NELLIE BLY BOOK AWARDS FOR JOURNALISTIC NON-FICTION FINALIST.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana (1863-1952)
We must always look forward, but we have to understand where we came from, our history, in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Silent Spring - Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War (SSDAVW) may have been written too late to help Vietnam Veterans with their toxic exposures and illnesses, but itâs not too late to help future generations of military personnel from encountering the same fate. SSDAVW is a real-life chronicle written in sorrow with hope for future generations of soldiers. Itâs a surreal voyage into everything the US government hasnât told you about the Vietnam War and doesnât want you to know. Itâs a book that cuts through to the heart of the circumstances and deadly chemicals used throughout the war. Many of them still being used on soldiers and all over America, even today! The work is more than a memoir; itâs an investigative journey into the conditions US service personnel served under. And the scars they carried with them for decades.
NELLIE BLY BOOK AWARDS FOR JOURNALISTIC NON-FICTION FINALIST.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana (1863-1952)
We must always look forward, but we have to understand where we came from, our history, in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past. Silent Spring - Deadly Autumn of the Vietnam War (SSDAVW) may have been written too late to help Vietnam Veterans with their toxic exposures and illnesses, but itâs not too late to help future generations of military personnel from encountering the same fate. SSDAVW is a real-life chronicle written in sorrow with hope for future generations of soldiers. Itâs a surreal voyage into everything the US government hasnât told you about the Vietnam War and doesnât want you to know. Itâs a book that cuts through to the heart of the circumstances and deadly chemicals used throughout the war. Many of them still being used on soldiers and all over America, even today! The work is more than a memoir; itâs an investigative journey into the conditions US service personnel served under. And the scars they carried with them for decades.
With so many pressing issues and difficulties in todayâs world, some view the continuing health problems and illnesses surrounding âin-countryâ (boots-on-the-ground) Vietnam veterans as inconsequential in comparison.1 But make no mistake about it: even though President Nixonâs magnificent political declaration of âpeace with honorâ and the fall of Saigon in April of 1975 were supposed to symbolize the ending of the war in Vietnam, it hasnât ended for me or for other military personnel who served in South Vietnam.
The last battles of the Vietnam War are still being waged by veterans all over the country. Even today, as you read this book, the skirmishes over the pesticides we veterans were exposed to and the presumed illnesses they caused are still raging. Our battles are not with the Viet Cong (VC) or the North Vietnamese army. Instead, our conflicts are with the myriad cancers, illnesses, and health issues that weâand even many of our childrenâmust battle with, day in and day out.2
Our clashes and struggles are with the bureaucratic systems of the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and with the very government that sent us to South Vietnam in the first place. You can rest assured the Vietnam War isnât overânot by a long shot.
The fact that veterans who served in Vietnam must struggle with innumerable cancers, illnesses, and other health problems almost certainly caused by the highly toxic synthetic chemicals they were exposed to during the war is shamefulâespecially when you consider that those contaminated pesticides were atomized into a fine mist and sprayed onto them by their government/military leaders. More ominously, the substances veterans were exposed to were long-enduring herbicides and insecticides, still quite capable of claiming new lives dailyâeven though the Vietnam War has been diplomatically resolved for half a century.
As if being unprotected from health-damaging pesticides wasnât bad enough, boots-on-the-ground veterans were tactlessly thrown under the bus, by those very same government officials. Then, to add insult to injury, after being treacherously betrayed by administrative bureaucratsâwho, for the most part, were sitting safely in Washington, DC, during the warâthey proceeded to back their bus up and run over veterans again and again, just for good measure. This book is my view from under that governmental bus.
By the way, if you feel my use of the phrase treacherously betrayed was too harsh after you finish reading this book, let me know what your thoughts are. Was my comment too robust or just rightâor do you think itâs a little on the weak side?
Agent Orange and Its Deadly Companions
Without a doubt, the term Agent Orange will be remembered in dishonor, no matter what the US government may assert. Still, for most people living in todayâs world, the term doesnât have much significance other than that it had something to do with âthat war in Asia.â However, for the military personnel who served in South Vietnam, Agent Orange is synonymous with illness, pain, suffering, and death.
