“I have seen many families with children, and some of them have birth defects, but others are normal kids. I’ve seen mental and physical disabilities. In some kids, a part of their face gets a dark complexion. And they have several diseases. Many of them have no arms. There are really a variety of disabilities in Agent Orange kids. Why are some normal? We wonder now if the second generation is affected, and maybe the third generation will also be affected. My experience was very common in Vietnam. Many people experienced Agent Orange in different ways in their life.
“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
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.
