Scorched Earth

by Fred A. Wilcox

  “It makes no sense at all that they help the American veterans who served in Vietnam and got affected by Agent Orange, or veterans from New Zealand and Australia, but they totally ignore the Vietnamese people. The American soldiers spent only a short time in Vietnam, in the battlefield, while the Vietnamese people, even those who were fighting for the Saigon regime in the south, spent many years in the war. We appreciate the effort made by the US Congress to help clean up the Danang and Bien Hoa airports. But we also believe that the amount of money needed to help Agent Orange victims must be ten times, or a hundred times greater than the money to clean up these airports.”

  Nguyen Dinh An believes that one day there will be justice for Agent Orange victims.

  “Recently many international lawyers, not just the communist lawyers, but other lawyers in the world showed their support for Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. We understand that the chemical companies were making a profit from Agent Orange. And sometimes it’s hard for people to take responsibility for the mistakes they’ve made in the past. But the truth is always the truth. More and more people in the world are supporting Vietnamese people.”

  Mr. An does not agree that Agent Orange is the last obstacle to creating genuine friendship between the United States and Vietnam.

  “Many Americans come to Vietnam, visit Agent Orange families, and return home to write articles and make movies like ‘Making Peace with Vietnam.’ And we do appreciate the efforts that the Americans have been making. We always want to develop our cooperation and friendship with the United States and with the American people. I have many American friends, like Ken Herrmann, who are also veterans in Vietnam. And when we sit together, we always realize that forty years ago we were on two sides of the war. But now we are friends.

  “The Danang Union of Friendship Organization, our organization here, is working for this purpose. We want to have a good friendship and be a good partner with the American people. We always welcome US scholars, business men, and NGOs. So we warmly welcome you to Danang, and warmly welcome the effort you have made in writing books about Vietnam.”

  Listening to Chairman An talk about his exposure to Agent Orange, about seeing men die from the effects of chemical warfare, and about his decision, fearing that his wife might give birth to a deformed baby, to have only one child, I recall hundreds of similar stories from US and Australian veterans. A long time ago, Chairman An might have been trying to kill my fellow countrymen, perhaps even some of my close friends. American and Vietnamese men and women used guns and knives and bombs and booby traps to kill their enemies, and the great irony, if that is the right term here, is that while these soldiers fought ferocious battles, they were all being exposed to the same toxic chemicals. Chairman An lives and works near an area that is still heavily contaminated with TCDD-dioxin, and he understands that even if scientists manage to contain all of the dioxin there, this chemical will continue to harm Vietnamese people for years to come.

  If only there had been, years ago, some way to set aside pain and bitterness, recrimination and rage, in order to bring men like Chairman An and US veterans together to talk about the effects of Agent Orange on human beings.

  If only popular television hosts had invited Vietnamese and American mothers to talk about giving birth to and trying to take care of deformed Agent Orange children.

  If only American scientists had conducted large-scale epidemiological studies on Vietnamese who’d been exposed to Agent Orange/dioxin during the war, and then to compare their findings to studies of American veterans, and veterans from other countries, who served in Southeast Asia.

  If only….

  Chairman An pins the Danang Friendship medal to my collar.

  “Go out to the countryside,” he says. “Meet Agent Orange victims. Listen to what these people say. That is the best way to learn about the effects of Agent Orange.”

  In the morning, Nguyen Thi My Hoa, program coordinator for the SUNY Brockport study abroad program in Danang, will take students to visit Agent Orange families. The students will carry cooking oil, noodles, and other small gifts to poor parents and their seriously handicapped children. These mothers and fathers endure great hardship, but what concerns them the most is how their children will survive once their parents grow too old to care for them, or die. Who will feed them, change their clothing, knead their arms and legs so they will stop screaming in the night? Helpless as newborn rabbits, these children cannot live without constant care from patient, compassionate, loving people.

  Chemical warfare has not only damaged the bodies of the children we visit; it has shattered centuries of tradition in which men and women marry young and soon start families, expecting to dedicate their entire lives to their children, knowing that when children grow up, they will fulfill their filial duty to care for their aging parents.

  The US military and South Vietnamese military intended to warn people before dousing their fields with toxic chemicals, but in a country lacking basic electricity, telephone service, safe roads, and reliable transportation, it was not possible to do this. Dropping leaflets that people could not read or understand was no help. One minute the planes were overhead, the next they were gone, leaving angry Vietnamese to wonder why the Americans were poisoning the very people whose support they needed in order to win the war.

  CHAPTER 6

  Generations

  Mr. Dang Van Son

  Dang Van Son walks with the help of a metal cane, sliding forward on feet that twist upward at the ankle, like boats swung upright in a storm. His daughter, Dang Thi Hoa, holds on to wooden crutches, her bare feet shaped exactly like those of her father. Mr. Son is forty-two years old. His father fought first against the French for nine years, and then served in the American War for more than a decade. Returning from the jungles after the French surrendered at Dienbienphu, the veteran guerrilla fighter fathered two normal children, a son who died from disease, and a daughter who is still living. Soon he was called to war again, living and fighting in mountains that were saturated with defoliants.

