Waiting for an Army to Die

by Fred A. Wilcox

  Disappearing into his bedroom Anderson returns with a file drawer from which he removes reports, copies of rejection letters from the VA, and letters he has written to Congress, the VA, scientists, the president. “Do you realize,” asks Anderson, “that there are 125,000 Vietnam era veterans in jails or prisons and another 375,000 on parole, probation, or some other form of supervised release?” How many of these men, Anderson wonders, suffer from the sudden mood swings symptomatic of dioxin exposure? How many of the violent rages, which may have resulted in their incarceration, were due to the release of dioxin into their bloodstream during sudden weight losses—quite possibly causing psychological imbalances? More than 25 percent of all the inmates in state and federal penitentiaries are Vietnam veterans, but has anyone done a fat biopsy study to determine what percentage of these men might be carrying dangerous levels of TCDD-dioxin in their body fat? Could it be that we are paying millions of dollars each year to imprison several battalions of the first army in human history to be poisoned by its own government?

  Holding up a recent edition of his hometown paper, Anderson points to a by-line which reads: “$2 Million for Agent Orange Studies Funded.” “The bulk of the reassigned money,” Anderson reads, his voice shaking with disgust, “will be used for the controversial epidemiological study the VA was ordered to do by Congress three years ago, as well as other Agent Orange projects the VA has planned.” Squinting at the paper, Anderson adds that the VA has decided to do “ten new research projects on Agent Orange.” The projects will be completed, according to Robert Nimmo of the VA, in five years. Tearing the article from the paper and folding it into squares, Anderson tosses the bulk of the paper into the woodstove. Then he turns and, with his back to the mirror, addresses me as though I were the only person to have remained for the final act of a very, very long play.

  “Five years,” he says, “five more years. I think I’ve got it now. I think we’ve all got it now. They’re just waiting. They are waiting for us all, every fucking one of us, to die.”

  Are we really just waiting for an army to die? In a number of ways the Agent Orange issue is analogous to a murder trial where during the course of the proceedings the prosecutor produces a corpus delicti, witnesses to the crime, even a confession from the murderer, but all to no avail. The judge, for reasons about which one can only speculate, simply refuses to concede that a crime has been committed, dismissing members of the jury with the rather quaint admonishment that he may be calling on them again “in a few years.” If the VA denies that there is scientific evidence of the effects of TCDD-dioxin on human beings, and if its administrators continue to insist that Vietnam veterans cannot prove they were exposed to toxic chemicals, then how is it possible for veterans to present their case? In spite of the VA’s many rhetorical flourishes of concern, the issue, if one accepts the agency’s arguments, is a moot point for still another five years.

  Perhaps it is time to remove the Agent Orange issue to another jurisdiction. One way to accomplish this would be for Congress to establish an independent board of inquiry comprised of world experts on toxic chemicals, physicians knowledgeable about the health effects of TCDD-dioxin, Vietnam veterans, and members of the legislature. By taking the entire matter out of the hands of the VA, the American taxpayer will save millions of dollars that might otherwise be spent on redundant studies, resolve some of the urgent questions that have gone unanswered for too many years and, most important, convince the men and women who served in Vietnam that their fellow countrymen do not consider them a “throwaway army.”

  When asked why more hasn’t been done to resolve the Agent Orange issue and provide disability to the sick and dying, many veterans reply that the real issue is money. How much, they ask, are Vietnam veterans worth? And the answer is invariably the same: “As little as possible.” If the principal manufactures of herbicides and the federal government agree on anything, it is that neither wants to be stuck with the bill for compensating thousands of veterans for their illnesses. Other veterans see themselves as scapegoats for an unpopular war. In our haste to forget the pain and divisiveness of the Vietnam era, they say, we have chosen to simply forget about them. Finally, there are those who believe that the Agent Orange issue is a puzzle, with some of the pieces still missing. In time, they argue, a memo will surface from Washington and catapult the nation into an “Orangegate.” What had seemed for so many years a controversy will turn out to be a conspiracy.

