Waiting for an Army to Die Read online

  Waiting for an Army to Die

  Fred A. Wilcox

  “I died in Vietnam, but I didn’t even know it,” said a young Vietnam vet on the Today Show one morning in 1978, shocking viewers across the country. Waiting for an Army to Die: The Tragedy of Agent Orange—the first book ever written on the effects of Agent Orange—tells this young vet’s story and that of hundreds of thousands of other former American servicemen. During the war, the US sprayed an estimated 12 million gallons of Agent Orange on Vietnam, in order to defoliate close to 5 million acres of its land. “Had anyone predicted that millions of human beings exposed to Agent Orange/dioxin would get sick and die,” scholar Fred A. Wilcox writes in the new introduction to his seminal book, “their warnings would have been dismissed as sci-fi fantasy or apocalyptic nonsense.” Told in a gripping and compassionate narrative style that travels from the war in Vietnam to the war at home, and through portraits of many of the affected survivors, their families, and the doctors and scientists whose clinical experience and research gave the lie to the government whitewash, Waiting for an Army to Die tells a story that, thirty years later, continues to create new twists and turns for Americans still waiting for justice and an honest account of what happened to them. Vietnam has chosen August 10—the day that the US began spraying Agent Orange on Vietnam—as Agent Orange Day, to commemorate all its citizens who were affected by the deadly chemical. The new second edition of Waiting for an Army to Die will be released upon the third anniversary of this day, in honor of all those whose families have suffered, and continue to suffer, from this tragedy.

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  From Library Journal

  First published in 1983, this volume received wide praise and made ALA’s most notable list; it was “highly recommended” by LJ’s reviewer (LJ 7/83). Despite that, it went quickly out of print. This paper edition contains the original text plus a new introduction by the author, who discusses the class action suit brought against the government by Vietnam veterans suffering from their wartime exposure to the herbicide. With America’s newfound willingness to talk about Vietnam, this book should see a lot of use.

  — MR

  Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

  Review

  “My bible on the issue of Agent Orange.”

  —Tom Hayden

  “This is a sad and frightening book, and it should not be disregarded.”

  —Tracy Kidder, author of The Soul of a New Machine and Mountains Beyond Mountains

  “It is impossible to read this book without feeling outrage and despair, for the story of Agent Orange is a tragedy that affects not only Vietnam veterans, but all Americans and their offspring.”

  —The Saturday Review

  Fred A. Wilcox

  WAITING FOR AN ARMY TO DIE

  The Tragedy of Agent Orange

  SECOND EDITION

  I wish to dedicate this book to Paul Sutton, Ken Herrmann, to Jerry, Lori, Sandy, and Heather Strait, and to all of those who have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the effects of Agent Orange/chemical warfare.

  PREFACE

  In writing about Agent Orange, I do not wish to create yet another stereotype of Vietnam veterans. More than one hundred thousand veterans have undergone the Veteran Administration’s “Agent Orange examination” while thousands more have applied for service-connected disability due to their exposure to Agent Orange. But this does not mean that all veterans are sick, dying, or have fathered children with birth defects. When I use the term “veteran,” I am referring specifically to those men and women who served in Vietnam and who believe they were exposed to toxic chemicals. Some veterans are bitter at having served in a war they consider a “waste,” while others would willingly return to Southeast Asia if called upon by their government (the majority of men who served in Vietnam volunteered for duty there). And just as there is no unanimity among veterans about the war, they often disagree on how best to go about convincing the government to take their complaints seriously. Regardless of how they feel about Vietnam, and in spite of their political differences, all of the veterans with whom I spoke share a common desire: They wish to see those veterans who are too sick to work or who are dying from cancer compensated for their illnesses, and they want the VA to show good faith regarding the health and welfare of Vietnam veterans.