  Dang Van Son’s father told his family that when he was deep inside the jungle, the Americans covered the trees with dioxin. Gagging, gasping for air, and at one point losing consciousness, he wondered what these strange chemicals the enemy was using might be. Slowly, his unit made its way to the Ho Chi Minh Trail, where they tried to recover from their ailments.

  When, at last, Mr. Dang’s father returned from the fighting, he seemed to be healthy and was able to work, even though he suffered from a painful rash and little tumors all over his body. After a few years, he developed throat and stomach cancer, had ulcers “all inside of his stomach,” couldn’t eat, got “very skinny,” and died three months later. He was seventy-six years old.

  Father and daughter

  Second generation

  When the war ended in 1975, soldiers who’d survived the fighting returned to their homes, hoping to spend the rest of their days farming, raising children, and enjoying grandchildren. After decades of war and natural disasters, life was hard in Vietnam. Millions of bombs, landmines, M-79 projectiles, hand grenades, and other unexploded pieces of ordinance were scattered in rice paddies, fields, forests, and waterways. Children picking up cluster bombs lost arms or legs, sometimes their lives. Farmers walking behind water buffalo tripped mines, leaving them crippled for life, or dead.

  No one really knew exactly where these deadly weapons were lying, only that if families were to survive, rice must be planted, fields had to be plowed, crops must be harvested. Desperate to earn a living, people lost limbs or died collecting scrap metal to sell. Vietnam was still very much a war zone.

  Dang Van Son’s father lost track of his fellow soldiers, but he did hear that some of them were in poor health and died soon after returning home. I explain that American veterans are also sick, and many die soon after they reach their late fifties or early sixties. I have heard that only thirty percent of the approximately three million US veterans who served in Vietn
am are still alive, though I have no way of verifying that figure.

  Mr. Son does not know at what age his father’s friends might have gotten ill and died.

  Like many Vietnamese, Mr. Son is afraid there will be a third or fourth generation of Agent Orange children. He doesn’t doubt that his own and his daughter’s deformed (boat) feet are the result of his own father’s exposure to herbicides. His daughter, he says, is definitely a victim of chemical warfare.

  When asked whether he thinks Agent Orange victims will ever receive compensation for their suffering, he laughs. Yes, he says, he really does hope so. But he can’t imagine how that might happen. He worries that his daughter will marry and have an Agent Orange baby. Many Vietnamese parents worry about Agent Orange affecting future generations, but he does not like to dwell on that.

  We ask Mr. Son what he might like us to say to President Obama about the effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese people, should we ever have the opportunity.

  “Please,” he says, smiling, “just tell him the truth. Tell him about what you see in Vietnam. What you hear from the Vietnamese people, the Agent Orange victims. Tell him about the suffering. And please ask him to do as much as he can to alleviate the suffering and pain, to help victims overcome the suffering they are feeling every day.”

  Dang Thi Hoa is a beautiful, intelligent young woman whose handicap should not prevent her from attending school, marrying, and having children of her own. But her family cannot afford a motorbike to carry her to and from school each day, and while she might be able to live near the school, she says she would miss her mother too much.

  Mr. Son and his shy young daughter do not complain. They do not ask for pity or demand help for themselves. When one first meets Agent Orange families, this lack of anger might seem odd. Why don’t these families blame the United States or the chemical companies for their plight? Why don’t they demand compensation—a new house, a motorbike, private medical care? It takes us awhile to understand that the Vietnamese are not merely polite; they are, in fact, a forgiving people.

  We promise that if we ever get the chance to speak with President Obama, we will ask him to help victims of chemical warfare. Mr. Son says he watched the Agent Orange Tribunal hearings in Paris in May 2009, on television, and he hopes that those proceedings will help Vietnamese Agent Orange victims.

  “I really hope you do talk with Obama,” he says.

  We offer the family small gifts, take more photographs, and walk into the Vietnam oven. Cows meander along the road, stopping to rest, or munch on something green. A water buffalo stands alone in a rice paddy, waiting for a boy to climb upon his back. Leaving the main highway, we meander down narrow roads and park close to a path leading to a house that is, really, a hut. Baby pigs squeal inside of a bamboo corral. The family’s kitchen—a few blackened pans resting upon a wooden stand—is next to the pigs. We leave packages of noodles and a tin of cooking oil, for which the people who live here are very grateful. When the monsoon rains hit, this little camp will be washed away.

  China Beach stretches far and away, curving at one point into the sea.

  On March 8, 1965, a contingent of US Marines who stormed ashore here were greeted by young Vietnamese women dressed in traditional aio dai. The women held up a “Welcome to the Gallant Marines” sign and presented the marines with garlands of flowers.

  Except for a scattering of young men drinking beer or napping in lounge chairs, we are alone. A woman brings “Triple 3”—beer, plastic glasses, and a bowl of ice. She is wearing a thick sweatshirt, a scarf wrapped around her face, and long gloves; a strange fashion statement until we realize that Vietnamese women are willing to dress like Eskimos to protect their skin from the sun.

  Close your eyes and it’s easy to imagine adolescent American warriors frolicking in clear warm water. They are tan, hard-muscled, trained to kill, and—they keep assuring themselves—much too young to die. They play volleyball, chug beer, and count the days until they get to go home.