Official US government archives contain the files of more than 58,220 US service personnel who died in Vietnam. They were considered the ultimate casualties of that war. In addition, scores moreâover three hundred thousand3âwere recorded as injured or maimed. Disappointingly, not chronicled in those sobering statistics are the hundreds of thousands of soldiers, marines, and sailors who were injured or killed by the chemical pesticides sprayed on them during the war but didnât understand it until many years later.
Ever since the official end of the Vietnam War, the US government, the DVA, and the Department of Defense (DOD) have denied, obstructed, and rebuffed almost all attempts at etiologically or medically linking any illness or disorder with exposure to Agent Orange or to any of the other less-publicizedâbut just as deadlyâpesticides deployed during the war. Our government and DVA continue their denials and obstructive actions with policies and procedures for which their mantra could very well be âDelay and deny until they all die.â4
Dr. Jeanne Stellman, an epidemiologist who has spent decades studying Agent Orange for the American Legion and the National Academy of Sciences, said the following in a 2009 Chicago Tribune interview with Jason Grotto and Tim Jones:
We do not know the answer to the question: What happened to Vietnam veterans? The government doesnât want to study this because of international liability and issues surrounding chemical warfare. And theyâre going to win because theyâre bigger and everybodyâs getting old and there are new wars to worry about.5
What a sad commentary on our legislative and military leaders. Itâs shameful and disappointing that veterans must struggle with serious illnesses because of all the harmful pesticides they were exposed to while serving the United States. Dr. Stellmanâs observation of our administrative leaders is an accurate, concise, and honest one. What our government has done over the years to Vietnam veterans is reprehensible. It would have been much better if our elected officials had chosen to bite the bullet and throw the chemical companies that made the extremely harmful pesticides and the officials who decided to use them under the bus instead of the veterans who were exposed to their nightmarish military concoctions.
At this point, you might be asking, âJust who are you to be talking about the US government and military in this way?â In reality, Iâm just one of the many boots-on-the-ground Vietnam veterans trying to make sense of the overly complicated bureaucratic care-and-benefit system set up by our policymakers and the DVA to consider our exposure to Agent Orange and all the other intermingled destructive pesticides used during the Vietnam War.
Ironically, the US military test-sprayed the first of their many hazardous herbicides on my fifteenth birthday, during Operation Hades, over a small village north of Dak To, located in Kon Tum Province. This early creation was called Dinoxol, and five short years after that unfortunate day, I would find myself in Vietnam.
I was stationed in Vietnam for two years, nine months, and twenty-two daysâfrom September 1966 through June 1969. During this timeâas chronicled, thanks in part to work done by Dr. Jeanne Mager Stellman and her groupâI was located in geographic areas of South Vietnam that had been sprayed directly with several tactical grade pesticides. So despite the fact, we saw personnel with backpacks spraying around the cantonment areas, and on occasion aerial spraying by helicopters or planes, we were never told exactly what was in those fine mists being spewed out on us.
All the same, according to recently declassified military records, we were showered with, at a minimum, the herbicides Agent Orange and Agent White and the insecticides malathion and DDT.
Iâm sure by now almost everyone has heard about Agent Orange, perhaps even to the point of exasperation. But have you ever heard anythingâanything at allâabout the following health-damaging chemicals contained in the tactical pesticides used by the military during the war in South Vietnam?
**2,4-D (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid): one of the active ingredients in Agent Orange (also called Dinoxol) & in Agent White (also called Tordon 101)
**2, 4, 5-T (2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid): one of the active ingredients in Agent Orange
**Picloram (4-amino-3,5,6-trichloro picolinic acid): one of the active ingredients in Agent White
**HCB (Hexachlorobenzene): A toxic side reaction compound found in Agent White. It has also been classified as a POP (Persistent Organic Pollutant) by the Stockholm Convention.
