Agent Orange Legacy

Words: 737
Pages: 3
Open Document
Quynh Harris
Ms. Zella Talbot
Humanities I in Action
25 January 2018
The Legacy of the Vietnam War The Vietnam War lasted from November 1st 1955 to April 30th 1975. (https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War) In the span of twenty years 75.7 million liters of chemicals were sprayed over Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia by the US. The US used 260 million cluster bombs, roughly 2.5 million tons of munitions, and there were 580,000 bombing missions in Laos alone. (http://legaciesofwar.org/resources/books-documents/land-of-a-million-bombs/) 43 years after the Vietnam War ended, people are still being impacted its legacy. This paper will be exploring how chemical warfare and unexploded bomb ordnance greatly impacts current day Vietnam.

Agent Orange …show more content…
The goal of Agent Orange was to defoliate rural and forested land, which would deprive their enemies, the Guerrillas, of concealment, and food. The chemical was also spread in the hopes of destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, which would lead them to flee to U.S. dominated cities, ultimately depriving the Guerrillas of their rural support base. However, military personnel were told the crops they would be destroying were being used to feed the Guerrillas, when in reality, they were being used to feed the civilians. In the Quang Ngai province, 85% of their crop lands were scheduled to be destroyed in 1970 alone. The destruction of these crops caused widespread famine, and left hundreds of thousands malnourished, starving, or dead. In the Vietnam War 42% of all herbicides and defoliants were dedicated to food crops. In the end, 20% of South Vietnam was sprayed with the defoliant that according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was thirteen times more than the recommended concentration for domestic …show more content…
A study by Dr. Nguyen Viet Nhan revealed that children in Agent Orange contaminated areas have multiple health problems including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, and extra fingers and toes. In the 1970’s abnormally high levels of dioxin were found in the breast milk of South Vietnamese women. Dioxins are a highly toxic chemically related compound which has been known to cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, can interfere with natural hormones, and increases the risk of cancer. The heaviest targeted regions of Agent Orange were mountainous areas along Truong Son, and the border between Vietnam and Cambodia. The University of Texas Health Science Centre published an analysis exposing that residents living in those areas have a large amount of increase in birth defects, stillbirths, cleft palates, and neural tube effects which are defects of the brain, spine, or spinal cord. The contaminated soil and sediment caused by Agent Orange continues to impact the citizens of Vietnam, poisoning their food chain and causing illnesses, deformities, mental disabilities, skin diseases, and a variety of
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