More than 58,000 U.S. military personnel were killed during the Vietnam War. Far more enemy soldiers and Vietnamese civilians perished.
Now, more than 41 years since hostilities ended, some young Americans may be at risk of serious health consequences because of their fathers’ or mothers’ participation in the Southeast Asian conflict.
To find out, a measure co-sponsored by Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran sailed through Congress. It is part of a bipartisan veterans care reform package.
The study of long-term effects of exposure to toxic substances in Vietnam is expected to determine whether children and grandchildren of combatants have been affected because of their elders’ exposure.
The most dreaded of substances is an herbicide called Agent Orange, so-called because of the orange stripes on the barrels that carried the herbicide. It basically was a combination of 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D. The herbicide was sprayed from airplanes in America’s years-long defoliation program bearing the innocuous name of Operation Ranch Hand.
Agent Orange long has been considered a contributing factor in post-war illnesses of participants, many of whom died prematurely.
Herbicide as a combat imperative was first used by the British in the 1950s in Malaysia. British and U.S. scientists then worked together to develop the potent Agent Orange prior to war in Vietnam. It initially was sprayed over jungle areas in mid-1961, on request of the South’s President Ngo Dinh Diem, and after approval of President John Kennedy.
After the war in Vietnam concluded, the United Nations General Assembly reached accord on limiting the use of herbicides in military or hostile operations. Herbicides and napalm, a deadly weapon of Medieval proportions, still may be used in jungle warfare on a case-by-case consideration by the U.N.
SEN. MORAN should be applauded for taking initiative in the veterans welfare care reform to ensure that young people who had no direct contact with toxic chemicals but who may have ill effects from them are identified so they may be warned and given opportunities for medical treatment.
War is horrible enough without it affecting generations after the fact.
— Bob Johnson
