Agent Orange: The Experience of the Zumwalt Family!

My experience with "Agent Orange" was a LOT different than the one praised by the high-ranking Admiral and his son: To reduce casualties in his AO (Area of Operations), Admiral Zumwalt Jr. ordered the defoliation in 1968. One of his sons, now 40 years old, and a lawyer in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has two forms of cancer, while his offspring is plagued by a severe learning disability. Elmo and the Admiral, now retired, both believe that Elmo's exposure to Agent Orange is responsible for the cancers and for Russel's brain dysfunction. Many other Vietnam Veterans and their children have suffered similar fates and have come to the same conclusion. In my case, I had to undergo an extremely critical operation, which required many units of blood, to remove my cancerous prostate gland, which meant taking a lot of pills, and wearing a 'diaper' for the rest of my life. In retrospect, I understand that "our" use of Agent Orange made my task as Advisory Team Leader in the "Iron Triangle" much more hazardous than without that horrid chemical: Though Agent Orange destroyed all of the trees in my area of operations, and saw their naked branches outlined against the hot summer sky, the weeds and grasses underneath them now proliferated, in many cases at least three or four feet, so that an enemy sniper, zeroing in with his AK-47 on our patrol, would not be obvious to my men, until he had fired a fatal shot into one of my men. In other words, as the combat leader of my men, I was always plagued by the thought of losing some of my good men, because of "Agent Orange". There, I've finally said it, and I'm GLAD.