Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure


Book Description

Over 3 million U.S. military personnel were sent to Southeast Asia to fight in the Vietnam War. Since the end of the Vietnam War, veterans have reported numerous health effects. Herbicides used in Vietnam, in particular Agent Orange have been associated with a variety of cancers and other long term health problems from Parkinson's disease and type 2 diabetes to heart disease. Prior to 1997 laws safeguarded all service men and women deployed to Vietnam including members of the Blue Navy. Since then, the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) has established that Vietnam veterans are automatically eligible for disability benefits should they develop any disease associated with Agent Orange exposure, however, veterans who served on deep sea vessels in Vietnam are not included. These "Blue Water Navy" veterans must prove they were exposed to Agent Orange before they can claim benefits. At the request of the VA, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examined whether Blue Water Navy veterans had similar exposures to Agent Orange as other Vietnam veterans. Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure comprehensively examines whether Vietnam veterans in the Blue Water Navy experienced exposures to herbicides and their contaminants by reviewing historical reports, relevant legislation, key personnel insights, and chemical analysis to resolve current debate on this issue.




The Invention of Ecocide


Book Description

As the public increasingly questioned the war in Vietnam, a group of American scientists deeply concerned about the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides started a movement to ban what they called “ecocide.” David Zierler traces this movement, starting in the 1940s, when weed killer was developed in agricultural circles and theories of counterinsurgency were studied by the military. These two trajectories converged in 1961 with Operation Ranch Hand, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese mission to use herbicidal warfare as a means to defoliate large areas of enemy territory. Driven by the idea that humans were altering the world's ecology for the worse, a group of scientists relentlessly challenged Pentagon assurances of safety, citing possible long-term environmental and health effects. It wasn't until 1970 that the scientists gained access to sprayed zones confirming that a major ecological disaster had occurred. Their findings convinced the U.S. government to renounce first use of herbicides in future wars and, Zierler argues, fundamentally reoriented thinking about warfare and environmental security in the next forty years. Incorporating in-depth interviews, unique archival collections, and recently declassified national security documents, Zierler examines the movement to ban ecocide as it played out amid the rise of a global environmental consciousness and growing disillusionment with the containment policies of the cold war era.







Combat Bandsman


Book Description

Playing trumpet in the 9th Infantry Division Band should have been a safe assignment but the Viet Cong swarmed throughout the Mekong Delta, and safety was nonexistent. The band's twofold mission--boosting morale and helping win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese--required them to leave their Đồng Tam (a.k.a. Mortar City) base camp and travel through a vast area of rice paddies, dense jungle and numerous villages. By 1969, home-front support for the war had dwindled and the U.S. Army in Vietnam was on the brink of mutiny. No one wanted to die under the command of career-minded officers in a war lost to misguided politics. This memoir of a conscripted musician in Vietnam provides a personal account of the lunacy surrounding combat support service in the 9th Infantry Division during the months prior to its withdrawal.




Like Killing Rats


Book Description

I Corps, Republic of South Vietnam, bloody 1968 Live the harrowing highs and traumatic lows of one marine youth who finds his seven-month “in country” war-weary self carrying a field radio burden for a suspect glory-minded forward observer artillery officer who’d yet to learn the undeclared war was a government sham, a political ruse that would one tragic day force the FO team’s “command structured” relationship to a “who’s responsible” head over a short round of friendly artillery, which put their field commander permanently out of action. The resolve-testing war with the North Vietnamese Army, the near immobilizing, ever-sweltering jungle mountains and sandy flatlands, the thought-friendly villages, the two of our people executed, the four enemy prisoners executed in turn, as well as President Johnson’s bombing halts and retaking enemy positions are the nerve-pickling building blocks shackled themselves together like a confrontation-packed novel about combat-weary vets not taught to run from a political fight either. Experience the combative days, literally sweat the chancy nights, devour the popular songs . . . when lucky enough to hear such haunting “sounds” as “Get Off My Cloud” by the Rolling Stones. For one can’t simply “throw their rifle down and quit!” The corps will toss said shameless in the brig for untold years; though a panicked one can steal away into the masking jungle and surrender, yet hard-core enemy will put a bullet through a deserter’s enlisted head like a pesky bunker rat, unless one’s a commissioned officer, then the VC “might” keep said alive as a “peace”-bargaining chip. One may understand the historic reason why many the combat marine during such oh-so-questioning times likened themselves to the politically used, if not correct, title of Uncle Sam’s misguided children—know what it’s truly like to stalk and be stalked, kill or be killed, fear and be feared.




