Jackson Clarion-Ledger
An American national tragedy: Agent Orange veterans need our help now
Charles Terrell, Guest Columnist
There are more veterans who have died from Agent Orange-related diseases than those who died in combat during the Vietnam War. Should a memorial wall be built next to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D.C., it would double the names of Agent Orange deaths at the hands of the U.S. government. Veterans continue to die every year waiting on the VA to process their claims. Many have died having been stuck in the appeals process for years. Many have been forced to hire an attorney to represent them in suing the VA. This is a national disgrace.
The information for this column comes from a Navy veteran who has Amyloidosis, a rare blood cancer, which in his case is a terminal illness. He was exposed to Agent Orange while on active duty in 1972 during land survival training at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. His disease took many years to manifest itself in his tissue. The latency aspect of Agent Orange diseases is commonly experienced by many veterans who were exposed in the Vietnam War era. Not all exposures were exclusive to the Vietnam theatre of war. Some exposure took place in the United States and other surrounding nations to Vietnam.
Thanks to U.S. Sen. Cindy-Hyde Smith, U.S. Rep. Michael Guest and U.S. Rep. Steven Palazzo, all federal representatives from Mississippi, this American tragedy may finally be getting the national exposure it needs.
The State Department actually spent millions of dollars helping to treat Vietnamese women who experienced reproductive illnesses including birth defects which the VA will not recognize among U.S. veterans who had children after returning home from Vietnam or other areas of the United States where Agent Orange was sprayed, tested, disseminated, dispersed, or stored.
Such illnesses include pre-mature deaths, stillbirths, molar pregnancies, and cervical cancer among other defects. Some wives married to veterans of the Vietnam era have experienced multiple birth defects mirroring what Vietnamese women experienced without any consideration from the VA.
Recently the VA hired an additional 100 attorneys to deal with their backlog of over 68,000 appeals. What will these attorneys do? Will they work to deny the last appeals of veterans and there-by quickly close the books on as many cases as they can? The VA’s track record to this point begs the question.
If you are a veteran suffering from an Agent Orange disease and struggling with the protracted appeals process of the VA, please contact the federal officials listed above. Give them your name, your disease, and the location or your exposure according to your service record. Your service record must verify your duty assignment where you suspect your exposure occurred.
Since there has been a lack of federal legislation giving direction to the VA, the VA policies are constantly evolving and often doing so in an arbitrary manner. Policies enacted today may have saved the lives of veterans had they been enacted years earlier.
Without public exposure, the VA will continue to act in an arbitrary manner. If there is no public scrutiny to their activity, no accountability will be forthcoming. You, the reader of this column, can make a difference.
The veteran went where his country told him to go and did what he was told to do. The veteran was honorably discharged. Now he is expecting his country to act honorably towards him or her. The veteran expects the VA to be his advocate, not his adversary.
This is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It has nothing to do with what you think about President Trump. This is an American issue and only Americans can solve it.
Charles Terrell is a retired pastor with 35 years of pastoral ministry and a former naval aviator and flight instructor who lives in Columbia. In years past, he did mission work in China and recently used art to communicate the Gospel in prisons.