A war's festering wounds
Vietnam vets, others want government to pursue more research on effects of Agent Orange
By RICK MERCIER
The Free Lance-Star
Date published: 5/2/2005
Tam Vu, Vietnam--These days, a Westerner is simply a minor curiosity in this small town in the Mekong Delta, about 30 miles south of Ho Chi Minh City.
But when Sam Thompson was here as a young man in 1969 and '70, he was widely viewed as the enemy.
Thompson, 56, of Catalpa in Culpeper County was drafted into the Army and served in this area as a forward observer for an artillery battalion during what people here call the American War.
He said he was just another scared kid who suddenly found himself trying to survive amid the swamps, rice paddies and jungles of southern Vietnam.
"I just did my job as best I could and came home. That was my goal--to get home to my family," he said.
One thing the specialist couldn't avoid, however, was being exposed to the dioxin-laden defoliant Agent Orange, which was sprayed during the war to eliminate enemy cover and food supplies.
Thompson believes every soldier who was in Vietnam for more than about a month must have been exposed to Agent Orange because "it was in everything--the air, the ground, the food, the water."
"You could always tell where the jungle had been sprayed because it was more or less eaten up," he said, likening the ecological destruction to a large-scale version of what happens when homeowners apply a commercially available herbicide such as Monsanto's Roundup.
The 56-year-old Thompson, who heads Piedmont Area Chapter 752 of Vietnam Veterans of America, suffers type 2 diabetes and a skin disorder called chloracne--health problems that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes as being associated with Agent Orange.
While Thompson appears to represent a clear-cut example of a veteran affected by defoliant exposure, the case of Marvin White and his father points to the questions that remain about the long-term and intergenerational effects of wartime herbicide spraying in Vietnam.
White's father, Eddie, a native of Birmingham, Ala., served in Vietnam with the Marines in 1967 and '68.
In August 1998, the retired master sergeant was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He died in December of that year at the age of 57.
The VA does not consider stomach cancer to be related to herbicide exposure during the war, although some research has suggested a link.
Date published: 5/2/2005
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