Summary Of The Commentary On Agent Orange

This is a more in-depth piece on the lawsuits made by veterans following the end of the Vietnam War. Claims started being made in 1977 after many veterans were experiencing health issues and having children born with birth defects. They reported the issues to the Department of Veteran Affairs for disability benefit, but the agency denied them of any help unless they could prove it was directly from serving in Vietnam or within a year after coming home. A case worker for the department, Maude De Victor, met a widow of a veteran who died from lung cancer and she believed her husband’s cancer was related to exposure to Agent Orange. De Victor started to ask other veterans about being exposed to Agent Orange and asking the Department of Defense,

In this interview Luis Le answered some question about his experience during the Vietnam War. He was born in Vietnam and during the time the was happening. Mr. Le explains in this interview what it was like when he was a child in the war. His mother and father were killed by the communist government and was constantly moving from place to place. He tells us in one of the questions that when Saigon fell after the Paris Peace Accords many people were scared and that this was the real start for a terrifying life for many families. One of the answered questions states, “ War is ugly. I saw so many people died. The family lost their fathers, brothers, and sisters.” During the war many people had lost their homes, villages, and loved ones just as

Imagine one day you receive a mail from the government that you been draft to go a war at a different country. How would you feel if you know that purpose of this war is unreasonable in any senses? Angry, anxious or even confused. Vietnam War was “a personal failure on a national scale” (Hochgesang). There are many videos, documents and movies about the Vietnam War that show different angles of the Vietnam veterans’ experience and how the war really changes their life. In “The Things They Carried” written by Tim O’Brien, he argues about how the Vietnam War affect the soldiers in many ways, not only physically, but more important is the psychological effects before, during and after the war.

It has been proven by the U.S Department of Veterans Affairs that more than half of the soldiers “reported a history of musculoskeletal conditions”, “circulatory and nervous system diseases”, and “behavioral health concerns” after serving in the Vietnam War (Source F). Clearly, these men were left to deal with the haphazardous outcomes of serving in a war they were involuntarily drafted into. While some may argue that the soldiers should feel honorable to live with these effects due to their courageousness and the fact that they did not die like the other “350,000 American” soldiers that they fought with, that is illogical in the sense that the drafted soldiers did not volunteer to be in the war in the first place, and did not deserve the psychological and physical effects of it (Source E). This longitudinal study goes to prove how disconcerning the government regarding its drafted

Agent Orange is a herbicide that was used to defoliate the jungles, meaning the United States military was trying to kill off the trees in Vietnam in order to take away places for North Vietnamese military men could hide (1). The Viet Cong did not fight conventionally against the American military, they could not do so and expect to win. This caused them to resort to guerilla warfare in order to strike and weaken parts of a division or unit. The Americans used Agent Orange as a defense strategy in order to take away hiding places for the Viet Cong to run to after hitting the American units (2). What is especially harmful to those who were around Agent Orange and where it was sprayed was the dioxin, which is a byproduct of one of the chemicals components. People still worked and breathed even with the residue of the toxin still in the air and in the soil, civilians and military personnel alike. The toxin carried in it a carcinogen that got its way into the water and in the soil. Slowly as the years have passed and Vietnam has been hit with a lot of monsoons clean water has washed away the toxic water, but not before it entered into the food chain and then started to accumulate into body fat and tissue in humans that was able to passed from a mother to their child threw breast milk. The American military, by word of the American government, dumped millions of gallons of Agent Orange onto the southern half of

The war in Vietnam was, and continues to be, one of the most controversial hot button topics in American history. The military’s use of dangerous pesticides, like Agent Orange, is a major part of this controversy. Agent Orange is a defoliant that was widely used to deforest dense jungle areas to reduce both hiding places and food sources for the Vietnamese. During the war, American B-52 bombers released over nineteen million gallons of Agent Orange over the Vietnamese countryside. After ten years of continuous dumping, 1971 finally marked the end of America’s use of Agent Orange and other herbicides. In 1974, the United States government, headed by Richard Nixon, swore the country would never again use chemical weapons in a first strike. (Levy and Scott-Clark)

“We were told, ‘it’s totally safe and it won’t hurt you at all,” he added. “We were told you can drink it, you can brush your teeth with it, or you can bathe in it. It won’t hurt you. Those were lies.” (“U.S. Soldiers Sprayed Agent Orange across Korea” 1) Agent Orange was an herbicide used by the United States military forces in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to destroy their enemies’ food supply, land, and protection. Twelve million gallons of this toxin were sprayed. (Department of Preventive Medicine 1) It affected the Vietnamese and the American troops who were fighting in the same jungle. Little did the United States military know the effects of this dangerous herbicide. It caused many long-term complications, including health problems

Agent Orange was a strong and powerful herbicide used by the United States during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange was used to eliminate forest cover for the North Vietnam Army, and kill crops to try and starve them. It was very effective in its job and was used for 10 years during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange not oly kills the plants that it was targeting, but it also had a amjor affect on the people that were exposed to it. Agent Orange is a very deadly weapon, and people are still facing the consequences of it today.

