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 frequent 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.