American around the world. You're listening to
America's number one program for veterans, Veterans
Radio. And now, live from the studios of WDEO
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, here's your host for
today's program, former CB Chulai, 1966 Republic
of Vietnam, Gary Lilley. And good morning. I
just sit here with a big grin when you're announcing.
Matt, you sound like you're at the palace announcing
the basketball players coming on the court. I
really enjoy it. It makes me grin every week.
Good morning out there, America, and good morning
to all our troops spread out across the world,
that thin green and blue line that's protecting
not just our country, but other countries as
well. And to my veteran brothers and sisters,
Welcome home. And to all those folks in other
continents, we're getting your emails, except
you people down in Antarctica. You're asleep
at the wheel. We want to get an email from somebody
down in Antarctica. We've gotten them from every
other continent. So this morning on Veterans
Radio, we've got, gee, we sent out a flyer and
we're getting all sorts of responses to it about
Operation Ranch Hand and the spraying of Agent
Orange. Jack McManus, who is a true member of
one of those C123s, is with us today and he will
be telling us about how that program worked,
what was in the product that was in those herbicides
and those tanks. Right now though, we've got
Bob Gould on the phone. Bob, good morning. I
told you never let me push a button. You're going
to see a mushroom cloud here. We're right here
from our Williamsburg studios. Welcome out there
all my brothers and sisters. Well you know what
we're going to be talking about just for a few
minutes. Frank Woodruff Buckles and he is the
last surviving World War I verified veteran.
He's also the last surviving verified veteran
in the world. And he is 110 years old on the
1st of February. He currently lives in Gap View
Farm in Charlestown, West Virginia. My goodness,
where would Gap View Farm be, Gary? Never heard
of it. I don't know if it was safe there. He
is a field that jumped in here. He's the honorary
chairman of the World War I Memorial Foundation
during World War II. Two, Buckles was taken prisoner
by the Japanese as a civilian. Really? I didn't
realize that. Quite the man. Once again, it's
February 110. He has been on guard. He's been
a soldier all those years. He's a soldier. Tell
me a little bit about what did he do in World
War I? What was his job? Well, he was working
with the first... Fort Riley casual detachment
and what he did he drove ambulance and motorcycles
all that must have been cool You imagine driving
a motorcycle in World War one Wow, what a guy,
huh? He served in England and France during the
war he also after the war Here's a very interesting
man served on the RMS Carpathia Remember that
they're the ones who rescued that Titanic survivors.
Okay. Yeah, that's a British ship RMS I know
but to think that how this man is in and out
of history the Titanic What's that the Titanic
was he was in on that rescue? No, but he was
he was aboard the car path He served aboard the
car path here and had a chance to talk with some
of the crew who did participate The part the
point I'm making out is this man This man has
led a quite a life. I'd like to quote something
here, and I know we're going to take a few moments
here, but the man has been on guard for a long
time, military. He says, I was just 16 and didn't
look a day older. I confess to you that I lied
more than one recruiter. I gave them my solemn
word that I was 18, but I had left my birth certificate
back home in the family Bible. They'd take one
look at me and laugh and tell me to go home before
my mother. noticed I was gone. So somehow I got
the idea that telling even a bigger whopper was
the way to go. So I told the next recruiter that
I was 21. And darned, if he didn't, sign me up
on the spot. Isn't that great? A bigger lie works.
Oh yeah. And I want to tell all our listeners
you can go to the U .S. Library of Congress and
go to Buckles, Frank Buckles, for the Veterans
History Project. and his audio. It's a 148 minute
video interview of his life. Oh, I didn't do
that. Oh, isn't that wonderful that we have that,
but we're so fortunate to have this man still
on guard. Now, he says, and he wishes that when
he died he would be buried at Arlington. Well,
he was not eligible. I don't understand that.
Well, the veterans, you have to have a Medal
of Honor, Purple Heart, or have been killed in
action. or special, I don't know what the another
word, dispensation from the Department of Interior
to be allowed to do that. So is he going to be?
Pardon? Will he be allowed to be? Well, he was
ineligible. Okay. So his family started petitioning
legislator and lost parole, took up the cause.
To make the story short, he went to the direct
up to the Bush administration. And they, they
made a special dispensation for Frank Woodruff
-Buckles and he will be buried in Arlington.