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

Problem that the Vietnamese war veterans faced was the psychological effects which was very common for Vietnam veterans to have. The main cause of this is because it was different compared to other wars in the past like the condition that the soldiers were in. Studies has shown that a World War II soldiers experienced up to a total of 60 days under combat like conditions. A Vietnam infantryman endured on a comparable basis 300+ days therefore Vietnam veterans have more likely to develop psychological problems than a World War II veteran. (POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD), 2001)

For those who served in Vietnam, the war left a major legacy. Due to the fact of Vietnam War being unpopular, and unacknowledged, the veterans had to adjust to different consequences. Vietnam veterans experienced physical, and psychological problems. Exposure to Agent Orange was a huge issue, because of all the issues it caused. It had long-term consequences, like the increase of the risk of various types of cancer, and birth defects among the veterans' children. A negative legacy the war left on Vietnam veterans has been the health effects of Agent Orange and other herbicides used in Vietnam. The exposure to the different kinds of chemicals caused them, and their family to develop illnesses, and birth defects for their children. Of the veterans'

The impact of the Vietnam War upon the soldiers who fought there was huge. The experience forever changed how they would think and act for the rest of their lives. One of the main reasons for this was there was little to no understanding by the soldiers as to why they were fighting this war. They felt they were killing innocent people, farmers, poor hard working people, women, and children were among their victims. Many of the returning soldiers could not fall back in to their old life styles. First they felt guilt for surviving many of their brothers in arms. Second they were haunted by the atrocities of war. Some soldiers could not go back to the mental state of peacetime. Then there were soldiers Tim O’Brien meant while in

Also during the Viet Nam war, America decided to sprayed agent orange- a Dioxin-laden defoliant, onto the landscape of Southeast Viet Nam to deprive the enemy of cover. Who in their right mind would ever think it's a good idea to find the enemy by wiping out beautiful forest and hurting civilians? For people who don’t know what Agent Orange can do to people, it contains dioxin, one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man, it causes cancer and birth defects. Even though it has been 50 years, that toxic chemical is still hurting the Vietnamese people; children born to parents exposed during the war and in areas of heavy spraying hot spots have sever physical deformities, mental and physical disabilities, diseases and shortened life spans. The Vietnamese people exposed to the chemical suffer from cancer, liver damage, pulmonary and heart diseases... Viet Nam war is just a hurtful memory, there is no good bringing it up to debate now, but even though the war didn’t affect me physically, it has a big impact on me

The Vietnam war was the most unsuccessful war to date as countless mistakes were made. With this, it caused the American people to hold distrust towards the government. U.S. morale, self-confidence, trust of government was destroyed after that war. Many lost almost all trust with the government concerning the war when the Mai Lai Massacre occurred. American soldiers went to kill Viet Cong in a town but it turned out that the people who were there were innocent civilians. American soldiers killed the innocent lives anyway. The Massacre is one of the many ways Americans had tried to fix Vietnam but the only effect was creating a negative atmosphere towards the war. Similarly, when the United States used chemicals to try to defeat the Viet Cong it made lasting negative effects to future and present lives of not only the Vietnamese but Americans too. Because of chemicals known as Agent Orange and ____, Veterans are known to be sustainable to many different diseases and cancers. Today, Vietnam children are growing up with birth defects because of the chemicals used by the United States trying to win the war. Not only were people lives hurt more almost half of the rainforest in Vietnam was melted by the chemicals. Water, food and animals were all contaminated. Even though the war showed to destroy many lives it also showed that even if you don't like what the

The chemical weaponry that were used on the Vietnam vegetation had an adverse effect on the people in a way that even after three generations, the effects are still evident on the children. Many of them are born with malformations and severe defects in the nervous structure and immune system. The chemical also affected the American soldiers and veterans as many of them have health issues related to these weapons. Although the American government thought that they were only punishing the North Vietnamese, American veterans ended up victims of chronic and unhealthy conditions.