  I wish to thank John and Deborah Green for providing me with valuable research material and moral support; Andy Wilkinson, Joe Cole, Dave Martin, Frank Richetti, Jerry Strait, Wayne Wilson, Paul Sutton; and all of the men and women who have refused to be defeated by government stonewalling, bureaucratic shell games, and the contempt of multinational corporations. I also wish to thank the courageous, tough, and extraordinarily loving women who have fought side by side with their husbands, lovers, brothers, or friends on this issue. The mothers who care for the Agent Orange children, the wives who try to ease their husbands’ pain, widows who have refused to give in to bitterness or despair, and the grieving parents of young men who succumbed to cancer and other Agent Orange induced illnesses should also be remembered. All of you have been a source of inspiration to me and to countless others. I thank you. I salute you.

  INTRODUCTION

  On June 8, 1969, President Nixon appears on television to make an important announcement. During his presidential campaign, Nixon pledged to “end the war and win the peace.” Perhaps he’s going to reveal just how he plans to do that. Instead, he tells a bitterly divided nation that he will bring 25,000 soldiers home from Vietnam, reducing troop strength to 484,000 by December 15th.

  Twelve thousand miles away, American soldiers cluster around a transistor radio, waiting to hear which units will be withdrawn from the war zone. The men, many of them just out of their teens, seem to be holding their breath. Will they continue fighting in the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia, or will they turn in their weapons, pack their rucksacks, and board a freedom bird back to “the world.”

  “Among the troops to be pulled out,” announces Armed Forces radio, “is the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne.” Cheering, hugging, dancing, they hoist a small Vietnamese boy, parading him about as though he’d set them free from the killing fields. They have survived firefights and ambushes, death and destruction. Some have been wounded; all bear the scars of war.

  These soldiers have no way of knowing they have been exposed to carcinogenic, fetus deforming, and possibly mutagenic chemicals during their twelve-month tour of duty. In the field, they were told that their skin rashes were “jungle rot,” their headaches, dizziness, and stomach upsets were symptoms of “combat stress.” They watched C-123 aircraft fly low over mangrove forests and triple canopy jungles, spewing chemicals that turned the trees into lifeless wastelands in a matter of days. Inside these defoliated zones they found dead birds and monkeys, fish floating upon the surface of streams, a deep, frightening, silence.

  Killing the trees, said the military, would drive the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers into the open, where superior American firepower could destroy them. The defoliation campaign was bound to shorten the war, and it would save American lives. In time, the jungles would grow back, the tigers, elephants and bears would return, and toxic chemicals in the soil would degrade in sunlight or be washed out to sea during monsoon rains.

  Had anyone predicted that millions of human beings exposed to Agent Orange/dioxin would get sick and die, their warnings would have been dismissed as sci-fi fantasy or apocalyptic nonsense. Unfortunately, forty years after the last spray mission in Vietnam, American, South Korean, Australian, New Zealand and Vietnamese soldiers, as well as the Vietnamese people, are suffering and dying from the effects of chemica
l warfare.

  When I first set out in early 1980 to write a book about a chemical called Agent Orange, few people really wanted to talk about the Vietnam war. It was as though the curtain had fallen on a production that drew huge crowds for many years. People argued and fought over the meaning of this production. They hurled accusations and threats, walked out on their families, divorced their spouses, and went into exile. Then, one day in April 1975 it was over. Fifty-eight thousand Americans and several million Vietnamese were dead. This toll did not include those who had died or would die from the effects of chemical warfare.

  One blustery winter night, I joined John Green, an army medic in Vietnam, and his wife Deborah for dinner. Over wine and cheese, they told me about their work with “Agent Orange Victims International,” an organization founded by Paul Rheutershan, a helicopter crew chief who flew almost daily through clouds of herbicides being discharged from C-123 cargo planes. Paul observed the dark swaths cut into the jungle by the spraying, watched the mangrove forests turn brown, sicken and die, but didn’t really worry about his own health. According to the US Army, Agent Orange was “relatively nontoxic to humans and animals.”