Well, Bob, thanks for calling in on that and
see if you can get an interview with him. I certainly
will and this little musical salute is for you,
Frank Woodruff -Buckles. Thank you for standing
guard. Thank you very much. I've got one other
thing I want to cover. This was sent to us from
our friend in Tasmania. It's a story about an
Australian SAS Digger. Now the SAS stands for
Special Air Service Regiment. That's a Special
Forces unit of the Australian Army. is a term
that originated in World War I. It's the Australian
and New Zealand soldier, and it's the equivalent
of the GI for the American soldier. So it's an
Australian digger named Corporal Benjamin Robert
Smith, 32 years old, six foot six inches tall.
That's quite a target. He was recently awarded
the Victoria Cross for conspicuous gallantry
while attacking Taliban machine gun positions
in Afghanistan. The Victoria Cross is the equivalent
of our Medal of Honor. That's the highest award
they can receive. Now earlier on a tour in Afghanistan
in 2006, he was awarded a medal for gallantry
and that's the second highest award. It would
be the equivalent of our Distinguished Service
Cross. That was for bravery. And that made him
the most highly decorated member of the Australian
Defense Force, which is their armed services.
He was only the second Australian to be awarded
the Victoria Cross after it was established in
1991 for Australia. And of course he said, as
I have heard so many times on this program and
I cannot wrap my mind around it, I was only doing
my job. If you were to read what he did, and
you can Google it, Corporal Benjamin Robert Smith
in both of those battles where he was attacking
machine gun nests in that rugged terrain where
they had everybody pinned down, it's just astounding.
So, Corporal Robert, Benjamin Robert Smith, congratulations.
You've done your fourth tour in Afghanistan.
And the world is proud of you, and I want to
thank Ella Woods, our friend down there in Tasmania,
for sending that on to us. And this morning we
want to do what we've always done, and that is
welcome home all of the troops that are coming
back from Afghanistan and Iraq. And we just want
to say to you, on behalf of a grateful nation
and on behalf of Veterans Radio, welcome home.
You have honorably served the United States and
the Marine Corps in times of peace and war. Now
we would like to serve you. The Marine Scholars
Program covers the total cost of attending Ave
Maria University by combining resources from
the Ave Maria University Marine Scholars Funding,
federal financial aid entitlements, and the GI
Bill. The benefits are granted for the duration
of the recipient study at Ave Maria University
contingent upon good conduct and good academic
standing. The Marine Scholars Program is open
to all reserve and active component Marines and
other combat veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom
and Operation Iraqi Freedom who have honorably
served our country. Please visit us online at
www .avemaria .edu or call the Assistant Director
of Admissions at 239 -280 -2552. You helped us.
Now let us help you. Semper Fi. And we're back
on Veterans Radio. With us is Jack McManus. Jack
served on Operation Ranch Hand, and there's a
lot of people who have heard of that. That was
the spraying of Agent Orange, but there were
some other agents also. He was a crew member
on a C -123. If you're looking, you can see a
model of that hand carved by a friend of his
out of mahogany and painted with the colors,
the camouflage colors. Jack, welcome to Veterans
Radio. Good morning. Good morning. Time for the
morning. Time for the morning, too. Tell us about
Operation Ranch Hand, what was it, and then you
can follow up with what did you do in there.
Well, let me start off by saying that Operation
Ranch Hand started in the United States. with
the Army and the Army medical branches and the
Army chemical warfare folks. And they developed
a whole series of different experimental products
to use with different applications for applying
to defoliate jungle areas to destroy crops. and
to essentially take away the protective canopy
that the enemy had in Southeast Asia. These experiments
went on during the 1950s into the 1960s and developed
a series of different chemical compounds that
were used in chemical warfare in Southeast Asia
and as we find out now in a number of other places
around the world such as Panama, Upstate New
York, Korea, a number of different places. So
we were essentially the component of the Air
Force that was charged with defoliating and spraying
the defoliant in Southeast Asia. From what I
understand, this was a program that was conceived
during World War II when the Marines were fighting
in the jungles in the Pacific. So I mean, the
history of it goes back quite a long way. I think
the original experimentation of it was back in
World War II. and quite probably using different
types of compounds or chemicals. I believe that
Fort Detrick, Maryland was the experimental station
and I believe they continued various experiments
there from World War II all the way through Vietnam.
