The Vietnam War was a hard time for many Americans. The men had to go off to a land filled with violence and crime while families and friends waited to see if their loved ones would return home. However, the biggest crime that happened during that time was in our own backyard. The government used a harsh herbicide named Agent Orange. Agent Orange was used to “expose guerilla forces in forested areas” (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). It contains a large amount of dioxin, a toxic chemical. Agent Orange was also used to give our soldiers a clear line of fire, which in turn, also gave the enemy a clear line of fire. It was used indiscriminately by the government, sprayed not only over the jungle canopy that it was meant to clear, but also through rice patties and on our own soldiers there fighting. “Agent Orange would be raining down on us and all we could do was just keep walking” (Fullerton). The government used large sprayers on airplanes, trucks and even carried on the backs of our own service men. The military sprayed around 20,000,000 U.S. gallons of harmful herbicides and defoliants between the periods of 1962 until 1971 (GoldenMap). John Wesley Fullerton, a sergeant in the Army, served in Vietnam during 1967-1969. According to Sgt. Fullerton, Agent Orange was sprayed almost daily in the jungles where he ran patrols. Agent Orange, having caused Vietnam veterans pain and suffering, is a secret that the government refrains from telling.
Around three million Americans served in the Vietnam War and according to the Air Force, there were about 6,542 sprayings (GoldenMap); however, it is hard to know exactly how many men were affected by Agent Orange. The soldiers were originally told that this was a completely harmless h...
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... known as Agent Orange, has done its damage. It served its purpose in the war to cut down on the amount of vegetation, as well as giving millions of people its deadly side effects. The government has given compensation, but has yet to accept full responsibility. So many like John Fullerton have lost jobs, houses, money and even their own lives due to Agent Orange before compensation has been given, even with claims filed. The government has been lazy in the sense of doing their job to protect the Americans that depend on them. The government is supposed to be something that Americans can turn to when everything else fails, but how are we supposed to trust a government that can’t own up to the much pain and death that it has caused? They need to own up to their mistake and work on it, so that the lives of our veterans and their families will be a little better.
These applications include pesticide, herbicide, defoliating agent such as Agent Orange, cleaning agent and electrical insulation. Consequently, human exposure to dioxin is not a recent phenomenon and the dangers of dioxin are not unknown. Only in recent years, especially after the Vietnam War, has the media concentrated on the dangers and impact of dioxin. The physical effect of exposure to dioxin was first seen in skin diseases developed by chemical plant workers in 1895. Exposure to dioxin results in a type of skin disease like acne called "chloroacne," since its cause was initially and incorrectly linked to chlorine gas.
In the article, “A Legacy of Illness: The Healing Process Is Far From Done” by Amanda Spake, the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War is shown to be detrimental to Vietnam War veterans’ mental and physical health. The aftermath and effects of the agent did not and still does not receive the acknowledgment it deserves. The depth of the mental and physical distress of Vietnam veterans exposed to the agent is dismissed by the Veteran Administration, Department of Veteran Affairs and the general public. It is from this lack of awareness for the hardships of the veterans of the Vietnam War endangered by Agent Orange that their psychological and physical struggles stem.
On April 12, 1961, the first application of the chemical nicknamed Agent Orange was sprayed on Vietnamese foliage in an attempt to stop guerilla warfare, launching a herbicidal disaster ("Herbicidal Warfare"). The consequences of agent orange, unbeknownst to the former government officials, led to a series of catastrophic effects including, but not limited to neurobehavioral and physical anomalies of the human body. As a result of the lacking knowledge of Agent Orange, the United States and Vietnam are still cleaning up the herbicidal mess that could have been avoided (Magnuson). Decades later, scientific evidence proved that the use of the dioxin herbicide Agent Orange was linked to many physical and neurobehavior disorders (Poremba).
Why has the use of Agent Orange become so controversial? The Americans dropped the atomic bomb to end World War II and did not have the backlash that it had, and still has, with Agent Orange. The ver...
"Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam." Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam. N.p., 1994. Web. 3 Apr. 2011. .
It has been known that the Vietnam War affected many American soldiers who were involved in the war physically and psychologically. The Vietnam War was one of the most memorable wars in history. Many Americans’ lives lost for no objective at all. Chapter 10 informed us about how the Vietnam War started and what really happened during that time. It also gave us background information about Vietnam Veterans and nurses who were involved in the war and what they went through during the war. I had the opportunity to interview a Vietnam Veteran also.
The Vietnam War was one of the most prolonged wars in US history. Although there were no exact dates, it is believed that US involvement lasted for around 20 years. The US went into this war hoping they could stop the spread of communism and defeat the northern Vietnamese. The battles were like nothing they had seen before and it was very difficult for the soldiers to differentiate between the enemies and civilians. To make it even more difficult for the soldiers, their “information was based on faulty intelligence”. Võ Nguyên Giáp, a northern Vietnamese general, believed that the US and the southern Vietnamese had an unstable relationship. He hoped that through the Tet Offensive the US would believe they were no longer worth defending. Fighting was done using guerrilla warfare which blurred the lines of legitimate and illegitimate killings and this had effect of bringing peoples morales down. Support for the war had always been split but this battle caused even the government to reconsider their involvement. The Tet offensive changed the US's attitude towards the Vietnam war by leading to further anti-war protests, a credibility gap in America, and for President Johnson to negotiate peace and not seek reelection.
