FROM LAWSUIT TO DENIAL TO PLAYING GAMES
WE KILLED AN ENTIRE ARMY WITHOUT A SINGLE BULLET
By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER
Its Saturday morning and I have to read something else written by people who just don’t know what they are talking about. This isn’t even politics. Everyone is to blame. How could a country poison an army, watching them die a lingering death over years, see their children disabled, how?
How? This is the United States. We have TV, IPODS, Playstations and are now worrying about our bankers having their multimillion dollar bonuses paid from government welfare taken away while millions worry about money for their next supermarket run.
We have been lied to about Agent Orange for 40 years and nobody has really cared and they aren’t about to start. Some of the victims have those plastic flowers on graves in cemeteries, but most, as those who really fought in Vietnam were not so rich, sit in bags and boxes, ashes that sometimes look more likely dogfood than ashes, given to families that will never be able to afford a burial plot, marker stone or if the veteran was also a PTSD sufferer, maybe nobody is around that cares anymore.
Ask someone, anyone “in authority” about Gulf War Syndrome. Does it exist? Who died? What is it? What kind of people are we?
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, THE WORST KIND
I got my Agent Orange physical in 1995. I was told I would need multiple joint replacements as I was showing extensive joint damage common to all agent orange sufferers. Then they found a tumor. It was diagnosed as Soft Tissue Sarcoma and I was advised to immediately start radiation and chemo at the VA Oncology center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
I managed to survive the 90% odds that killed folks like actor Robert Urich (also from Detroit, one of my favorites). I lost one child whose death should be attributed to birth defects related to Agent Orange. I work to remain unaddicted to pain medication and remain as active as possible on a series of joints, some destroyed beyond recognition.
I don’t receive one cent of compensation for any of this, not from the famed Agent Orange lawsuit I was a part of, not from VA claims made years ago nor do I receive any follow up treatment nor any real treatment of any kind. Welcome to the real world. Do note that I am also a VSO, Veterans Service Officer and know the system as well as anyone alive. I may be the least invisible Vietnam veteran in the country, next to John McCain, but it seems in “all the wrong circles.” When I rail against corrupt bureaucracy, I have my reasons.
The VA is doing a wonderful and amusing job with agent orange victims. I get the Agent Orange Review in the mail, I get tests for prostate cancer (pronounce it P-R-O-S-T-A-T-E, not PROSTRATE…everyone screws this up) which, thus far, tell me I am not dying of that.
It took me 2 years to get an appointment with the VA for treatment for my joint pain. I got the appointment but no treatment. They told me to take aspirin. They did give me endless Xrays. I never heard back from them.
I found out why some time later.
Then, when visiting my local clinic for a gout flareup, the doctor pulled up my Agent Orange joint problem Xrays. They were years old, showed terrible damage BUT HAD NEVER BEEN SEEN BY A RADIOLOGIST, NEVER LOOKED AT, NO TREATMENT RECOMMENDED, NOTHING.
IN ANY CIVILIAN SETTING, EVERYONE INVOLVED WOULD LOSE THEIR MEDICAL LICENSES. HOWEVER, THE SAME GANG ARE KILLING OFF VETS ON A DAILY BASIS. NOW WE ARE TALKING ABOUT FIXING THIS PROBLEM BY PUTTING A PENTAGON GENERAL IN CHARGE. ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THAT………………..
If it were only me it would be one thing. As most Vietnam vets know who go to “reunions” and look around at who is there and who isn’t, Agent Orange is “breaking up that old gang of mine.” All my friends, the living ones, the few, are cancer survivors, some multiple cancers, many directly related to Agent Orange. One of my closest friends, someone I met while helping him as a VSO, had 4 Agent Orange cancers, his prostate removed and was getting a couple hundred bucks a month disability.
With PROPER advice and medical diagnosis he immediately went to 100%.
In some areas of the country, vets get joint replacements, full diagnosis and even disability payments they deserve. In many more areas, most areas, in fact, their medical problems are ignored and even lied about.
The fact that Agent Orange destroys joints and brings on years of crippling pain was explained to me 14 years ago by VA medical officials but I have yet to read a single word about it in a publication. By the same measure of ignorance, the government should have simply ignored 9/11. If veterans had been on the planes or in the World Trade Center, we would still be waiting for the planes to land or wondering about that mysterious empty place in lower Manhattan.
We haven’t even begun to discuss the Agent Orange victims from the spraying in the Korean DMZ. It seems, if you are poisoned by a “test spraying,” you aren’t sick. The games never end, the lies never end.
What Vietnam veterans and the other Agent Orange sufferers, not to include the millions of suffers in Southeast Asia, are supposed to do is “bite the bullet” and die quietly. We have been doing just that and doing it very well. Everyone seems pleased with the result with the exception of friends and family.
Few of us are rich and important. Admiral Zumwalt’s son, however, was an exception. The admiral spoke up, put his ideas forward and his honor on the line. The military still admits nothing but at least someone stood up like a man.
Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.
Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.
Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.
Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.
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