M14 Forum

CCKen

AGENT ORANGE PAIN

They did their time and gave their all
They watched so many brothers fall
They boarded the freedom bird that day
And knew they were lucky to walk away

Their brothers paid the ultimate price
They sacrificed all, they gave their life
Remembered forever in their brothers mind
Where they remain immortalized in time

But the men that came home didn't know
The same price would be paid, but very slow
Walking dead men boarded that plane
Dying a death from agent orange rain

Our country knew what the poison would do
When over those men the airplanes flew
And spewed its contents all around
It covered the men and permeated the ground

The healthcare promised was not for them,
Our government denied them again and again
They waited for many of them to fall
Those brave men who answered their countries call

They didn't know coming home that day
They were dying from lethal agent orange spray
Our heroes and loved one who our country denied
And continued to stand by the ultimate lie

Our husbands, fathers, brothers, and friends
One after the other their lives came to an end
Now there are tears that fall to the ground
Like the agent orange rain that brought them down

They were betrayed and so were we
By our own country, the land of the free
Vietnam killed so many who survived
Not in battle but from the agent orange lie

Agent orange widows and orphans left behind
We hold their memories in our hearts and minds
Our efforts to save them were in vain
Now we are dying from agent orange pain

Oxmix

Agent Orange was also used in:

Okinawa

Thailand

Guam

South Korea

Regards

Ox

CPTKILLER

I relate to this with a cocktail of Agent Orange related problems from diabetes to Parkinsons & tremors. All I can say is that we did our job & left the battlefield as victors not losers. No regrets.

RandyB45

Blue Water legislation passed for Navy vets as well. Check with your VSO.

Seventh Fleet

How about a link on that blue water legislation for Navy vets. I have Myocardial ischemia which is on the VA list of presumptive Agent Orange illnesses, and my heart is only working at 25% now due to Agent Orange exposure. Operation Ranch hand voided their tanks on us twice in 65 while we were anchored off the beach at Chu Lai. My civilian heart doctor has the paper work for me to take to the county VA rep and get the wheels in motion. Hopefully my family will at least be able to get something after I'm gone. Most of my crew has come down with crap like this and many have already gone on to their rewards due to various cancers and heart issues.

7th

M1A's r BEST

My dad was in the Air Force. He said those containers leaked. He said they'd load those containers on the air planes and when they got done their boots would be so wet with agent orange that they made a squishing sound as they walked back to their barracks. He said his boots and socks would be just soaked.

Now (and for the last few years) he has parkinson's (the VA gives him medicine for that), he just had have his right lung removed (the VA wanted to remove all of it so he went to a civilian doctor who told him only the top was "bad" and had it removed by them - they don't know what it is, it was thought to be cancer but he has never smoked/chewed and the doctor said it wasn't cancer but they're not sure what it was), he has big watery blisters that break out on his legs that the VA doctors don't have a clue about, he has rashes that break out on his back, shoulders, chest, belly that the VA doctors haven't figured out, the list goes on.

Sometimes I think my son's would have matured sooner/better had they gone i the military (like I did, my dad did and his dad did) but in the long run they're probably better off not being placed in danger for bad reasons and then being ignored or forgotten by the same government that put them in harm's way.

ribs55

Chris Moeller

Gone way before his time. Letterman in High School, (one strong SOB) Marine ...Tet.....the Triangle......Got home got married
Had a Beautiful baby......................................
By the time we buried him ( a very short time later) I would have been able to pick him up by myself
"They" didn't call it an "agent Orange problem" then.




RIP Chris M, Brian B Chris H.
Get well Donny (Ace) Acevedo


Bob R (ribs)

Don, if you are out there Bro, please contact we are getting too old

RandyB45

http://www.nvlsp.org/Information/Art...vnicholson.htm My mistake on this. I thought it had passed but it was a court case. Call your congressman and bust his balls.

I don't know what Congress has done with this since I retired. I'll ask the national VSO I work with and see what she knows. Haas is binding on the VA though and I don't think they have wiggled around it. Secretary Shinseki has done a great job of nailing their feet, and Congress', to the floor on a lot of things. Hang in there: We're all in this together.

carpshooter

I remember the day that I went to find the jungle ( thanks to agent orange it was gone ) at Chu Lai back in 1970 !

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nf1e@snet.net

No jungle at Chu Lai in 67 and 68 when I was there. Plenty of sand and a beautiful beach. MAG 13 VMFA 115. Plenty of time on the perimeter. And the village of AN HUA down Highway 1 to Guang Nai. Plenty of Agent O for everyone.
Semper Fi
Sgt. USMC 66 - 72 RVN 67-68

RandyB45

AO was also used in some stateside locations (Ft. Chaffee, AR and along the MS River. I have forgotten the time frames.). Any one who thinks they may have been exposed in any of these, or other, locations shoot me a PM and I'll try to set you up with proof.

BDH

I work as a VSO for a service organization, and unless you can prove boots on the ground, there is no presumptive service connection for Agent Orange , Navy or otherwise.

Bruce

RAMMAC

How do you define "boots on the ground"?

The VA does now acknowledge that there were ships that operated inland and that they were exposed and the crew of those ships did not have to debark in order to make a claim.

http://www.vawatchdogtoday.org/uploa...iningGuide.pdf

RandyB45

BOG is any amount of time on land in the country of Vietnam. There have been successful claims under Haas for other areas (Korea, Thailand, Blue Water). I know two vets who are compensated for service on the DMZ when AO was used.

RAMMAC

No, you do not have to have spent time on land, as long as you served aboard a brown water ship or a blue water ship that performed brown water functions, in a time frame when the chemicals were used, you are now automatically assumed to have been exposed.

My info is in that link I provided and I have a close associate that is a VSR for the VA. My VA source tells me that since the date of that training letter (the link I provided) the VA has increased the number of ships included, due to the C&P research mentioned in the document.