Waiting for an Army to Die

by Fred A. Wilcox

  “We have met other Vietnam veterans and their families. We have met their children. We have seen and heard about the deformities, limb and bone deformities, heart defects, dwarfism, and other diseases for which there is no diagnosis… There are hundreds of children with basically the same problem, but in groups: so many bifidas, so many bone deformities, urological, neurological. But it is in groups of hundreds, not ones or twos.”

  Another tragic aspect of having been exposed to Agent Orange, say veterans, is the fear they experience while waiting for their children to be born. What for centuries has traditionally been a time for rejoicing is all too often a period of prolonged anxiety and nervous tension for veterans and their wives. Many veterans, of course, have fathered perfectly healthy children, and those who worry that sensationalist journalism might encourage veterans or their wives to resort to sterilization have a valid point. But while the VA accuses the media of overreacting, it does not hire a competent staff of geneticists to counsel veterans, fails to do extensive testing of veterans’ fatty tissues to determine if they contain dioxin, and continues to insist that it will be 1987 before it can complete its epidemiological study.

  “In the abominable history of war,” said Dr. Ton That Tung in 1970, “with the sole exception of nuclear weapons, has such an inhuman fate ever before been reserved for the survivors?”6

  A decade later a young mother whose daughter was born with sixteen birth defects testified before the US Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs about what has happened to many of the survivors of the Vietnam War. “Just as truly as the bullets and bombs killed on the battlefields in Vietnam,” said Maureen Ryan, “maiming thousands of our men, Agent Orange has come home from those battlefields with our men. It has come home to maim and kill additional thousands of men who naively thought they made it home safely. It would have been tragic enough if it had ended there.”

  “But what the United States and what our Vietnam veterans did not know was that they carried home a tremendous legacy with them. They did not know that genetically on those battlefields were their children. So Agent Orange is now reaping an additional harvest of birth defects and cancers in our children and the men. We are losing our children through spontaneous abortions, through miscarriages, and perhaps most tragically in the surviving children, with the horrifying birth defects.”

  Angered by the VA’s argument that it had not conducted an Agent Orange outreach program because it did not wish to confuse or frighten veterans and their wives, Ryan said, “It is not frightening when you are handed knowledge. It is much more frightening when you are kept in the dark. It is much more frightening to give birth to a child with birth defects. It is much more frightening to know your husband is dying of cancer.”

  Summing up her testimony, Ryan told Senator Alan Cranston: “The echo of pain that you are hearing in this room may come off as a tremendous amount of bitterness. I don’t know whether bitterness is the right word so much as it is the level of frustration that has been reached. I think these people have lived private hells, and I don’t think we would be sitting here today if we didn’t believe in this country. What we are saying, though, is that the government is the people and the government has to stand behind us.”7

  As the age of five Lori Strait entered kindergarten. At seven she finished first grade, joined a square-dancing club, and played softball in a league for handicapped and retarded children. But Lori still wears a brace on her right leg, has only limited use of her right hand, and requires speech and occupational therapy. After the attention of nearly forty-five therapists and doctors, several stays in the hospital, and many thousands of dollars in medical expenses, Lori remains a handicapped child.

  In spite of the pleasure they feel watching their daughter progress, the Straits are highly critical of their government’s handling of the Agent Orange tragedy. Why, they ask, is the government unwilling to do the kind of grass-roots research Dr. Tung and his colleagues are conducting in Vietnam? Rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars designing studies that may eventually demonstrate that veterans are ill, why doesn’t the United States send a team of medical doctors, dioxin experts, scientists, and dermatologists to examine firsthand the devastating effects of dioxin on human health? (Working out of mobile clinics the team could examine veterans and then make recommendations to the VA regarding a veteran’s claim for service-connected disability.) Why doesn’t the Department of Health and Human Services hire competent geneticists to examine the chromosomes and germ cells of every veteran who fathers a child with polygenetic birth defects? Perhaps most perplexing to the Straits is this: if Dow Chemical knew in 1965 that 2,4,5-T was contaminated with dioxin, and the US knew in 1962 that dioxin is toxic, then why were extensive scientific studies not conducted on the possible mutagenic, carcinogenic, and teratogenic effects of Agent Orange before it was used in Vietnam?

