Because of lingering
effects of Agent Orange exposure, Vietnamese plead
for redress
BY CHAU LAM
STAFF WRITER; Staff writer Joseph Mallia contributed
to this story.
November 17, 2005
They were enemies on
nationals and some American veterans have something in common: They suffer
from illnesses they say were caused by Agent Orange.
Kicking off an 11-city tour in the
their efforts to seek compensation from the
chemical companies that produced the herbicide, Dang Hong Nhut
and Ho Sy
Hai have brought their stories to the American
public.
"American veterans got compensation, I am hopeful that we'll be treated
equally," Dang, 68, said in an interview Tuesday in
David Cline, 58, of
Veterans For Peace, believes the Vietnamese should
receive
compensation. "We see this as a humanitarian and a moral issue," he
said last night
at a meeting with the Vietnamese.
Dang, who supported the Viet Cong, is a plaintiff in a class-action
suit against chemical manufacturers that was rejected in February. U.S.
District Judge Jack Weinstein in
covered as many as 4 million alleged victims, saying the use of the
herbicide during the Vietnam War did not violate international law. The
Vietnamese are appealing.
During the war, about 12 million gallons of the defoliant were sprayed
over
leaves from trees in an effort to deprive the enemy of cover.
Ned Foote, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America's
chapter, based in Queensbury, said he supports the Vietnamese effort but !
first wants the manufacturer to provide compensation
for American
soldiers still suffering, and dying, from the dioxin's effects.
"I personally don't hold any grudges against them," he said.
"They
fought their war, we fought ours."
In 1965, Ho, now 64, was delivering supplies to North Vietnamese troops
advancing into
herbicide along the supply route, known as the Ho Chi Minh
Trail. He and
fellow soldiers drank the contaminated water and bathed in it.
"We were living with the defoliant every day. We didn't have a
choice,"
Ho said.
Toward the end of the war, Ho married, and he and his wife, also a
soldier, wanted to start a family. Her first two pregnancies ended in
miscarriages, Ho said. She then gave birth to a healthy baby boy. But he
became deaf and stopped talking at age 6.
In 1973 they had another boy, who was born healthy but at 8 months
couldn't hold ! down his
food. At 3, he too, became deaf. Ho said. The third
child, a girl, was healthy until she turned 5, Ho said. Her glands
swelled and she died.
In 1980, the couple, who lives in the northeast
had another boy, who became mentally ill at 20.
Ho learned in 1989 that he has diabetes and prostate cancer, two of the
diseases the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes as linked
to Agent Orange.
In May of 1965, Dang was living in Cu Chi - a suburb of Saigon, which
was renamed
airplanes dropping the defoliant on the district, leaving behind a
terrible odor and a whitish substance on the leaves.
"I thought I was going to be killed instantly or in one or two days,"
recalled Dang, who still lives in
For the month she lived in Cu Chi, Dang drank water from the stream and
used it for cooking. She ate vegetabl! es dusted with the dioxin not
knowing of its harmful effects.
Dang herself said she had three miscarriages between 1973 and 1980. A
fourth child was stillborn and seriously deformed, she said. In recent
years, doctors removed tumors from her intestine and thyroid.
Like Ho, Dang blames her miscarriages and health problems on Agent
Orange. In 1960, before she was exposed to the dioxin, Dang gave birth to a
healthy boy, now a grown man with two healthy daughters of his own.
Both want help for future generations in
suffer the effects of dioxin, which remains in their soil.
"We hope to share our suffering and our pain with the American
veterans. Together, we may find the quickest and the fastest solution to this
problem," Ho said. "That's what I hope for from the trip."
Staff writer Joseph Mallia contributed to this story.
Copyright (c) 2005, Newsday, Inc.