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US Is Finally Cleaning Up Agent Orange In Vietnam
derekmead writes "It only took 40 years. And yes, Washington still disputes Hanoi's claim that up to 4 million Vietnamese suffered contact with the defoliant, which was dumped en masse in a U.S. air campaign to scorch away the dense jungle cover under which guerilla fighters hid. But the AP reports that the U.S. is finally set to start cleaning up the mess. The numbers are staggering: Between 1962 and 1971, the U.S. military sprayed some 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and a galaxy of other herbicides on nearly a quarter of former South Vietnam. The defoliant ate through about 5 millions acres – a tract comparable in size to Massachusetts – of forest. An additional half-million acres of crops were decimated."
My father served in Vietnam as a truck driver. The foliage on the sides of the roads were a main target for the agent orange deployments, and the truck drivers likely received a proportionally higher dose due to their continuing contact with the agent.
He major inflammation of the heart 6 months after returning from Vietnam, and a series of heart attacks from Ischemic heart disease over the next few decades. He had a multitude of other illnesses that are typically associated with exposure.
I was born with several birth defects. They are mostly manageable with medicine, but still, it sucked being 18 and having to take beta-blockers so my heart wouldn't tear itself to pieces.
My Father's illnesses are under presumed status, meaning that all he had to demonstrate in order to receive benefits was that he was in Vietnam during the time period agent orange was deployed, and that he had a disease recognized to be caused by exposure. This recognition did not happen until a few years ago. He had spent the last 15 years in near poverty as he could no longer work due to the advanced heart disease, which required a quadruple bipass.
The causality for my health issues is less defined, and I'm basically on my own for the treatment.
Growing up dealing with this, and watching my Dad fight PTS and his illnesses made me very suspicious of the government at a young age. Sadly, all that insight has seemed to gain me is a disgust for the blind and ignorant patriotism most people I meet seem to display.
They indeed do ... even if you were being funny.
With 6 million annual visitors and a 20+% growth rate, it currently is ahead of places like Argentina, Brazil, India, Japan and Australia ... while rapidly closing in on Hawaii, Portugal, South Africa and Egypt.
Also for the US audience - already twice the tourism level of Cancun - so don't doubt the big money that is about to pour into that place.
Vietnam is clearly heading to replace Thailand for many people.
...most people of Vietnam just do not trust Uncle Sam
That is the opposite of the impression I got when I travelled Vietnam for three weeks earlier this year. "We love Hillary and want to chop off the heads of the Chinese" to quote one guy I talked to. I have no impression that anyone holds any grudges because of the Vietnam war atleast in the younger population. China is seen as a big threat and USA / the west as the good guys.