  Perhaps all of these explanations are true, but I think the real answer to why this tragedy continues was given to me one evening by a Vietnam veteran. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think they’ll ever really settle this thing because there’s just too much money involved. It’s gonna cost the chemical companies or the American government billions, and people just don’t think we’re worth that much. But I just want the American people to know something. They can write me and my children off if they want to. They can say we lost the war or we’re all crazy or any bullshit they like. But what they don’t know right now is that we are their future. What has happened to us will happen to them, and they better believe it because when it comes down, when they start to get sick, when their kids start to die and are born deformed or dead, they’ll wonder why they wouldn’t listen to us. I got nothing against anybody. I’m not as gung-ho as I was when I was eighteen, but this is still my country. But I just can’t understand why people don’t understand that what they dumped on us over there in Nam they’ll be dumping right here tomorrow. So when you go back to write your book, just tell people this: I may die, my brothers may die. Maybe we don’t really have any future, but if we don’t who the hell really does?”

  Could it be that our willingness to ignore the suffering of thousands of Vietnam veterans is an attempt to avoid looking into our own future? Is it possible that in watching a twenty-eight-year old veteran like Paul Reutershan die of cancer we may be witnessing the death of our own son or daughter from the effects of radiation, dioxin, PCBs, or a host of chemicals that inundate our air and water and are contained in the very food we eat? Or that seeing a photograph of Kerry Ryan, born with sixteen birth defects, or Lori Strait, born with the left half of her brain missing, we are experiencing fears that, as future parents, we find unthinkable? But even if we choose to avoid looking at what has happened to Vietnam veterans, the fact remains that 50 percent of all US groundwater is either contaminated or threatened with contamination, that this year more deaths will be due to air pollution than car accidents, and that more children die in the United States each year from cancer than from any other disease.

  On July 22, 1980, Christopher H. Johnson, a Vietnam veteran who had lost his right leg and part of his hearing in Vietnam, and whose son died after being born with multiple birth defects, told the Subcommittee on Medical Facilities and Benefits: “Don’t you think that it is only right to take care of the American men who supported you first. We are natural-born citizens of the United States of America. We have been reaching out for years for help. Now is the time for you to step forward and take the responsibility and appropriate action. Don’t leave us with the only benefit remaining, which is the burial benefit. A lot of Vietnam veterans have already used it much too early in life. The Vietnam veteran never had a chance to enjoy adulthood. Now I can’t enjoy growing old. The evidence and facts have been in for years. Agent Orange is a killer.”

  Christopher H. Johnson is a Vietnam veteran, but his testimony could be that of any American parent or victim of toxic poisoning. Although the Vietnam War has ended, the Vietnamization of America continues unabated. Vietnam veterans are our future, and however painful that may be for us to admit, our future is now.

  APPENDIX

  The History of 2,4,5-T [27]

  1941–1946: Tests and development as a chemical and biological warfare agent.

  1946: Commercial use on weeds and brush.

  Late 1961: Introduced in Vietnam as part of US chemical warfare.

  June/July 1969: Reports of f
requent birth defects in defoliated areas of Vietnam.

  April 1970: Pentagon stops using Agent Orange due to worldwide pressure and significant scientific evidence.

  April 1970: Surgeon General reports to Hart committee on restrictions of 2,4,5-T: suspension of liquid formulation for home use; suspension of all aquatic uses; intent to cancel registration of nonliquid formulations for use around homes and on all food crops.

  May 1970: Dow et al. appeals decision to cancel use on food crops.

  Late 1970: Lawsuit by Consumers Union to force Department of Agriculture to suspend rather than cancel use.

  1970: Environmental Protection Agency takes over regulation of pesticides.

  January 1971: Appeals court orders EPA to reconsider Department of Agriculture refusal to put firmer restrictions on 2,4,5-T.

  May 1971: Science advisory panel set up by EPA recommends that ban on use around homes be lifted and other restrictions set aside. Many scientists severely criticize advisory panel.