It was President John F. Kennedy that first authorized
the spraying of it at the request of the South
Vietnamese government in 1961. That's true. Originally
it was handled by a small detachment. flight
aircraft based out of Thompson and outside of
Saigon. And of course it grew much greater operation
during the years that we were there and they
were hitting all over the South Vietnam. What
was your job Jack? Well I was known as a crew
chief. We were responsible for maintaining the
aircraft, maintaining the spray systems, loading
the aircraft with both fuel and herbicides, and
in several instances operating the spray controls
on the aircraft when they went on spray missions.
That was a more specialized operation and those
folks were known as flight mechanics or flight
engineers. The makeup of the crews that would
go out on missions were essentially a pilot,
a co -pilot and a flight engineer. On the lead
aircraft they would have a flight navigator and
sometimes on some of the larger flights you'd
have two navigators on a flight. If you had a
flight going out with 12 birds you might have
two navigators. I've never seen a picture of
12 of the planes. They would fly and spray a
column 80 yards wide by about 10 miles long,
is that correct? I was doing a little research
on it. Yeah, to be honest with you, the spray
could be controlled by the settings of the nozzles
and for the density of the spray that would come
out of the bones. The aircraft had two booms,
one on each wingtip, and then it had a rear boom
out off the back cargo hatch that sprayed through
what would have been the center of the aircraft.
Now this defoliant was used on farms back here
in the States. What's the difference between
using it on the farms here and using it over
there? Was it the difference in application?
Well, to be honest with you, it was not in the
format of Agent Orange. It was not used on farms
in the United States, to my knowledge. It was
a consolidation of different herbicides that
were blended to create the various agents. Now,
some of the compounds that were used to blend
were agents or compounds that were used by farms
and by landscape people, vegetation control people
in the United States, and they were commonly
available over the shelf. They still are, aren't
they, 2 ,4 -D? 2 ,4 -D is to my knowledge still
available over the shelf. The difference between
what was used in agriculture and what was used
in landscape and vegetation control was really
how it was manufactured. As an example, Agent
Orange was manufactured in massive quantities.
by a number of chemical petroleum companies and
it was the blending of several common herbicides
with some other ingredients. It appears from
what I've read that the problem with Agent Orange
for its toxicity and its introduction of dioxin
came when these various herbicides were blended
together and how they were blended together.
Now Agent Orange has 2 ,4 -D and 2 ,4 -5 -T and
I won't even try to attempt to pronounce what
the letters stand for. There is about 26 letters
per word. But we leave that to the Navy to pronounce
that. So what was your job then? Did you fly
these missions is what I meant to ask. I've been
on a number of missions. Most of my duties was
on the ground. Occasionally we flew airborne
missions. prerequisite of my particular AFSC
and the training for that those folks that flew
were certainly different than the training that
I had. Would you be exposed to the herbicides
then with the loading and unloading of the planes
or loading of the planes? Yeah, we had the greatest
exposure to agent orange and the other herbicides
blue and white. of anybody and essentially that
was because we in essence took showers almost
and would be a good way to explain it. When we
worked on the spray nozzles and the booms, they
were actuated. We were spraying the foliant through
that to get the right flows and to remove any
stoppages. We had massive tanks inside, 1 ,000
gallon tanks inside the aircraft that held the
Agent Orange. Interestingly, there were a number
of times we actually got into, and I particularly
recall several instances of going inside of the
tank. when it was full and immersing myself into
the Agent Orange and slipping forward so that
we could kick the manual lever for the dump valve.
It sounds strange, but the dump valves worked
phenomenally well when the tanks were empty.
Once they put the weight of the Agent Orange
or they commingled some of the other things,
they would create problems for those valves opening
and the manual actuator arm was inside the tank.
I'd like to go back to that a second because
I'm sure there's a lot of people saying, I don't
believe what I just heard. I'm not calling you
a liar, but it's so unbelievable. Talking about
the weight though, just guesstimating at 8 pounds
per gallon, 1 ,000 gallons would be 8 ,000 pounds
or 4 tons. That's a whole bunch of Agent Orange.
Yeah, and there were certainly restrictions on
aircraft taking off and landing at certain places
because of that weight factor, certain airstrips.
they had a dump and that's why the dump bow was
used before they landed because the airstrips
weren't improved enough or long enough to allow
the aircraft to safely land so they would dump
the load before they landed wherever they dump
it. They dump it over usually somewhere close
by the base that we were getting ready to have
the crew landed. So let's go back to what you
just said. I want people to hear this. You would
actually go inside the tanks when they had Agent
Orange in them? Like you were waiting in a pool?