  In the spring of 1978, Rheutershan, a twenty-eight year old self-proclaimed “health nut,” appeared on the Today Show, where he shocked many of the program’s viewers by announcing: “I died in Vietnam, but I didn’t even know it.” On December 14, 1978, Paul succumbed to the cancer that had destroyed much of his colon, liver, and abdomen.

  In the months before he died, Paul founded Agent Orange Victims International, and spent all of his waning energies trying to inform the American people about his belief that his cancer was the result of his exposure to Agent Orange. The Veterans Administration denied any connection between exposure to Agent Orange and human illness; however, three weeks before he died, Rheuthershan did receive a disability check from the VA. His sister told reporters that Paul was too weak to sign the check. Two days after his death, Paul’s mother received a letter from the VA requesting that the check be returned.

  John and Deborah encouraged me to forge ahead with my research. They offered valuable suggestions for navigating the labyrinth of contradictions, denials, and newspeak that the government and the chemical companies were using to avoid helping veterans and their families.

  For example, according to the Department of Defense, combat troops did not enter defoliated zones until six weeks after Air Force pilots destroyed the trees. By that time, residue from the herbicide spray would have broken down, limiting combat soldiers’ exposure to toxic chemicals.

  “Six weeks?” scoffed combat veterans, “Are you kidding me? More like six hours. Six minutes. What were we going to do, sit back and wait for the enemy to book? Drank water and ate food sprayed with Agent Orange. Slept on ground soaked with that shit. Got sprayed directly. Soaking wet. The government is lying. They can lie all they want but we know better. They weren’t there. We were. They’re not fooling anyone but themselves.”

  Ex-soldiers who visited Veterans Administration hospitals complaining of skin rashes, liver and kidney problems, heart disease, numbness of the hands and feet, memory loss, and other illnesses were accused of being alcoholics, drug addicts, malingerers and scam artists. The VA thought these young veterans were just angry about the war; they merely wanted attention, and they were out to extort money from the government. TCDD-dioxin, the contaminant in Agent Orange, might harm laboratory animals, but there was no evidence that exposure to this chemical caused cancer and other illnesses in human beings.

  The government did concede that some veterans, though not many, might have been briefly exposed to Agent Orange; however, this did not mean that anyone was ill, or ever would get sick from this exposure.

  Vietnam veterans and their families invited me into their homes. They provided me with military documents, scientific studies, letters, photographs, articles and books. I listened to their pain, and their anger at the government they served and no longer trusted. Young couples were frightened. Should they risk having children, knowing that their offspring might be seriously deformed? Where could they turn for tests that might help them decide what to do?

  Veterans ridiculed the VA’s “Agent Orange physical,” calling it an insult to their intelligence. They talked about undergoing painful biopsies, only to learn after waiting for weeks that the fatty tissue taken from their bodies had gone missing. Working-class men and women, lacking formal education, became experts on the effects of toxic chemicals on animals and human beings. Their kitchen and dining room tables were stacked with materials that, normally, only those with PhDs in science or medical degrees, might read. They wanted their brothers in arms, and the women who tended them in Mash units, to know the truth about Agent Orange/dioxin.

  In the beginning, I found it hard to understand why the government would treat Vietnam veterans with such disrespect and downright contempt. Was the Veterans Administration afraid that the government would go bankrupt treating victims of Agent Orange? Were officials waiting until there were more studies to support a direct link between Agent Orange exposure and human illnesses? It seemed to me that what veterans and their families were asking for—help with medical bills, scientific studies, competent and compassionate doctors at VA hospitals—was perfectly reasonable. Veterans talked about a cover up. People at the highest levels were lying. The government and the chemical companies were trying to wear Agent Orange victims down.

  In every home, café, bar, hearing room, where I met veterans, I asked them the same question: “Why do you think the government is treating you this way?” The answer never varied.

  “Because,” they replied, “the government is just waiting for us all to die.”