In response to the unjust warfare committed in Vietnam, many activists rose to the challenge to oppose what they believed was wrong. Their activism has slowly changed the way the United States conducts foreign policy. Many forms of weaponry such as herbicides and napalm have been removed from use due to the outcry of their inhumane methods. The sacrifices that these activists made should serve as an example for modern and future American citizens to oppose unjust conflicts and war crimes regardless of the nation they are committed by.
Vietnam war has been one of the most deadliest and expensive wars to date. Not only it resulted in massive casualties and financial losses, it also made a long lasting effect on American psyche. Following the withdrawal of US combat forces in 1973, majority of Americans tried to overlook what had transpired for the past decade. It served as a devastating blow to American image both domestically and abroad. Vietnam war was heavily protested, misunderstood and highly controversial, and although many question the necessity of the invasion, yet it has continued to shape the way American foreign policies and military have evolved over the years. While Vietnam was the first war to be comprehensively televised still it had a negative stigma to it that was exploited by the media and Hollywood. Soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice, willingly or unwillingly were neglected and scorned.
and N-Butyl Ester 2,4,5,-T, Agent Orange made many Vietnam soldiers go insane (Vietnam Veterans, 11-10-2000). This atrocious chemical lead and still today leads to death, deformation, and diabetes. Dr. Joel E. Michalek, who deals with statistics for the air force, was the first to notice a link between Agent Orange and diabetes. But the federal government was not willing “...to spend millions of dollars on such studies”.
The political and societal ramifications of Vietnam's Tet Offensive indubitably illustrate the historical oddity of 1968. 1967 had not been a bad year for most Americans. Four years after the profound panic evoked by the assassination of John Kennedy, the general public seemed to be gaining a restored optimism, and even the regularly protested Vietnam War still possessed the semblance of success (Farber and Bailey 34-54). However, three short weeks following the eve of 68, Americans abruptly obtained a radically different outlook. The Tet Offensive, beginning on January 30, 1968, consisted of a series of military incursions during the Vietnam War, coordinated between the National Liberation Front's People's Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF), or "Viet Cong," and the ...
The nuclear bomb was the most devastating weapon ever created by man. It was developed between 1942 and 1945 during the second World War. The project to build the worlds first atomic weapon was called The Manhattan Project. The nuclear bomb was based on the idea of splitting an atom to create energy, this is called fission. Three bombs were created, “Trinity”, “Little Boy”, and “Fat Man”. “Trinity” was dropped on a test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, proving the theories, engineering and mathematics of the bomb to be correct. Shortly after that, not more than 2 months, the U.S. performed the first actual nuclear attack in the history of war. The bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on the town of Hiroshima, instantly killing thousands. “Fat Man” was dropped shortly after on the town of Nagasaki. After the bombing almost all scientist involved with the creation of the bomb regretted its construction and spoke out against the abolishment of nuclear weapons.
She talked to chemical companies that manufactured Agent Orange. VA’s top brass ordered her to stop asking questions (Carroll).” The VA once again shut down the issue of Agent Orange, making them seem more guilty in the years following Operation Ranch Hand. Carroll gave a summarized Public Law 97-72 as, “authorizing priority health-care services in all VA medical centers for the treatment of health conditions in Vietnam veterans that may be related to Agent Orange exposure (Carroll).” Once the law was set in motion the VA realized they were in a losing position in the argument of who was at fault. Later on in the decade, “Congress appropriated $100 million for VA to conduct its own Agent Orange study.- Delegates at the 1981 American Legion National Convention called for an immediate independent study.- Rep. Thomas Daschle,D-S.D., introduced a bill to recognize a service-connection presumption for some of the illnesses veterans described.- Daschle’s bill died (Carroll).” As described by Dolan, “The agreement called for them to place $180 million in a trust fund that would then be distributed among all the veterans claiming harm by Agent Orange (Dolan 82).” However, the money was not able to reach all Veterans affected by the
The Vietnam War was the first major war American’s had suffered defeat. The Vietnam war was a war of confusion, competition and biasness. The outcome of the war was far greater than an upset American nation, but a severe breakdown of the Vietnamese culture, economy, environment and government. It also had a tremendous impact on American society even up to present day. It was unclear from the beginning of the war if the American’s should even be involved. It was a war between Northern and Southern Vietnam but the U.S saw it as an indirect way to challenge the USSR’s sphere of influence in Southern Asia and to prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism. The Vietnam War completely changed the way the United States approached military action and helped establish the role of the United States within the new world order.
Throughout history there have been records of soldiers experiencing ‘shell shock,’ ‘battle fatigue,’ ‘gross stress reaction,’ and ‘soldier’s heart.’ The soldiers who suffered from these combat induced physiological traumas were branded as cowards, and removed from positions, reprimanded and even court marshaled. Vietnam veterans began to experience similar ailments immediately following the war. This new surge of afflicted soldiers forced the public as well as medical professionals and government officials to take notice of what is now ...