  A short distance from their beach, the streets are teeming with prostitutes, drug dealers, junkies, thieves, Vietcong agents, and black market hustlers peddling weapons paid for by American taxpayers, assembled in American factories, and shipped to Vietnam on American freighters.

  Day and night, flocks of aircraft lift off from the runways at Danang’s sprawling airbase, some heading to bombing raids, others skimming triple canopy jungles, turning primordial forests into dead zones, leaving behind poisons that will harm Vietnam for generations.

  CHAPTER 7

  Jurisprudence

  In sum, Plaintiffs’ suit challenges how the President, with the support of Congress, chose to prosecute the war in Vietnam, and [it] seek[s] reparations that our Nation has declined to make to the people of Vietnam.

  —Attorneys for the defendant chemical companies in the Vietnamese class-action lawsuit

  On January 30, 2004, lawyers representing several million Vietnamese citizens file a lawsuit in a Brooklyn Federal Courtroom, charging the wartime manufacturers of Agent Orange with war crimes. Jack Weinstein, the federal judge who handled the 1984 out of court Agent Orange settlement, will preside over and rule on this new case. In early March 2005, Weinstein dismisses the lawsuit, writing a 233-page memorandum in which he attempts to explain why he has chosen, once again, to rule against the plaintiffs in an Agent Orange lawsuit.

  In preliminary hearings, Weinstein tells the plaintiffs’ lawyers:

  I want to emphasize again I have no view about what the defendants [Dow Chemical, et al.] knew. I have no view as to whether any damage was done. I have no view as to whether the law of war or these other international, human rights laws relied on apply here. But the case has to go forward seriously. We have to address the problems since they are raised. I must say I am dubious at the moment about whether the plaintiffs can make out a case without even getting to the question of causation, but that’s based upon my limited reading.1

  In the mid-1980s, when Vietnam veterans clashed with the manufacturers of Agent Orange, people were still looking for someone to blame for the debacle in Southeast Asia. Treated like pariahs when they returned from Southeast Asia, many veterans hunkered down inside feelings of rage, depression, and alienation, unwilling or unable to talk about their experiences in Vietnam.

  It was in this context of postwar doldrums that Vietnam veterans started to talk about illnesses they believed were related to their exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. Few people wanted to listen, and those who did were skeptical of the veterans’ claims that over a period of ten years, the government had exposed its own soldiers to toxic, deadly chemicals.

  During the twenty years between the veterans’ lawsuit that was settled out of court in 1984 and the Vietnamese class action charging the chemical companies with war crimes:

  • Hundreds of articles about the defoliation campaign in Vietnam, 1961–75, appear in newspapers and magazines in the US, Europe, and other parts of the world.

  • Scientists, doctors, ex-soldiers, Agent Orange advocates, and victims gather at international conferences in Hanoi, Paris, Boston, and Stockholm, to examine the legacies of chemical warfare in Southeast Asia.

  • Filmmakers scour the length and breadth of Vietnam, documenting evidence of environmental degradation and human suffering related to Agent Orange.

  Scientists also release well-researched studies on the effects of Agent Orange/dioxin on human beings. Among them:

  • Researchers conducting a mortality study for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts conclude that “the results suggest that Vietnam veterans may be at increased risk of death due to soft-tissue sarcoma, kidney cancer, suicide, motor vehicle accidents, and stroke compared to non-veterans.”2

  • A study conducted by the Veterans Administration finds that former Marine Corps ground troops who served in Northern I Corps Region of Vietnam have “died of lung cancer and certain lymph cancers at a significantly higher rate than colleagues who did not serve in the war.”3r />
  The state of Wisconsin concludes a study of Vietnam veterans, comparing their death rates to Vietnam-era veterans, veterans not of the Vietnam era, and nonveterans within the state of Wisconsin. The study concludes that:

  Relative to other Vietnam-era veterans, those who served in Vietnam had excess mortality from cancer of the pancreas, diseases of the genitourinary system, and pneumonia. An excess of connective tissue cancer was noted when Vietnam veterans were compared with veterans not of the Vietnam era…. No significant excess was noted, however, when Vietnam veterans were compared with other Vietnam-era veterans or with non-veterans.4

  A West Virginia study concludes:

  Both Vietnam and non-Vietnam veterans experienced increased mortality from cancer of the respiratory tract, but increases in relative frequency of death from cancer of connective tissues (3 observed vs. 0.7 expected) and Hodgkin’s disease (5 observed vs. 2.4 expected) were confined to Vietnam veterans. When Vietnam veterans were compared directly with non-Vietnam veterans, these excesses persisted, and, in addition, there were more deaths among Vietnam veterans from testicular cancer (3 observed vs. 0.6 expected).5

  An Australian study of 19,205 Vietnam veterans and 25,677 veterans who did not serve in Vietnam determines that:

  In addition to an overall elevated death rate, Vietnam veterans had increased death rates for digestive system diseases, diseases of the circulatory system, and external causes. The death rates from neo-plasms (all types convinced) were similar in the two groups.6