American Legion on Agent Orange (1983) - see description
From 1962 and 1971, the US military sprayed ~20,000,000 U.S. gallons of different types of defoliant chemicals called rainbow herbicides during the Vietnam war. It was known as "Operation Ranch Hand".
One such chemical known as "Agent Orange" was sprayed mostly from helicopters as well as C-123 Provider's that were fitted with sprayers. Some spray runs were also made with river boats, military ground vehicles and even hand held backpack sprayers.
While the chemical in and of itself isn't necessarily carcinogenic at low rates and sprayed in moderation (maybe), the military was spraying down the chemical at concentrations well over 13X times the recommended U.S. Department of Agriculture application rate for domestic use. As much as 20% of South Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once over a period of nine years. Needless to say many soldiers were being exposed at a very high rate.
Many veterans began suffering bad health affects soon after returning home. It was much like the mystery illnesses troops suffered after the first Gulf War when the health issues were first chalked up to regular time and chance. Later it was proven to be a direct connection to the defoliant chemicals used during the Vietnam conflict.
The American Legion ran commercials urging veterans to contact them in regards to health issues. It took many years before the US government recognized and admitted the chemicals were dangerous and were hurting veterans.
In 1978 some lawsuits were started going after the makers of the chemicals such as Monsanto and Dow, however, just before some of the cases began it was settled out of court in the 1980s. The veterans affected were essentially bamboozled by the attorneys working the cases. On average the most a former solider got was about twelve thousand US dollars, which was to be paid out over a 10 year period. Truly sad, indeed.
If you're unfamiliar with the story behind agent orange I encourage you to find some good reliable sources online, one being the American Legion's own sources on the matter, some of which can be found at the links below:
https://www.legion.org/magazine/24226...
https://www.legion.org/sites/legion.o...
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