Agent Orange Letter to the Editor
This is a letter to the editor of the Times Herald Tribune in upstate New York that my grandfather wrote. The number of fast moving cancer-related deaths in my dad's West Point class (and other years that also served in Vietnam) from West Point is disproportionately high, yet the Veterans' Affairs Office refuses to admit they are wrong.Toll of Agent Orange
Vietnam, a war that will not end. A war that continues to stalk and claim its victims decades after the last shots were fired. A war of rainbow herbicides; significantly, Agent Orange.
Millions of gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over Vietnam's forests. Ground troops lived and slept in the chemical mist. Ate it in their food and water. They breathed it. Chemical companies producing Agent Orange, revealed that Dioxin, a highly toxic impurity in Agent Orange, was responsible for health problems in their plant workers and animals.
Our government has recognized some health issues related to herbicides. Independent studies have proven other forms of cancer are related to Agent Orange. Denial on this issue exists because of the hundreds of millions of dollars that would have to be paid if the truth were exposed. Veterans and their families continue to suffer the effects of Agent Orange. Our daughter's beloved husband, a Vietnam combat infantry veteran with two tours, succumbed this year to a rapidly spreading cancer. Read the obituaries. You will note the prematurely departed. Many served in Vietnam.
Their names could be added to the Vietnam Memorial Wall.
Casualties of the herbicide that followed them home.
Theodore Nielsen
Highland Falls
posted by Biff @ 11:53 AM
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