That's correct. Now, this was not an everyday
thing. I can remember maybe three or four instances
where I had to get into a tank. You know, as
the crew chief, you wouldn't want to send any
of the, what we call, jeeps to do guys in doing
that, to start with. So the crew chief would
always be the one that would hop in there and
do that. What type of, we all know about Agent
Orange Cancer and other things that come from,
how are you doing, may I ask? You know, I've
had... When I'm blessed I'm here and I've had
a couple bouts with Agent Orange related diseases
but I've really been blessed I'm here and relatively
healthy and the Lord has blessed me to have a
good life. I think One of the really important
things that came out of the Ranch and Agent Orange
health study that was done by the Air Force in
the 80s and 90s was the ability to track dioxin
in your system. and to determine, you know, how
long it stayed in your system and what the half
-lives were and things like that. And I think
that was the first study that gave them a comprehensive
knowledge of how long these toxins would stay
in your body. I want to come back to that in
the second half. We've got about three and a
half minutes left in this segment. Going back
to when it was any of that... Some of our Navy
people have been picked up Agent Orange type
cancer. How would a Navy ship or whatever crew
member get Agent Orange exposure? Well, are you
talking about the Blue Water Navy folks out off
the coast? Yeah, off the coast, Blue Water Navy.
There were occasions. Probably none of which
are documented that, you know, Ranch Hand would
have a mission aborted or would have something
happen where they would have Agent Orange on
board and have to get rid of it before they came
back and then landed. And that was, I believe,
primarily when they were in detachments along
the coast, Fan Rang, Nha Trang, those places
where they would fly in and out on Cam Ranh Bay
on sporadic times. They weren't based there,
but they would use that for launching and landing
and refueling and refilling the herbicides. But
on the way back, they would fly down the in the
coast of Vietnam. There was great inter -service
rivalry going on between the different military
units. It is well known by the folks in Ranch
Hand that there were more than one ship that
was soaked out in... Agent Orange by having the
ranch hand fly over and open the dump valves
and just happened to dump on Navy ships at the
time. I've heard a number of stories from Navy
crewmen who explained that and said that happened.
Nobody wants to admit it, but they were out there
having to use big fire hoses or whatnot to wash
down the decks, and they knew exactly what Agent
Orange was, its viscosity and its color. This
was kind of a boys will be boys. We were told
it wouldn't hurt us, and so let's play a joke
on the Navy. Is that what we're talking about?
Yeah, I think it was that, you know, service
rivalry. I think the Navy did things to the Air
Force, and the Air Force did things to the Navy,
and I don't think he could get, you know, too
many of the crews together in a saloon without
having some type of little bailiwick going on.
Donny, Donny Brooke? I, I was in... training
to go to Vietnam as a CB and Agent Orange was
explained to us and what it would do and how
it would clear the jungles and make it safer
for our troops. And I asked, well if it'll do
that to trees, what will it do to us? And the
instructor, the chief, whatever he was, said,
well it wouldn't do anything to you. Our government
wouldn't do anything that would hurt our own
soldiers. And everybody looked at me and laughed
and I thought... I guess that's true. The government
wouldn't do anything that would hurt us, and
so very few people that were in Vietnam at that
time knew that there was any danger to Agent
Orange. We're talking to Jack McManus, who was
a crew member on Operation Ranch Hand. That was
the spring of defoliance in Vietnam. We'll be
back right after this message. The Medal of Honor
is the highest award for valor in combat, given
a member of the Armed Forces of the United States.
There had been over 3 ,400 recipients of the
nation's highest award. This is one of them.
Lance Corporal Roy Wheat threw himself on an
anti -personnel mine to save his fellow Marines.
Details after this. Wheat and two other Marines
were assigned the mission of providing security
for a Navy construction battalion crane and crew
operating along Liberty Road in the Kwan Nam
province. After the Marines had set up security
positions in a tree line adjacent to the work
site, Wheat reconnoitered the area to the rear
of their location for the possible presence of
guerrillas. He then returned to within 10 feet
of their friendly position and here, unintentionally,
triggered a well -concealed bounding -type anti
-personnel mine. Immediately, a hissing sound
was heard which was identified by the three Marines
as that of a burning time fuse. Shouting a warning
to his comrades, Wheat and a valiant act of heroism,
hurled himself upon the mine, absorbing the tremendous
impact of the explosion with his body. The Medal
of Honor series is a production of Veterans Radio.
wading into a deep pool to kick a valve loose.
