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By Lyme Anon
My father is a Vietnam Veteran—a real combat veteran unlike the stolen valor Senator from Connecticut, "Da Nang Dick" Blumenthal, who lied about his service on multiple occasions.
My father got drafted into the U.S. Army on April 9th, 1966; he didn't have a choice.
He completed basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia, before getting sent to Vietnam, where he served in the 2nd Armored Division "Hell on Wheels" for a year. After returning stateside to Fort Hood in Texas, he got sent straight to Detroit as part of the Army's Civil Disturbance Plan known as Operation Garden Plot. There's no rest for the wicked, as the saying goes.
When my father landed in Vietnam, he was assigned to man the "open burn pits" in which the military burned absolutely everything: old equipment, chemicals, unexploded ordnance, medical waste, human waste soaked in diesel, plastics, rubber, paint, solvents, and massive amounts of Agent Orange–contaminated material.
Nearly all (90 percent) of Veterans on burn pit duty cited concerns about their exposure.
Yet as of May 2025, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has still not specifically researched whether there is any association between Veterans’ health effects and exposure to open-air burning in Vietnam.
In addition to toxic exposure from the burn pits, my father got doused with Agent Orange, just like everyone else in his company. He said that after Agent Orange was sprayed, everything instantly died — the trees, the plants, the ground cover — literally everything you could see. Birds even dropped dead out of the sky.
He remembers asking the guys in his company about the safety of Agent Orange.
He wondered how it could possibly be safe for humans if everything they could see died in an instant after a single application of Agent Orange.
But don't worry, said his Army superiors, Agent Orange was just a "safe and effective" herbicide and defoliant used to strip vegetation and disrupt enemy operations.
Agent Orange was named after the orange-striped barrels in which the chemical was stored.
It was part of a broader herbicidal warfare program known as the "Rainbow Herbicides."
Other chemicals in the program included Agents Green, Pink, Purple, Blue, and White.
Agent Orange included a contaminant known as "2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin" (TCDD), a highly toxic dioxin and persistent organic pollutant that bioaccumulates in the food chain, resists degradation, and can remain in soil and sediment for decades—with a half-life perhaps as long as 100 years.
Agent Orange was developed in the late 1940s for agricultural and industrial weed control (e.g., along railroads and power lines) before being used by the military to defoliate the jungle canopy that concealed Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces. It was also used to destroy crops in order to deny food supplies to enemy fighters.
TCDD production ceased in the 1970s after its toxicity became evident; it's no longer in use.
However, around 11 million gallons of Agent Orange were used in Vietnam from 1967-1969, exactly coinciding with my father's service, impacting around 24% of South Vietnam's forests and 20% of the mangroves, before the dangerous chemical was discontinued.
The Air Force had responsibility for aerial spraying, while the Army's Chemical Corps handled ground applications. Service members were not provided with special protective gear to prevent exposure to Agent Orange.
The program devastated ecosystems: mangroves took decades to recover, and some areas remain barren to this very day. It displaced ~20,000 Vietnamese villages, exposing ~4 million civilians on top of the estimated 3 million U.S. service members who served in Vietnam between 1962 and 1975.
Exposure routes for the dangerous chemical included inhalation, skin contact, ingestion (e.g., via food chains), and secondary contact (e.g., post-spraying patrols). Aircrews and ground handlers faced the highest doses.
Decades of research—via Veterans Administration-funded studies, CDC investigations (e.g., Vietnam Experience Study), and the biennial National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) reports (Veterans and Agent Orange, starting 1994; latest update in 2018), link TCDD exposure to a wide range of serious health risks.
TCDD disrupts hormones, immune function, and cell growth, acting as a carcinogen and teratogen. Key findings from government studies reveal exposure causes:
Studies like the Air Force's Ranch Hand Study found elevated TCDD in exposed Veterans' blood, which correlated with a host of debilitating health issues; however, not all effects are dose-dependent.
The studies claim that no strong evidence for intergenerational effects exist beyond spina bifida, but Vietnamese studies suggest broader impacts on neurodevelopment, language, physical growth, and gross motor skills, along with development of autistic traits.
As of 2025, an estimated ~400,000–500,000 living Vietnam Veterans have reported serious, life-altering conditions related to that "safe and effective" defoliant.
After service in Vietnam, Veterans started to report symptoms, leading to Congressional hearings in the 1970s, and the 1979 class-action lawsuit Veterans v. Dow Chemical et al. — the largest of its kind, involving 2.4 million claimants against seven manufacturers:
The case was settled in 1984 for $180 million, just a tiny fraction of the claims; my father received a lousy $200 payout. Adding insult to injury, the chemical manufacturers denied liability, and instead blamed the government specifications for the problems.
Key legislation regarding Agent Orange has included:
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits are considered "presumptive" — there is no need to prove exposure for listed conditions if your service qualifies. Here are the stats:
Advocacy groups like Vietnam Veterans of America have been pushing for fuller recognition, including grandparent-to-grandchild effects noted in some cases.
