exposure. The use of herbicides brought much of Vietnam’s lush

landscape to ruin, and put into place a cycle of perpetual poisoning which

continues today. U.S. government officials maintain and federal courts

affirm that the government has no legal requirement to pay reparations to

the citizens or government of Vietnam. The US court system protects the

chemical companies from liability because they were government-

contracted, and there has been very little research done to determine the

damage done to U.S. personnel who were exposed to those chemicals.

The collateral damage incurred is considered lawful.

The defoliant campaign employed in Vietnam left in its wake a

population of discontents with idle hands and a lot of anger. A rainbow of

herbicide rained down on the nation and poisoned it, destroying vegetation

and damaging the environment, adversely affecting millions of people.

Operation Trail Dust intended to hinder opposition forces but instead

buoyed the insurgency. Former Secretary of State Robert McNamara

wrote in his memoir of his understanding of Vietnam:

70 | P a g e

“We underestimated the power of nationalism to motivate a people

to fight and die for their beliefs and values—and we continue to do

so today in many parts of the world.”

Sun Tzu’s work The Art of War is a well-known compendium on

warfare. Major maxims emphasized by the author are to avoid battle if at

all possible and in the event of upcoming battle to know one’s enemy.

The US government failed in both in regards to Vietnam. Far worse was

the military decision to employ chemical environmental weapons that

were toxic to both plant and animal life. The policy makers behind war

experience battle through detailed damage reports and body counts

prepared in exacting language while the warriors of the war live it, in

blood and sweat and tears. From the American perspective, the citizens of

our nation who paid the largest price in Vietnam were those entrenched in

it. That debt still has not cleared.1

NOTES 1 Tzu, Sun. The Art of War (Clearbridge Publishing: Seattle, Washington, 2002), 15.

McNamara, Robert. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (Vintage

Books: New York, 1996), 322.

71 | P a g e

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