Former Vietnamese guerilla Dang Thi Chung and her son, Ngo Tien Dung, 15, sit in their home about 20 miles west of Danang. Both of Dang's children suffer serious mental and physical problems she blames on her exposure to Agent Orange.

Thirty years after the peace, Vietnam still besieged by questions over effects of Agent Orange

Date published: 5/1/2005

Agent Orange issue still hovers over Vietnam

Hoa Ninh, Vietnam--With her warm smile and gentle manner, Dang Thi Chung doesn't seem like a tough war veteran.

But when she was still in her teens, the 50-year-old mother of two fought against U.S. and South Vietnamese forces in this steamy rice-growing region west of Danang.

Dang can hardly believe she ever had the courage to be a guerrilla fighter. She marvels that she was able to endure the unrelenting pounding of the bombs that tumbled from U.S. warplanes.

"It was horrible," she said.

But bombs weren't the only thing she remembers falling from the sky. She and her comrades were repeatedly doused with chemicals that killed the trees and plants.

Dang believes that these sprayings caused her two children--whom she had with a man she met during the war--to be afflicted with severe physical and mental disabilities.

As she hosted visitors in a ramshackle section of her home last week, her 15-year-old son, Ngo Tien Dung, sat near her. The boy cannot speak, and suffers frequent seizures. He also had difficulty sitting upright until the aid group World Vision paid for corrective surgery.

Dung's father now lives with the family he had started before meeting Dang, who says she has to be with her son all day and has no time to tend to her rice paddy.

Dang's 22-year-old daughter, meanwhile, is away at a vocational school learning to become a tailor. She also suffers a mental disability--she can't work hard, Dang said--and has recently developed a tumor on one of her legs.

The Vietnamese government has identified Dang's offspring as victims of the defoliant spraying during the war, which entitles her to a little more than $5 a month in government assistance.

That's enough to buy about two weeks' worth of basic groceries--rice, vegetables, maybe a little fish. But she struggles to get by, waiting anxiously for the months to pass until she can sell a pig to boost her income.

There's no scientific proof that links the health problems of Dang's children to the herbicides sprayed by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces.

Date published: 5/1/2005