  According to Thomas Whiteside, none of the manufacturers of 2,4,5-T did any formal testing on the chemical’s possible teratogenicity until after President Nixon’s science adviser, Dr. Lee DuBridge, proposed in 1969 that limited restrictions be placed on the use of the herbicide in the US and Vietnam. Dr. DuBridge’s statement was prompted by the results of a study conducted by Bionetics Laboratories of Bethesda, Maryland, which concluded that even in the lowest dose given, 2,4,5-T caused cleft palates, missing and deformed eyes, cystic kidneys, and enlarged livers in the offspring of laboratory animals. The study was also important because, writes Whiteside, “the rat, as a test animal, tends to be relatively resistant to teratogenic effects of chemicals.”8

  Although the study was conducted in 1965, its findings were not released until a member of Nader’s Raiders discovered a preliminary report submitted to the Food and Drug Administration by Bionetics Laboratories. The report’s conclusions were passed on to Matthew Meselson, Arthur Galston, and other scientists, who then demanded to know more about the study, including why the Bionetics Laboratories did not release its findings sooner. The manufacturers of 2,4,5-T had failed to test its teratogenic properties because neither the Department of Agriculture nor the Food and Drug Administration required such tests.

  “When I went to Vietnam,” says Jerry Strait, “I took my chances. I was a soldier and I knew what to expect. There was always the possibility that I would be killed or wounded, but I didn’t think my children would ever be a casualty of the war. And maybe it’s too late for me, the damage has been done and whatever happens just happens. But I still wonder about our future generations. What about all the kids who didn’t have anything to say about all this? The chemical companies insist that it’s all a ‘legal issue.’ But I think that putting something into the air and water that will maim future generations isn’t a matter of law. It’s a moral issue. Am I bitter about Vietnam? No, but I am bitter about the spraying and about what happened to Lori. To tell you the truth, I would go back if they asked me. I think most of my friends feel that way. But we want some answers about this thing, and we keep asking how the government can get any answers if it doesn’t ask questions.”

  On August 31, 1982, officials of the Veterans Administration told the VA’s Advisory Committee on Health-Related Effects of Herbicides that the epidemiological study has been delayed because the VA “still must determine whether it can adequately identify soldiers who came into contact with the herbicide.” Unless this can be done, said the officials, the study will not be conducted. In addition, said Dr. Barclay Shepard, chairman of the advisory body, “a pilot program must be conducted to show the study is feasible.” All this, said Dr. Shepard, will take another six or seven years. The VA does plan to investigate whether veterans are fathering a “disproportionately high number of babies born with birth defects,” and this study is scheduled to be completed, provided that are no bureaucratic snags, by 1984.9

  5. Dying Down Under

  Sweeping his empty beer stein aside, Jim Wares places his left hand on the table, fingers outstretched and pressed tightly together. His right han
d forms an ax, which he raises in an eyebrow salute then slams down on the supine fingers and thumb of his left hand.

  “If you took a guillotine just dropped it straight across, including the top of the thumb, that is his hand. There’s a little bud there, and a bud there,” pointing to the first and fourth knuckle, “and a hole here where the finger should be, and then one here. And you could honestly put a spirit level across there and it’s so even that it’s as though an ax had fallen and chopped them right off. But in spite of it all, it’s mild compared to a lot of things that other veterans’ children suffer from.”

  Wares signals the bartender, who—moonwhite, emaciated, and bored—delivers another round to the table, then settles down in front of the television. On Wide World of Sports a boxer, inspired by a delirious crowd, is battering his opponent unconscious. Three men at the bar give a desultory cheer as the referee steps between the two contestants and stop the fight. “I thought he was going to kill the poor bastard,” Wares announces, breaking the bitter silence that has followed his description of his son’s birth defect. The interview, stalled as others have behind a wall of anger, continues.