Somebody had to know something about what was
going on with Agent Orange. Who knew? Tell us
about that, Jack. Well, subsequent to the end
of Vietnam War, there was a great deal of secrecy
put around the whole. Agent Orange Herbicide
Warfare in Vietnam. So it became very difficult
to find information. But it was very apparent
that there were veterans that served in Vietnam
were coming down with a disproportionately...
larger amount of certain diseases that essentially
the commonality that the veterans had was exposure
to Agent Orange. A number of studies and a number
of lawsuits were conducted. And in these discoveries,
through these studies and lawsuits, it was determined
that while early tests in the laboratory of Agent
Orange didn't show a significant amount of dioxin
being present in that formulation. Later tests
of when the large quantities of Agent Orange
were being manufactured throughout the United
States. that dioxin did become very present in
the tests that were done. Gary, you have to remember
that back when this was done, this was really
viewed as a life -saving measure. I remember
that, yeah, very well. And so the Department
of Defense was really in using high amounts of
dioxin of herbicides that had not previously
been manufactured across the country. And through
their various contracting processes and the subcontracting
processes, they gave this out to a number of
chemical companies and they said, we need you
to accelerate the production. of these chemical
compounds so that we can use them in Southeast
Asia. And I believe when they accelerated the
production is when they started the introduction
of dioxin into the herbicides. And the Agent
Orange, as it was early compounded, was compounded
and blended readily available other compounds
were blended and they were blended very slowly
over time at a low heat. As the demand really
built up for herbicides to come out to the War
Theater, the chemical companies or some of the
chemical companies changed the blending method
and they started mixing the chemicals very quickly
at a high heat. My understanding, I'm not a scientist,
but from what I hear from the experts is that
the blending of these herbicides at the high
heat was what created the dioxin within the compound.
And that would kind of seem logical going along
with dioxin. You find dioxin often present in
incinerators and in various types of high heat
situations and developing of plasma type materials.
So I think that the initial thoughts of the scientists
were that Agent Orange was not going to be harmful
to humans? I got sprayed with it at a place called
Hill 35. My squad was out there building a camp
for the headquarters of the 5th Marine Battalion.
They sprayed around that camp one time and I
took films of it. It was a helicopter and it
was probably 100 feet up. and was out 200 yards,
maybe, and spraying the chemical. Didn't think
anything of it. Later on, a few days later, I
came down. I was so sick. I had to be lifted
in and out of a bunk. And to try to get to sick
bay, I would take about six steps, shuffling
about the length of your foot. And about every
six steps, I'd have to stop and pant for breath.
I had such chest constrictions. And the doctor
said, well, we've got jungle diseases over here
we know nothing about. And people would ask me,
were you ever exposed to Agent Orange? Yes. Did
you ever have any effect? No. And then it was
picking up a book called Waiting for an Army
to Die. I started reading that. I never could
finish it. I got about a third of the way through.
My blood pressure and anger was getting too high.
I found out that the symptoms I had were exposure
to Agent Orange symptoms, very high doses. And
some of the guys in the squad, one of them who
died about four years ago with bad heart and
systemic heart disease is one of the things that
is coming out of Agent Orange studies. I saw
the symptoms on the other guys and it was all
Agent Orange symptoms. We all thought it was
jungle disease. So we did not know. And when
they first started Coming out in the papers about
Agent Orange and people saying we've got to stop
using Agent Orange, the protests were going on
for so long. I just thought it was another thing
of the protesters and I just fluffed it off.