  August 1971: EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus announces EPA would continue to press for cancellation of 2,4,5-T on food crops and orders hearing on uses causing greatest human exposure.

  September 1971: Dow asks and gets an injunction from district court in Arkansas stopping EPA from cancellation hearings.

  April 1973: Appeals court reverses district court decision and upholds EPA order for cancellation.

  July 1973: EPA plans go-ahead for cancellation hearings, begins pre-hearing conferences with Dow, Department of Agriculture, Consumers Union and Environmental Defense Fund.

  May 1974: Dow and Department of Agriculture hold conference on 2,4,5-T.

  June 1974: EPA withdraws order of intent to hold hearings scheduled to begin the following month. Also withdraws cancellation order on rice crop use.

  1975: President Gerald Ford announces that the United States would make no first use of military herbicides in offensive operations.

  1975: US Forest Service prohibited from using 2,4,5-T in Arkansas because of NEPA violations.

  1976: US Forest Service in Region 6 voluntarily suspends use of 2,4,5-T while court case against Siuslaw National Forest is in process.

  1977: US Forest Service found to violate NEPA process regarding Environmental Impact Statement in uses of 2,4,5-T.

  April 1978: EPA issues notice of Rebuttal Presumption Against Registration (RPAR) for 2,4,5-T.

  February 1979: EPA issues order of emergency suspension for 2,4,5-T and 2,4,5-TP (Silvex). First emergency suspension.

  Suspend products registered for forestry, right-of-way, pasture, home, aquatic, and recreational area uses of 2,4,5-TP.

  EPA initiates cancellation proceedings for 2,4,5-T and 2,4,5-TP suspended uses.

  April 1979: Dow fails to win appeal of emergency suspension.

  February 1980: EPA cancellation hearings begin. Dow Chemical Corporation and 54 intervenors on their behalf/EPA and 2 intervenors on their behalf.

  March 1981: EPA agrees with Dow-initiated motion for suspending cancellation hearings, and begins closed-door meetings to pursue out-of-hearing settlement.

  Employment of Riot Control Agents, Flame, Smoke, Antiplant Agents, and Personnel Detectors in Counterguerilla Operations

  Department of the Army Training Circular

  TC 3-16 April 1969

  ANTIPLANT AGENT OPERATIONS

  Section 1

  Technical Aspects

  51. General. Antiplant agents are chemical agents which possess a high offensive potential for destroying or seriously limiting the production of food and defoliating vegetation. These compounds include herbicides that kill or inhibit the growth of plants; plant growth regulators that either regulate or inhibit plant growth, sometimes causing plant death; desiccants that dry up plant foliage; and soil sterilants that prevent or inhibit the growth of vegetation by action with the soil. Military applications for antiplant agents are based on denying the enemy food and concealment.

  52. Antiplant Agents in Use.

  a. ORANGE.

  (1) Description. Agent ORANGE is the Standard A agent. It is composed of a 50:50 mixture of the n-butyl esters of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T (app D and C1, TM 3-215). ORANGE appears as a dark-brown oily liquid which is insoluble in water but miscible in oils such as diesel fuel. It weighs about 10.75 pounds per gallon and becomes quite viscous as the temperature drops, solidifying at 45°F. It is noncorrosive, of low volatility, and nonexplosive, but deteriorates rubber.

  (2) Rate of application. The recommended rate of application of ORANGE is 3 gallons per acre. This may vary depending on the type of vegetation (app C). In some situations better coverage may be obtained by diluting ORANGE with diesel fuel oil, which results in a less viscous solution that is dispersed in smaller droplets. Dilution may also be required when using dispersion equipment which does not permit the flow rate to be conveniently adjusted to 3 gallons per acre. See discussion of application methods in paragraphs 57 and 58.