  By 1962, Wares explains, the Australian government had committed thirty military instructors to Vietnam, a number that was increased to approximately one hundred by 1965. But by then the South Vietnamese government appeared to be floundering. The war against “communist insurgents” was going poorly, and a plea went out to the United States and Australia for more help. Convinced that the insurgency was part of a “thrust by Communist China between the Indian and Pacific oceans,” a move that would mean a direct threat to his country, the Australian prime minister, Sir Robert Menzies, agreed to send a full infantry battalion to Vietnam. As the Australian government’s involvement in the war increased, its troops were given an area of operations that included Phuoc Tuy Province, southeast of Saigon, with its center of operations based in Nui Dat. The area was considered vital to the South Vietnamese government because it was situated between Saigon and the important port of Vung Tau, and one of the Australians’ primary tasks was to keep Route 15 open between Saigon and Vung Tau. To accomplish this they would fight many bitter engagements with both VC and NVA units. That much of the local populace was sympathetic to the VC was well known, and to reduce the chance of ambush, the Australians eventually began using herbicides in Phuoc Tuy Province. By the war’s end approximately fifty thousand Australians had served in Vietnam, with many of the men serving two tours.

  One of Ware’s most vivid memories of Vietnam is the mosquitoes—attacking like schools of piranhas, tattooing his skin with welts, which when scratched turned into festering sores. The mosquitoes also carried malaria, so when a C-123s flew over the base camp trailing white fog from its wings, the men almost felt like cheering.

  “What I saw them spraying was a mosquito killer, and that’s all we knew it to be at that time. What we didn’t know was that it was malathion. The C-123s came over once a fortnight, or once a week or month, but it was very regular. And we were very happy with it because it killed the bugs. It smelled for a while, but it did the job, and that’s all we cared about at that time, mate.”

  Wares also observed backpack spraying and spraying from trucks, but he had been told nothing about herbicides and had no reason to question the purpose of spraying. Until his son was born with missing fingers and only a partial thumb on one hand and he began hearing stories of other Australian veterans whose children were born with deformed feet, cleft palates, missing limbs, holes in their hearts, partial brains, and skin rashes, Wares gave the spraying little thought.

  Thirteen years after he returned from Nui Dat, Wares and I are seated in the lounge of a Ramada Inn in New York City. He has arrived from London to see Bob Gibson, an Australian Vietnam veteran who has been touring the United States for eight weeks, talking with American veterans and leaders of the veterans’ movement, and gathering information he hopes will be useful to Australian veterans suffering from the effects of exposure to toxic chemicals.

  In 1967 Gibson was an infantryman in Phuo Tuy Province. Returning from three days in the bush he was handed a gas mask and ordered to begin spraying herbicides on the barbed wire surrounding his base camp. Gibson reluctantly complied, wondering why, since he had no training for this kind of work, he had been chosen for such miserable duty. Wearing a gas mask in Vietnam was like burying one’s face in hot wet sand, and Gibson and others assigned to the detail quickly discarded their protective gear. Their clothes stuck to their skin, sweat drained into their eyes, and the spray was often blown directly back into their faces. Within ten days the mucous membranes in Gibson’s nose had deteriorated so much that he suffered from frequent nosebleeds. His skin was covered with a painful rash, and his stomach was constantly upset. But he was nineteen and “very patriotic” at the time, and he believed that if the herbicides reduced the enemy’s cover, then he could easily suffer a bit of discomfort.

  Gibson’s commanders “did tell us what we were spraying, and as infantry soldiers we thought it was a good thing. It done the job. We could see what it was doing, and it was making it easier for us. But they didn’t tell us what the outcome would be, the health problems it could cause. We were told that they were going to defoliate, and we thought this was the best thing that they’d ever come up with. And we used to laugh about it; you know, we thought it would be a good idea if they defoliated the whole of South Vietnam. It would be kind of like fightin’ in the desert.