When was it that you began to realize what you
had been exposed to and knowing that you'd climbed
in these tanks full of Agent Orange and that
you had... probably gotten sprayed with it when
you're loading the planes and whatever when when
was it that it first began to Sink in or realize
or you became educated enough to know that you
you had some potential problems Well, I guess
my first concern came in the 70s probably 77
78 timeframe when I Had read some newspaper articles
about the possible effects or the effects that
Agent Orange was having and the claims that some
veterans were making that Agent Orange had on
their health. And it was in a newspaper, I think
it was the Washington Post. And I wrote to the
Veterans Administration. and explained to them
that I'd been exposed to Agent Orange and I'd
worked with it in Vietnam. And, you know, I wasn't
aware that it was anything wrong with me at the
time, but did I need to be tested or was there
anything? And they sent back a letter to me telling
me, no, there was no definition of any problem
or diseases related to Agent Orange or what in
Vietnam. A couple years later, I started hearing
about the lawsuits and the actions that the Vietnam
Veterans of America were taking, trying to get
the government to provide some information and
do some testing on veterans. And that became
sort of my crusade at that point, I guess, to
say that. Over the years, I've been actively
involved and supported legislation and activities
to get full transparency on what Agent Orange
is, what it's done to veterans, and what can
we do to help the families in the offspring of...
veterans that have been exposed to Agent Orange.
And that's one of the things I want to get back
into in the next segment. We've got two minutes
left in this one. Everybody has heard of Agent
Orange cancer, and that's commonly discussed,
but there are other things that as a father are
even worse with a mother. But Agent Orange can
stay in the system for generations. And I want
you to talk about that when we get back. There
were other agents and in about a minute and a
half, what were these other agents used for?
You said crops? Crop destruction. You know, one
of the tactics that we used in Southeast Asia
was try to deny the enemy, the Viet Cong. the
ability to feed themselves by killing crops that
they would use to subsist on down in the tunnels
or wherever they were. I don't know if we knew
how many tunnels they had at that time. I don't
think so. But in a number of cases they were
growing these subsistence crops. in Cambodia
just across the border from Vietnam. And we actually
went into Cambodia and sprayed the crops. I do
remember one mission I was on that was a crop
destruction mission. And when we flew over the
target, it was a bunch of old, appeared to be
bombed out buildings. And the Viet Cong had gone
and grown. their crops inside the walls of the
blown -up buildings, so you really from the air
couldn't tell that this was a farm patch, because
it was inside these ruined walls of buildings,
and these were hut -type buildings, you know,
farm -type buildings. We're talking to Jack McManus
about AIDS and Orange, and when we come back,
I've forgotten to ask you. You guys flew awfully
low. Low and slow. That could be dangerous. We'll
be right back. Wonderful world as long as we
don't have Agent Orange and all the other agents
in there. I want to ask you real quick because
I haven't asked you, Jack. You guys flew low
and slow, 100 to 150 feet off the ground. That's
a pretty easy target. Was there a surprise that
got you guys through it or were you shot at?
No, these aircraft were really, really shot at.
They were in excess of five or six thousand hits
on the aircraft during the period of time that
we were, Ranch Hand was there. That doesn't include
the Army helicopters or other aircraft or other
people that were spraying. This is just Ranch
Hand. Interestingly enough, one of the aircraft
that was in Vietnam was nicknamed Patches. It
was so shot up and had so many patches that they
took it out of defoliation duty and they put
it on what they thought was going to be a less
dangerous duty, spraying malathion for mosquito
control. And that plane is currently in the Air
Force regime at Wright -Patterson Air Base, and
it's nicknamed Patches. And the reason it's called
Patches is every time that, you know, we fixed
the aircraft and patched it, we'd cut out the
hole, we'd pop rivet some patches on there, and
then originally they, when it was... spray in
Agent R's, they would just put a little spray
paint on it, but when it was a Malathian, the
Malathian would strip the paint off the aircraft.
So they used nail polish, women's nail polish,
and they would color their patches with women's
nail polish. So I got the name of Patches, and
I believe it had somewhere in the area of 1 ,500.
bullet or shrapnel holes in that aircraft. It
took, I believe it took about, in my understanding,
25 years to decontaminate that aircraft where
it could go onto the static display down at the
Air Force Museum in Wright -Patterson. It was
so contaminated with chemicals. That was going
to be a question. How could they put it on there
with all those chemicals? And Agent Orange, everybody
knows about cancer, I asked you about before.
What are some of the other effects and what is
the dangers to generations? Well, I think what
the dangers are, you know, the long -term dangers,
I think we've identified that the damage from
dioxin in the reproductive cells is tremendous
and it appears that it may skip generations.