  (3) Effect on foliage. ORGANGE penetrates the waxy covering of leaves and is absorbed into the plant system. It affects the growing points on the plant, resulting in its death. Rains occurring within the first hours after spraying will not reduce the effectiveness of ORANGE to the extent that they reduce the effectiveness of aqueous solutions. Broadleaf plants are highly susceptible to ORANGE. Some grasses can be controlled but require a much higher dose rate than broadleaf plants. Susceptible plants exhibit varying degrees of susceptibility to ORANGE. Death of a given plant may occur within a week or less, or may require up to several months depending on the plant’s age, stage of growth, susceptibility, and the dose rate. See employment considerations in paragraphs 53 through 55.

  (4) Safety precautions and decontamination. ORANGE is relatively nontoxic to men or 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. ORANGE is noncorrosive to metals but will remove aircraft paint and walkway coatings. Contaminated aircraft should be washed with soapy water to remove the agent. Rubber hoses and other rubber parts of transfer and dissemination equipment will deteriorate and require replacement, since ORANGE softens rubber.

  b. BLUE (Phytar 560G).

  (1) Description. Agent BLUE is an aqueous solution containing about 3 pounds per gallon of the sodium salt of cacodylic acid, the proper amount of surfactant (a substance which increases the effectiveness of the solution), and a neutralizer to prevent corrosion of metal spray apparatus. BLUE is the agent normally used for crop destruction.

  (2) Rate of application. BLUE may be sprayed as received from the manufacturer without dilution, if desired. The recommended application rate for crop destruction is about 1 to 2 gallons per acre (app C). However, much higher use rates of BLUE are required to kill tall grasses, such as elephant grass or sugarcane because of the large masses of vegetation. For hand-spray operations, 2 gallons of BLUE diluted with water to make 50 gallons will give a solution that can be dispersed by hand at a rate equivalent to approximately 1 to 3 gallons of pure agent per acre.

  (3) Effect on foliage. Enough BLUE applied to any kind of foliage will cause it to dry and shrivel, but the agent is more effective against grassy plants than broadleaf varieties. Best results are obtained when the plant is thoroughly covered, since the agent kills by absorption of moisture from the leaves. The plants will die within 2 to 4 days or less and can then be burned if permitted to dry sufficiently. BLUE in low dose rates can also prevent grain formation in rice without any apparent external effect. The plant develops normally but does not yield a crop. Spray rates higher than about one-half gallon per acre usually kill the crop. Although BLUE can produce relatively rapid defoliation, regrowth may occur again in about 30 days. Repeated spraying is necessary to provide a high degree of continuous plant kill.

  (4) Safety precautions and decontamination. Normal sanitary precautions 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 changed. Aircraft used for spraying this solution should be washed well afterward. When WHITE is added to BLUE, a precipitate forms that will clog the system. If the same spray apparatus is to be used for spraying agents WHITE and BLUE, the system must be flushed to assure that all residue of the previous agent is removed.

  c. WHITE (Tordon 101).

  (1) Description. The active ingredients of agent WHITE are 20 percent picloram and 80 percent isopropylamine salt of 2,4-D. Active ingredients constitute about 25 percent of the solution. A surfactant is also present. WHITE is soluble in water, noncorrosive, nonflammable, nonvolatile, immiscible in oils, and more viscous than ORANGE at the same temperatures.

  (2) Rate of application. WHITE usually should be applied at a rate of 3 to 5 gallons per acre on broadleaf vegetation. However, the rate may vary depending on the type of flora. Quantities required to control jungle vegetation may vary from 5 to 12 gallons per acre. This quantity exceeds the spray capability of most aircraft spray systems for a single pass. It is usually unfeasible in large-scale military operations to apply such large volumes. For ground-based spray operations, however, high volumes are necessary. Hand-spray operations cannot evenly cover a whole acre with only 3 gallons of solution. Three gallons of WHITE diluted to a 30-gallon solution can be more easily sprayed over an area of one acre. The manufacturer recommends diluting WHITE with sufficient water to make a 10-gallon solution for each gallon of agent.