Agent Orange: an innocent name but a sad story

It’s the 1960s, and the U.S. is helping the south of Vietnam win the war against the north of Vietnam which is backed by the communists.

The U.S. thought it was going to be an easy war. They have way more trained troops, a bigger airforce, and more advanced weapons. But to America’s surprise, the war wasn’t so easy to win. Because the U.S. forgot about one thing:

The jungle.

The jungle was the biggest advantage of the North Vietnamese. It offered plenty of hiding spots and allowed them to capture American soldiers since they knew the jungle way better than them. So how did the Americans fight back?

Agent Orange

Agent Orange is a pretty innocent name right, but in reality, it killed millions of people.

Agent Orange

Agent Orange was originally named this way because of the orange strips on the barrels in which it was transported.

Agent Orange is a herbicide and defoliant chemical. Leaf's melt after 1 day of being in contact with Agent Orange. The chemical would seep into the ground, making it impossible to grow anything on it, starving the Vietnamese, and it was oil-soluble, so it couldn’t be washed away in the rainy season.

This deadly chemical was first used by the British in Malaya btw.

Operation Ranch Hand

This was the code name for the operation. In the first 5 years, American planes and helicopters managed to spray 5 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam and nearby countries.

The planes flew in formations of 3 or 5 filled with tanks full of chemicals. On each mission, each plane sprayed an area of 260 feet wide and 10 miles long with Agent Orange. In the span of a decade, they complete over 6,000 missions.

By the end of the war, Vietnam and other nearby countries were sprayed with 20 million gallons of herbicides.

With the help of trucks and hand sprayers, Americans on the ground also helped with the operation. But this method was way more dangerous. A lot of American soldiers got in direct contact with the herbicides.

Some soldiers asked if the solution they were spraying everywhere was safe to which officers replied: of course. Some soldiers were even lied to. They were told that they were spraying insecticides to kill the mosquitos so that people wouldn’t get malaria. This was one big lie.

Effects

Agent Orange is one of the most deadly chemicals ever created. It’s so dangerous because of the dioxins that are released during the manufacturing process called TCDD.

TCDD is the most dangerous dioxin out of the 419 dioxins in the world.

If you were briefly exposed to the dioxin, your skin will darken, and you’ll develop a skin disease called chloracne.

Later in life, you’ll be at higher risk for immune system dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, nerve disorders, muscular dysfunction, hormone disruption, and heart disease. That’s a pretty long list.

300,000 war veterans have died from a disease they developed because they came in contact with agent orange. To put this number in perspective, only 58,000 soldiers died in battle. The chemical killed more people than the actual fighting.

In total, 3 million people have suffered health problems from the toxic herbicide.

Birth effects

Even though Agent Orange only lasts a few years in nature, it can last up to 20 years in the human body.

Agent Orange caused half a million children to be born with major birth defects.

The Vietnam war ended nearly 50 years ago, but many Vietnamese are still witnessing its effects of it. Even now, nearly half a century after the war, children are still being born with major birth defects.

The Vietnam war wasn’t a 20-year war of fighting, it was a generational war.

Final Thoughts

After protests, the U.S. government agreed to compensate veterans if they got a disease because of exposure to Agent Orange. Through various health organizations, the U.S. government donated $65 million to Vietnamese people who were exposed to agent orange.

Even though $65 million is a large donation, it’s not nearly enough to give aid to the 3 million Vietnamese who were exposed to Agent Orange.