**Triisopropanolamine: one of the âinertâ components in Agent White
**TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin, better known as dioxin): a deadly contaminant found in Agent Orange, Agent White and other pesticides
**DLC (Dioxin-like compound): toxic impurities found in Agent Orange, Agent White, malathion, and many other pesticides
**Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX): toxic substances contained in JP-4 and various petroleum products used to dilute oil base pesticides
**Malathion: an insecticide from the family of pesticides called organophosphates
**OSS-TMP (O,S,S-trimethyl phosphorodithioate): a more toxic storage contaminant of malathion
**Malaoxon: a more toxic metabolite6 of malathion
I suspect that youâve heard little or nothing about any of these hazardous chemicals being used during the Vietnam War or about the fact that almost everyone stationed there was exposed to them multiple times.
Now keep in mind that the preceding was the âshort listâ of chemicals. As you will soon learn, there were an endless number of other chemicalsâboth known and still unidentifiedâcontained in the few tactical grade pesticides I have noted. All the same, while we were in Vietnam, we didnât know those toxic chemicals were contained in the pesticides being sprayed on us, let alone the harm they could do to our health, especially synergistically. I, like many others, wanted to believe our military leaders when they told us that the substances being sprayed on us were safe, or as various officials had allegedly said, âThey are just as safe as your backyard bug spray or weed killer. In fact, you can shower in the stuff, and it wouldnât be a problem.â
Even though we didnât know the harm these pesticides were capable of causing, the chemical companies and the chemists who worked for them, as well as our government scientists, knew full well what they were capable of doing to any human, animal, or plant unlucky enough to be put in their path. They knew the tremendously harmful and systemically damaging nature of these very quickly and cheaply made heavy-duty military pesticides.
Unfortunately, it is chiefly because chemical firms produced their tactical pesticides so quickly and cheaplyâfor the exclusive use of our militaryâthat the finished products were significantly more dangerous. In fact, any person in a six-plus-mile range of any base or operational location being sprayed might have had their health compromised and wouldnât even realize it.
I hope most of you still remember the old Frank Robinson classic 1973 baseball quote, âClose donât count in baseball. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.â Well, you can add herbicides and insecticides to the end of that astute assessment. The sad irony is that the military pesticides could have been made less toxic and detrimental if the chemical companies had crafted them far more slowly and methodically via a low-heat method. But the low-heat, extra-care techniques would have been substantially more expensive for the military and markedly less profitable for the chemical companies manufacturing them.
As a consequence, the clandestine pesticides and associated chemicals military personnel were exposed too were considerably more hazardous and health altering. To put it bluntly, our lifelong health and well-being would suffer as a result of exposure to these âclassifiedâ nightmarish herbicides and insecticides. Deplorably, the adverse health problems would surface years or decades after the war, as aging also played a role.
Unfortunately, the very same pesticides that are causing veteransâ health problems are also quite capable of causing significant genetic injuriesâchromosomal damageâwhich could be passed on and have detrimental health impacts on their children, their grandchildren, and, quite credibly, even their grandchildrenâs children.
Born from personal experience, Silent Spring outlines with scientific rigour the intense health problems American soldiers who served in Vietnam would suffer years later due to the slow acting and insidious nature of the dangerous chemicals used in pesticides during the Vietnam war. Beyond that, Silent Spring reveals the Department of Veteransâ Affairs (DVA) refusal to acknowledge or pay for the health problems that were caused by those pesticides.
This book feels important. It sheds light on what is both a very unknown and a very important issue, both in the governmentâs initial incompetence in carelessly using harmful chemicals on its own soldiers, and in the denial of responsibility and abandonment of the very soldiers who had volunteered or in many cases been forced to serve in a war they never asked for once the health problems emerged. It is something that deserves to be talked about and researched and I appreciate this book for spreading awareness.
Part of what makes this book so powerful is it draws from the authorâs own experience in Vietnam, his own health problems and the death of his friend, and his struggles with the DVA. The writing style is very conversational, which means it is not the most beautiful prose, but it helps balance out some of the highly scientific content of the book and make it more down to earth than an academic article. While the more scientific parts of the book were less interesting to me than the personal narrative, I applaud the author for making a conscious effort to provide as much evidence as possible to back up all claims. This book is very well researched.
My largest complaint with the book is that it makes little to no mention of the Vietnamese people who were undoubtably subject to similar if not worse effects of the pesticide use by the US government. However overall, it provides meticulous research and with personal emotional weight and I hope other people are inspired to educate themselves on this topic.