Unfortunately, the reality for many Vietnam Veterans exposed to Agent Orange is filled with nothing but frustration, delays and constant health scares.
The VA knows exactly which health conditions Vietnam Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are likely to develop, but they do not take proactive steps for early identification to help those impacted.
It's largely on Veterans to figure that out themselves.
My father has suffered from a lifetime of hypertension, but it wasn't until 2010 when hypertension was temporarily added to the presumptive list for Agent Orange; coverage eventually began under the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022, known as the PACT Act.
He has developed lung nodules, thyroid nodules, pancytopenia, hemiparesis, leukocytosis, stenosis, and hyperglycemia, all presumably from Agent Orange exposure.
Plus, he also suffered hearing loss since he was never provided ear protection, even though he was a helicopter door gunner and the sharpshooter for his company.
Last year, my dad found out he developed prostate cancer, another well-known condition caused by Agent Orange; he received 36 radiation treatments at the VA.
After that, he received brachytherapy, and was put on Eligard every six months since then.
A few months ago, he got sick again, and could barely walk.
He visited three hospitals, including a VA hospital. They all misdiagnosed him, telling him he just had an infection called epididymitis orchitis. He was repeatedly sent home to rest, put ice on the "sore spot" and take copious amounts of antibiotics. He suffered extreme pain and discomfort for two straight months. Then one morning, he lost his balance after accidentally bumping into that "sore spot," fell backwards, hit his head, and landed inside the bathtub. He was rushed to the ER to be evaluated.
My family literally had to BEG the emergency room doctors to take a closer look at the sore spot, insisting it wasn't just a simple infection as all three previous hospitals, including the VA, had alleged.
Turns out, that "sore spot" was a 4-inch x 6-inch cancerous tumor. He had the tumor removed, but the doctors found yet another problem. Now he's got non-Hodgkin lymphoma in his brain.
Since then, my family has been jumping through every hoop the VA requires to get coverage for the latest cancer the U.S. Army gave to my father — it's the "gift" that keeps on giving.
One of the most miserable hoops has been Compensation and Pension (CMP) exams, which are critical for determining the severity of a Veteran's disability and the benefits to which they are entitled. The evaluation process is confusing, frustrating and lacks transparency, especially when it comes to accessing your own C-file and the claims tracker. Sometimes Veterans are sent to private doctors for exams, like my father was. He was required to drive 90 minutes away for a blood pressure test, even though multiple doctors could have performed the exact same test within 0.5 miles of his home.
Making matters worse, the VA's computer systems and processes are ancient, requiring Veterans to manually print-out hundreds of pages of records that must be driven to the VA in order to obtain approvals to get the coverage that my father should be entitled to after being poisoned by his own government. They don't make it easy on Veterans or their families, that's for sure. It's hard to comprehend how Veterans can manage this process without the support network that my father has. It's nearly a full-time job.
Now he needs a walk-in bathtub, per doctor's orders, since his mobility has become limited.
We're told he qualifies for a Home Improvements and Structural Alterations (HISA) grant of up to $6,800 to cover the purchase and installation of the tub.
The contractor with "tons of VA experience" gave a quote of nearly $50k to replace the bathtub -- about 17% of the value of his home. It's price-gouging at its finest, considering the bathtub costs around $4k, and my father already completed all of the plumbing work in advance, expecting that he might need to switch out the bathtub at some point.
It's just another middle finger to Veterans like my father who proudly served his country when duty called.
My father is far from the only Veteran suffering like this; in fact, nearly everyone we've met in the hospital who knows a Vietnam Veteran has shared a similar story -- prostate cancer, diabetes, lymphoma, etc., and lots of hoops to jump through to obtain much needed medical care and coverage.
If my father didn't have his whole family around him every day, even the nurses told us he'd get "lost" in the system, a particularly ominous warning considering how many Veterans are on their own.
Suffice it to say, this is not how we should be treating our Veterans.
They laid their lives on the line to protect our freedom, and the least we can do is make it easier for them to obtain the treatment and services that the VA already knows they need.
Don't get me started on the lack of proactive outreach to impacted Veterans.
The whole experience has led me to believe that perhaps "reparations" are in order for all the pain and suffering our Veterans have endured, including the emotional toll stemming from their wartime responsibilities and the hate Vietnam Veterans received—even from their own family members—for getting drafted to serve their country.
The $200 settlement awarded to Vietnam Veterans like my father was an INSULT.
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My uncle was drafted out of high school for Vietnam…agent orange exposure-died at the age of 41, his body riddled with cancer. Dow Chemical offered my aunt, $3500 as a condolence. 👿
And, the military continues to abuse the health of its soldiers(vaccines, water cont., food cont., moldy conditions)! Why would anyone sign up? We the people, must begin INSISTING accountability for this evil.