  “They did issue us gas masks that first day, but we couldn’t breathe in them because of the humidity. And I was an infantry soldier just come back from three days of ambushes, and we were just picked out at random to use the stuff. We know now that it was nothing more than experimental. We’ve got documents on the scientist who was controlling the spraying. He was sent there by the Australian Department of Defense to experiment with various chemicals, 2,4,5-T, 2,4-D, and others. But the fellows who were picking us out at the time to do this work were infantry sergeants, and they knew as much about chemicals as I did, and that was damn nothing. So we told the sergeant after that first day that we couldn’t breathe using this stuff, and he said, ‘I’ll check on it tonight for you,’ and the next day he said, ‘Don’t worry, leave the gas masks and everything off So we used to get in back there and spray this stuff through the barbed wire, and it would come back on us. And your nose would start to bleed, your lips would all get blisters on them, your mucous membranes would break down, and he, the scientist in charge, has documented it all.”

  Like their American counterparts in Vietnam, Australian soldiers had been told very little, if anything, about the health effects of long-term exposure to herbicides. According to an Australian army handout, “Instructions for Spraying Herbicides,” the spray was not “toxic to humans when dispersed as a spray on vegetation,” but “casualties can be caused by spillage of the chemical concentrates on the skin and clothes by the spray. Therefore protective clothing and equipment is worn, and simple safety precautions are to be followed.” Side effects from weedicides and soil sterilants are:

  a. Blistering of the skin.

  b. Toenails dropping off.

  c. Systematic poisoning with fatal results from continued absorption, inhalation, or swallowing of the spray or any of the concentrates.

  d. Breakdown of mucous membrane, e.g., nosebleeds, red eyes, mouth ulceration.

  But Graham Bell, Queensland president of the Vietnam Veterans Action Association recalls that members of his unit were told that they had absolutely nothing to worry about. “In my unit we were told the chemicals were harmless to humans and animals, that they did no permanent damage to the environment, and that the major disadvantage was that when regrowth occurred (a few weeks after spraying) it would be much more vigorous—just like giving the vegetation a burst of fertilizer. Troops of another unit, 5 R.A.R., were drenched with chemicals sprayed by American aircraft; they were told, ‘It won’t even hurt dumb animals.’”1

  Ha
d Australian military personnel in charge of defoliation efforts consulted the US Army on herbicides on human health, they would have read that Agent Orange was “relatively nontoxic to man and animals. No injuries have been reported to personnel exposed to aircraft spray. Personnel subject to splashes from handling the agent need not be alarmed, but should shower and change clothes at a convenient opportunity.”

  According to the American manual Agent Blue was also “relatively” harmless. “Normal sanitary conditions should be followed when handling Blue. Although it contains a form of arsenic, Blue is relatively nontoxic. It should not be taken internally, however. Any material that gets on the hands, face, or other parts of the body should be washed off at the first opportunity. Clothes that become wet with a solution of Blue should be washed afterwards…”

  Neither the American nor the Australian military explain how grunts in the field might be able to shower or change their clothes immediately after exposure to toxic chemicals, or avoid eating food or drinking water contaminated with arsenic[6] or dioxin.

  Shortly after he was assigned to spray herbicides, Gibson, his face covered with a burning rash, entered Nui Dat hospital complaining of severe gastroenteritis (an inflammation of the stomach and intestines) and suffering from high temperatures. The doctors who examined him were bewildered, concluding, just as American doctors examining personnel with similar symptoms in other regions of Vietnam did, that their patient was suffering from overexposure to the heat. Entering the hospital for a second time, Gibson was transferred to Vung Tau, where he was examined by nine doctors, all of whom seemed mystified by his symptoms.