We just don't know all of that. We've heard different
studies say different things but there are a
number of things from spina bifida to various
cancers and other birth defects that are attributable
to... the dioxin exposure through Agent Orange
through the grandparents. So apparently, you
know, there's a lot of work yet to be done on
this. The government, for the first time ever,
has allowed disability to the offspring of veterans
for medical care. with some of the children's
diseases that have been identified and proved.
That's the first time ever that anybody other
than a veteran has gotten care from the government,
particularly the offspring. But I think that's
for history to write where the extent of the
damage from dioxin is going to be. I always research
for a program and of course I got on... the Internet
last night, Google, Branch Hand, and Agent Orange.
The real laboratory is Vietnam. I'll show photographs
here that people are watching on the webcam,
but some of those photographs were so horrible
and so terrible. I wasn't ready for them. in
Vietnam and of the, there's a lot of miscarriages
as a result of it. And if anybody wants to do
it on their own, just go to the internet and
Google Ranch Hand and Agent Orange. You'll come
up with some photographs that you may wish you
hadn't looked at later on. It was a terrible
thing. The environmental damage to Vietnam is
going to go on for many, many generations. And
there are still a number of what are known as
hotspots throughout Vietnam where Agent Orange
was stored or Agent Orange was maintained in
large bulk quantities. really got into the soil.
You know, that's around Benoit Air Base, around
Fan Rang, around Cameron Bay, around Da Nang,
I think Dun Ha. There are a number of places
where the Indian Orange was stored. You know,
it dripped out of the barrels or was dumped there.
And quite candidly, we were told that this was
harmless stuff, it wasn't going to hurt you.
And it was disposed in what today would be considered
totally unlawful ways of disposing it. So yeah,
that stuff's there and it's going to be there
for many, many generations. And in the final
minutes, I want to tell the listeners out there
that you didn't have to be an Agent Orange Sprayer.
You didn't have to be one of the troops out there.
in the ground. I understand that it's known at
Long Vinh that Agent Orange was dumped into the
water supply, whether it was on purpose or by
some of the Vietnamese that worked there on the
base. Why they would do it, I don't know, but
I don't think it was anything sabotaged or anything
of that nature. There's bases here in the United
States. The one down in the panhandle, is that
the Air Force Base where they practice with it?
If you're on the DMZ in Korea, upstate New York,
Panama, as you mentioned. The interesting thing
is that when the Vietnam War, I guess we say,
ceased combat operations and they moved stuff
out, one of the things that Vietnam insisted
was that we get the Agent Orange out of Vietnam.
And we shipped the Agent Orange, what we could,
I guess, readily get hold of, many, many millions
of gallons, and moved it to one of the atolls
in the Pacific. But they would not allow it back
in the United States, which is interesting. And
all of a sudden, it was persona non grata. You
couldn't bring this back in the United States.
The federal government has spent many, many hundreds
of millions of dollars developing what they called
incinerator ships to burn up these many tens
of thousands of gallons of Agent Orange and other
chemicals that they were storing offshore. It's
questionable whether all that stuff got burned
up or how much of it just sunk. You know, whatever,
but it's just tremendous. All of a sudden, it
became very well known that this was some bad
stuff and, you know, nobody wants to touch it.
And in our final minute and a half, I do want
to bring out that here in the United States,
you'll see weed killers that have 2 ,4 -D in
them. That's the dioxin. Master gardeners will
say every spring, you hear them on the radio,
now's the time to go after the crabgrass and
make sure that crabgrass killer has 2 ,4 -D in
it. Railroads spray it to keep along the tracks,
to keep the weeds from getting up too close to
the railroads. I've seen it sprayed along the
power lines, those big towers. Transmission lines,
yep. And right through ponds where there's just
big brown patches. You'll find it everywhere,
and I'd like the general public to become aware
of 2 ,4 -D in weed killer and where it's still
used in the United States today. And Vietnam
Veterans of America tried to get it banned in
Michigan. No luck whatsoever. So it's still used
around. For your own sake, do not use anything.
Look at the labels. If it says 2 ,4 -D on it,
don't use it. There's other ways of getting rid
of crabgrass. Jack, thank you so much for being
on and giving us your experience and educating
the public a bit about Agent Orange and Operation
Ranch Hand. And the best of luck to you, of course,
in the future. Tune in next week. Dale Thromberry
will have a very interesting program. Until then,
you are dismissed. Not all views and opinions
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