Enquiring History: The Vietnam War in Context


Book Description

Exam Board: AQA, Edexcel, OCR & WJEC Level: AS/A-level Subject: History First Teaching: September 2015 First Exam: June 2016 Think more deeply and work more independently at A level History through a carefully thought-out enquiry approach from SHP. Enquiring History: It makes you think! The OFSTED report on school history suggests that the current generation of A Level students have been poorly served by exam-based textbooks which spoon-feed students while failing to enthuse them or develop deeper understandings of studying History The Schools History Project has risen to this challenge with a new series for the next generation. Enquiring History is SHP's fresh approach to Advanced Level History that aims: - To motivate and engage readers - To help readers think and gain independence as learners - To encourage enquiry, and deeper understanding of periods and the people of the past - To engage with current scholarship - To prepare A Level students for university Key features of each Student book - Clear compelling narrative - books are designed to be read cover to cover - Structured enquiries - that explore the core content and issues of each period - 'Insight' panels between enquiries provide context, overview, and extension - Full colour illustrations throughout The Vietnam War in context The Vietnam War was much more than just a war. As a conflict it was drawn out and deadly, but in the history of the 20th century its significance goes well beyond those jungle encounters that have been represented in so many feature films. The Vietnam War was also a watershed event in the story of American foreign policy and their attempt to contain Communism. This book examines how and why the Americans got so involved in Vietnam and with what consequences. It also examines its relationship to the Korean War and to World War Two; and how the Vietnam experience shaped US foreign policy over the following decades and into the present. Web-based support includes: - Lesson planning tools and guidance for teachers available from the SHP website http://www.schoolshistoryproject.org.uk/Publishing/BooksSHP/BooksALvlEHS.html - eBooks for whole class teaching or individual student reading available from eBook retailers




DK Eyewitness Books: Vietnam War


Book Description

Be an eyewitness to the longest war in American history—a dramatic story of patriotism, tragedy, bloody conflict, and heroism. Notonly can you trace the timeline of the war from the Indochina struggle in 1946 to the final offensive in 1975, page after page of real-life photographs offer aunique look at the reality of the Vietnam War. See campaigns in the air and battles in jungles, cities, and rice paddies. Learn about the most powerful combat weapons of the age such as Agent Orange and AK-47s. Discover why America went towar in Indochina and who fought there, the fall of Saigon, the aftermath of thewar, and much, much more. Discover the people, places, battles, and weaponsof America''s struggle in Indochina




Veterans and Agent Orange


Book Description

Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2000 examines the state of the scientific evidence regarding associations between diseases and exposure to dioxin and other chemical compounds in herbicides used in Vietnam. It is the fourth in a series of comprehensive reviews of epidemiologic and toxicologic studies of the agents used as defoliants during the Vietnam War. Over forty health outcomes in veterans and their children are addressed. Among the report's conclusions is that there is sufficient evidence of a link between exposure and the development of soft-tissue sarcoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, and chloracne in veterans. Additionally, it found that scientific studies offer "limited or suggestive" evidence of an association with other diseases in veteransâ€"including Type 2 diabetes, respiratory cancers, prostate cancer, multiple myeloma and some forms of transient peripheral neuropathyâ€"as well as the congenital birth defect spina bifida in veterans' children.




The Apology the United States Owes the Vietnam Veterans


Book Description

The hottest war zone this country has ever been in was being fought by eighteen- and nineteen-year boys, you can call them men if you want. Since I was once a soldier and later an officer, I must point out the facts of being a teenager and being a man. Most of them enlisted and many were drafted to go fight the war in Vietnam. While the United States of America was being defended planes began to return to the states loaded down with the bodies of these young eighteen and nineteen-year-old soldiers in body bags. If you are not knowledgeable about the Institute of Medicine (IOM). You would think it is the Veterans Administration (VA) fault why the Vietnam Veterans have not gotten their benefits. I would advise you to continue reading. Then I want you to ask the question why nongovernmental researchers are being hired to do the research on “Agent Orange?” I also want you to know the Institute of Medicine (IOM) is no longer under the same name. They have the same function but a new name called the Health & Medicine Division which is also nongovernmental. As concerned citizens we must ask the question of why nongovernmental agencies are being allowed to research “Agent Orange?” I am certain the results will not shock you as to why the VA is not able to advance the Vietnam Veterans benefits because they are receiving their reports from the (HMD) stating there is no correlation with “Agent Orange” to the sickness the Vietnam Veterans have. The VA gets these reports every two years. Another well kept secret is the number of agents used in Vietnam. While many of you think there was just “Agent Orange.” My research shows it was a total of six different agents used.