Agent Orange

6.8 VIETNAM JUNGLES
Mother Nature did not contrive her jungles of Southeast Asia for human presence. Dense and rugged terrain comprising mountains, cliffs, and valleys is difficult to navigate. The weather is rainy, or hot with high humidity. Monsoon season—nearly six months long—is manifested by drenching rain, making it impossible to stay dry, day or night. When human skin tissue stays clammy for days at a time, it becomes soft, puffy, wrinkled, and susceptible to scratches, cuts, and sores, resulting in infections that are heightened by grimy outdoor living conditions. Enclosed body parts, particularly feet and toes, rot. The rainy nights are chilling to a wet human. Dysentery and typhus fever are two common internal jungle infections caused by bacteria or spread by parasites. There is a daily battle with depression from living like jungle monkeys for long periods of time without the comforts of family life. For every square mile of jungle, there are millions of mosquitoes waiting to feed on human blood and pass on deadly malaria and other diseases. Even a single bite from a non-malarial mosquito can infect skin already weakened from humidity and rain in a sickened body and become deadly to its vulnerable host.

Unaffected by the heat, rain, and subhuman conditions are snakes, arthropods, and carnivorous wildlife as they thrive in their natural habitat. Human visitors soon realize that they are trespassing on a hostile planet surrounded by deadly indigenous creatures and injurious plants. Camouflaged in the thick Southeast Asia jungles are venomous snakes, poisonous centipedes, and spiders that can find their way into a tent or sleeping bag. Bengal tigers pose a risk as they aggressively attack, kill, and eat their prey. Razor sharp plants and poisonous ivy cause other types of cuts, sores, and infections. Proper hospitals are nonexistent, and neither is easy medevac access, because there are not adequate clearings for helicopter extractions. The jungle is nature’s equalizer to humankind’s armies and destructive inventions, in that a near weightless mosquito potentially possesses more power than a one thousand pound bomb.

It is difficult to fight a war on your enemy’s terms and win. During the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese Army refined jungle warfare to give them overwhelming advantages. Secluded combat bases, hidden trails, well-concealed ambush settings, the use of overhead canopy and secreted caves to hide from air attacks, and cruelly injurious punji pits were some tactics and weapons lying in wait for U.S., ARVN, and other forces as they ventured into thick dark jungles to fight NVA troops at their footholds. Concealed anti-aircraft guns shot down U.S. planes and helicopters, and their pilots and crew were killed or captured. The North Vietnamese government’s resolve to win the war empowered them to withstand the jungle’s hardships, including malaria and disease deaths, and tactfully use it to their advantage.

Thousands of miles away, in the comforts of their offices, “war planners” in Washington D.C. were in a quandary as to how to fight and win a war where the primary obstacle was the jungle itself. In addition to strategizing on how soldiers could fight within its confines, research began on ways to eliminate the obstacle all together. They devised a plan to destroy millions of acres of tropical rain forests through the use of plant killing herbicides. Their rationale was to destroy the plant ecosystem in targeted areas, win the war, and let it grow back. U.S. political and military leaders went further and sprayed herbicide on urban farms that the enemy used as food supplies. They named their new warfare program “Operation Ranch Hand.”
The U.S, Department of Defense purchased the herbicides in fifty-five gallon drums from U.S, chemical corporations. They named them, “The Rainbow Herbicides,” but gave them the code name, “Agent Orange” because of the orange stripes that were around most of the barrels. From 1962 through 1971, twelve percent of the total land mass and 20 percent of South Vietnam’s forests were sprayed at least once, covering 5 million acres. Additionally, planes and helicopters sprayed forested border areas of Laos and Cambodia. The chemical warfare program caused deforestation and destruction of local food supplies in many areas. It also caused soil erosion, flooding, and a reduction to the wildlife and marine environment. The chemicals in the herbicide included a mixture of dioxins (TCDD), one of the most toxic chemicals man has ever produced. Vietnam’s rainy climate, expressly in the tropical rain forests, washed the hazardous herbicides and dioxins throughout South Vietnam, contaminating the waterways and soil and causing famine in vast areas. The water supply, consumed daily by the people of South Vietnam and foreign troops, became tainted with high levels of TCDD.*

The people of South Vietnam unknowingly drank the contaminated water and ate fresh water fish (a major part of their diet), which were also laced with unacceptable levels of TCDD. Farm animals consumed contaminated grass and water, which tainted meat, milk, and eggs. Crops, marine life, wildlife, and farm animals suffered harmful and deadly effects, causing a residual effect on the Vietnam people. It forced families to leave their now fruitless farms and move to poor neighborhoods in nearby cities. The country’s food supply was lessened. Health concerns began to surface.

6.9 THE AFTEREFFECTS
The dioxin in the Rainbow Herbicides killed or maimed 400,000 South Vietnamese people, and 500,000 of their offspring suffered birth defects (as later estimated by the Vietnamese government). An undetermined number of babies were stillborn.**

The drinking water consumed by the troops was taken from Vietnam’s many rivers and streams. This included water supplied to soldiers stationed on some ships offshore. Combat soldiers filled their canteens from the streams. The US Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes at least fifty illnesses/diseases connected to Agent Orange that affected Vietnam veterans, children and grandchildren, resulting in serious health concerns and death. A partial list includes: type II diabetes; Hodgkin’s disease; heart disease; Parkinson’s disease; thirty-eight types of cancer, including malignant throat and trachea cancers, breast and skin cancers, brain cancer, several types of leukemia, malignant bone and muscle cancers; and birth defects including spina bifida (spinal cord), congenital heart disease, cleft palate, webbed fingers, a type of dwarfism, thyroid defects, and so on.***

Operation Ranch Hand did not achieve its goal of stopping the enemy’s advancements or overcoming their jungle warfare tactics.
Note: In 2022, the average age of Vietnam veterans was early-70’s. Less than 33% of those who served in-country were still alive.****

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* Duong Thi Thu, Water Pollution in Vietnam and Agent Orange, contaminatedwater.blogspot.com/2010/09/water.
** http://military.wikia.com/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties.
*** “The VVA Self-Help Guide to Service-Connected Disability Compensation for Exposure to Agent Orange for Veterans and Their Families,” Vietnam Veterans of America, May 2016, https://vva.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/AgentOrangeGuide.pdf.
**** The National Vietnam War Museum.

This article copied from the book: “The Last Combat Marines – Expanded Edition” by David Gerhardt