Thank you. I am not a scientist but I did read and try to absorb as much as I could. And I have no argument that "hot spots" should be cleaned up. I spent a year in Vietnam at Bien Hoa which is considered one of the hot spots. I was also aware of the study in Seveso that shows palatel defects in some infants after many years of study. This information on AO also is given by the National Institute of Cancer of whom you cite above: http://voteview.com/Dioxin_Summary.pdfOriginally Posted by Marsch
Now, the Ministry of Health in Vietnam is claiming 400,000 deaths, and millions of birth defects (its easy to find some horrible photos of these unfortunate victims on the net) due to Agent Orange. My beef is that I believe most of these birth defects and cancers are being caused by industrial polution. As you state most of the high levels are at the "Hot Spots. Normally the large air bases in Vietnam. Unlikely places for civilians to be before or after the war, except in small numbers. One only need to look at what happened and is happening in China when it comes to birth defects and industrial polution. Is the US responsible for millions of birth defects or are the Vietnamese scapgoating for their own puposes?
Last edited by Gerry301; 08-11-2012 at 05:56 PM. Reason: addition of materiel
Probably Monsanto pulling the strings on the background, because they want to infiltrate Vietnam markets with their GMO products and pesticides. And... chemical corps are like the tobacco industry, they lobby and PR hard to give the impression, that you could drink their products instead of milk at breakfast without any adverse effects...
I don't know. The number may sounds a bit off but then you have to devide this through 40 years by now and 10.000 a year doesn't sounds that much anymore. If we're talking about "hot spots" we're talking about today but during the time of the war all areas where the herbicides were sprayed were hotspots. Like Hollis wrote they walked through contamined areas, they drank contamined water and they even slept in sprayed areas. Same goes for the population with the diffrence that here also females were exposed to higher doses. I don't want to know how contamined the rivers alone were due to all the wash out and spray-missions during that time. How the situation looks today is described in one of the links I posted but nobody actually knows how the levels looked at the time the spraying took place. Industrial pollution may has it's part but to say there's an industrial park at this or that location and therefore there has to be a higher level of (dioxin) pollution is a little bit to easy to say.
I think that is the issue. What happened 40 years ago and how it effects today. If left to a government study, this will go on for another 40 years with no hope for the people to day. The Vets, their families, their children in the 70's, were left to their own, no VA support.
Thanks for the additional information. In 1980, I read in the Oregonian Newspaper that in summer of 1969, Quang Tri was the hardest it. It may have been for that time period only and not over all. Also assuming my memory after 30 years is 5 by 5.
The area contested is South Viet-Nam, not the Bac Biet (the enemy) SVN where our allies. Same with the Monteyards, Hmong and others. We left them.
I might be going a little off-topic here but I really do wonder, since most of the places in Vietnam are covered with foliage and thick vegetation, how often was flamethrower used during the Vietnam War? I know they were used because I have seen a picture/clip on it, but how extensive was the usage? The guy carrying the flamethrower were they Combat Engineer attached to the Infantry Squad, or assigned infantryman.
Glad to contribute. For summer 1969 this is quite possible because the records just show the overall gallon numbers from '65 onwards. The operations in Cambodia started in the spring of 1970 and the most sprayed area Phuoc Vinh is at the Cambodian border. So there's a good chance most of this area was sprayed from 1970 and later.
Why not help them now as it becomes more and more possible? Relations seem to be on green and maybe that's also a little aimed into Chinas direction.
They had so called "Zippos" which were patrol boats with a powerfull flamethrower that could light up brush and enemy fortifications at the river banks. There also was a rebuild M113 APC flamethrower version which was used for that purpose but this all was just usable for very small areas and worked just for a very short time because the brush grows fast again. Bulldozing also wasn't that effective and had to be constantly repeated. All that wasn't possible for large areas, due to terrain or distance and that's why they used herbicides like Agent Orange.
Last edited by Marsch; 08-11-2012 at 09:31 PM.
Ever been to Arizona? There was a place in RVN that was called Arizona country, because it looked like Arizona. It was a mix. The only time I was in a jungle was in Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador. Your geography and history is lacking. Viet-Nam had many parts to it.
Do you see a jungle in this photo?
or this one?
But with this pictures there's the question how much of the damage was caused by all kinds of exploding ordonance before or during these hill tops were taken? I know the first photo but where's the second one taken? Razorback? As you can see I listed some locations around the area as you mentioned Mutter's Ridge because I've looked up how close they where to Núi Cây Tre. As far as I know this area was the first buffer to the north and also kept an important route (Nr. 9?) open. I can imagine how such an area had to look in the view of the military and why it was sprayed that much.
Yes, we never thought about it, was it ordnance or ??............ Trees where bare and brush was every where. We were North of rt 9. It was just not a good place to be.
The M113 APC based flamethrower was the M132
Oh I wasn't implying that every places in Vietnam was a jungle, but you can't ignore the fact that Vietnam does have a lot of vegetation ranging from natives plants and trees, or agriculture subsistence such as paddy rice field. I only bought flamethrower in mind because of one of its main purpose. Aside from that, when most people talk about the Vietnam War, flamethrower was almost never mentioned despite its being used during the war. I'm only discussing as to how effective was it, which I suppose was already answered on the comments above.
Anyway thanks you guys for answering, didn't mean to go Off-Topic.
No problem, I never saw one, that does not mean much. I was on the D, Northern I Corps. Also keep in mind, RVN vets number less than 850,000 and wannabes around 13,000,000. So be careful where you get your information from.
Actually there are 7.6 million veterans still alive from the original veterans from the Vietnam era. (Including the 850,000 still alive who were in Vietnam) So at least half of those who served their country during the war are no longer with us as well. No Need to piss on their graves.
Not sure what you are saying. But from federal census, they came up with the number of wannabes, those who did not serve in-country or served at all. I was addressing to those who served in-country and those people who said they did and did not, for them piss on them. More Americans would have come home if we had more trigger pullers at the time. Companies where understrength.
As soon as I posted I knew it was a mistake as I realized what you were talking about. You have my apology for an inappropriate comment. I will drink an extra 6 beers tonite as punishment.
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