  In the early morning hours of May 7, 1984, lawyers representing Vietnam veterans and their families agreed to a $180 million dollar out-of-court settlement with the chemical manufacturers of Agent Orange. Dow chemical, Monsanto, et al. won a monumental battle with US veterans and high-powered attorneys from prestigious law firms. They demonstrated that the earth’s water, food, and air supplies belong not to the billions of people who inhabit this planet, but to multi-national corporations that inundate the world’s environment with cancer causing chemicals.

  In June, 1985, Jack Weinstein, the presiding judge in the Agent Orange case, commenced a series of “Fairness Hearings” to ascertain, he said, how Vietnam veterans felt about the out-of-court settlement. The courtroom was packed with lawyers, Vietnam veterans and their wives, and media from around the world. Victor Yannacone, the attorney who initiated the Agent Orange class action lawsuit against Dow, et al. on January 8, 1979, “on behalf of all those so unfortunate as to have been and now to be situated at risk, not only during this generation but during generations to come,” attended the hearings. Flamboyant, brilliant and hot-tempered, Yannacone had dedicated years of his life to helping veterans. They liked Victor and most important they trusted him; this might explain why His Honor cut him off mid-sentence when he tried to testify. I also attempted to testify, but didn’t get far before the judge interrupted, informing me that if I wanted to make a real difference I should go home and run for Congress.

  The Fairness Hearings were a sleight of hand designed to convince veterans that they had a voice in the out-of-court settlement. Outside the courtroom, veterans wearing orange “Sprayed and Betrayed” tee shirts denounced the agreement their lawyers made with the chemical companies, calling it a sellout, a swindle and an insult.

  A totally disabled Vietnam veteran would receive $12,000, but this would be spread out over a period of ten years and would not be free and clear. Disabled veterans receiving these meager Agent Orange payments might become ineligible for food stamps, public assistance and government pensions. Widows of Vietnam veterans who could prove their husbands died from Agent Orange exposure would receive $3,700, while the wives and children of Vietnam veterans were not included in the distribution plan.

  Financiers who helped provide money for the p
laintiffs’ lawyers to work on the case would get back, as a group, $750,000. An attorney who’d been a “passive investor” received $1,700 an hour for his services. One law firm collected $1,347,501, another $1,889,012. The court awarded $13,223,702 in attorney fees.

  In this case, “the rule of law” clearly meant “the power of money.”

  On May 5, 1990, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt delivered a copy of his explosive classified report, “On the Association Between Adverse Health Effects and Exposure to Agent Orange,” to the Department of Veterans Affairs (formerly the Veterans Administration). In charge of all naval operations in the southern half of Vietnam, Admiral Zumwalt issued orders to use Agent Orange along the banks of the Mekong Delta’s canals and rivers. His son, Elmo Zumwalt III, served on a swift boat during the war, plying the waters in search of Viet Cong, swimming in canals contaminated with Agent Orange, eating food and drinking water poisoned by dioxin. Lieutenant Zumwalt returned home from the war, married, and started a family. His son was born with severe learning disabilities, and at the age of thirty-six Elmo was diagnosed with cancer of the lymphatic system. After a long courageous battle, he died at the age of forty-two.

  Admiral Zumwalt spent two years researching and writing a report that excoriates the Veterans Administration, criticizes the Center for Disease Control and dismisses the Air Force “Ranch Hand Study.” He charges that the government and the chemical companies with conspiring to deny Vietnam veterans much needed help for their war-related illnesses. Scientific studies on the health effects of Agent Orange, he writes, were flawed and even falsified. Researchers used bogus statistics to deny any association between exposure to Agent Orange and human illness. Contrary to early reports, the rate of birth defects among children fathered by the men who flew “Ranch Hand” missions in Vietnam was double that of the control group. Moreover, Ranch Hand pilots showed a significant increase in skin cancers “unrelated to overexposure to the sun as originally suggested in the 1984 report.”1