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Agent Orange

            In 1962, the United States Military began to use a potentially toxic chemical known as Agent Orange. The toxic chemical was used to eliminate ground cover during the Vietnam War. Vietnamese troops would hide underneath the thick forest and make it impossible for United States troops to spot them. The Army began using Agent Orange as a way of eliminating that problem. The government had very little knowledge about the deadly chemical but went ahead and used it anyway. They had no idea of the disastrous long-term effects that it would have on men, women and children. The hardest group hit by the chemical was not Vietnamese civilians but United States troops. In 1962, Project Ranch Hand was being deployed all over Vietnam. The idea was to destroy the forest on the battle field and make it easier for the United States troops to see the Vietnamese soldiers. The term "agent orange" was given to the chemical because of the bright orange canisters that it was stored in. During the Vietnam War, 11.2 million gallons of Agent Orange were used throughout Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Approximately 2.6 million United States soldiers served in South Vietnam and nearby areas during the war. As the planes would drop the massive amounts of Agent Orange onto Vietnam, United States soldiers would unknowingly walk to certain disaster. At that time they may have had some idea that it might be potentially hazardous but they were not certain. As the soldiers were carrying out their orders they would inevitably breathe in the toxic fumes. Through out the Vietnam War soldiers were beginning to complain of severe medical problems. By 1968, the United States army had received an estimated 4,000 reports of unexplainable illnesses. Many scientists became suspicious and began to conduct experiments to find out the causes of these illnesses. They came up with many different explanations for the sicknesses but the most important one was Agent Orange.


Essays Related to Agent Orange

1. Agent Orange and Vietnam

... argue the most relevant effect to this day is what the Vietnamese people call "chat doc mau da cam" or simply known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange was the code name of a herbicide used by the military, it was used primarily in tropical climates. The creation of the product could be ... a poisonous substance. This, this bring tears to your eyes, and you can't help but wonder, is this the real war now? The struggle against Agent Orange?" These lines came from an emotional 22 year old Khanh Ly, a female student pursuing a literature degree at the National University in Hanoi, also part ......

  • Word Count: 2102
  • Approx Pages: 8
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. The Aftereffects of Agent Orange

... 2007). "From fish through primates, it's the most toxic," Birnbaum says. Stellman estimates that more than three thousand villages with at least 2.1 million people were sprayed directly with Agent Orange (Stellman et al., 2003). In 1970, when Operation Ranch Hand finally ended, over 3.6 million hectares of forest and villages in Central and Southern Vietnam had been covered with millions of ... Da Nang are two areas that have dioxins in blood, the highest in the whole country at four hundred parts per trillion (Stellman. 2003). The five main illness caused by Agent Orange/dioxin: soft-ti...

  • Word Count: 1538
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

3. Agent Orange and the Vietnam War

... the war directly influenced. The only evidence to show for is the millions of acres of desecrated land ravaged by the chemicals. Economic Effects on South Vietnam As previously stated, Agent Orange tore threw the South Vietnamese forests and left almost all vegetation in decay. When a forest in Vietnam is continuously subject to defoliation, the affected areas will become invaded with bamboo ... . Other areas such as mangrove forests are immediately destroyed when subject to defoliants, and have a regeneration time of about twenty years. One of the biggest setbacks South Vietnam faced fr...

  • Word Count: 1279
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. Agent Orange

... of forest and contaminating thousands of soldiers and civilians. (Isserman, America at War 89) The period between 1971 and 1974 was a disaster. Some 15,000 veterans filed reports of Agent Orange related illnesses. Some of the illnesses are as followed: chloracne, soft-tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's disease, acute peripheral neuropathy, subacute peripheral neuropathy, porohyria cutanea tarda (PCT ... for hospital treatment and insurance. The most common diseases being reported were prostate cancer and respiratory cancers. Those were a result of direct inhalation of the ...

  • Word Count: 1000
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

5. Agent Orange

... of forest and contaminating thousands of soldiers and civilians. (Isserman, America at War 89) The period between 1971 and 1974 was a disaster. Some 15,000 veterans filed reports of Agent Orange related illnesses. Some of the illnesses are as followed: chloracne, soft-tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's disease, acute peripheral neuropathy, subacute peripheral neuropathy, porohyria cutanea tarda (PCT ... for hospital treatment and insurance. The most common diseases being reported were prostate cancer and respiratory cancers. Those were a result of direct inhalation of the ...

  • Word Count: 968
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Agent Orange

... guerilla warfare in the jungle. Trying to gain some kind of upper edge on the Vietnamese attacks, the US decided to deploy a toxin called agent orange. Agent Orange was two herbicides mixed that were used to destroy jungle and vegetation to decrease the chance of enemy sneak attack on US Forces. Well, ... cancer. My uncle was among these. My uncle was in Adams 2 charge of a loading crew on a C130 cargo plain. He was exposed to Agent Orange either by transporting it or exposed to it when they sprayed it around the air strips to clear vegetation. The conflict in all of this is ... front, ...

  • Word Count: 1220
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: High School

7. agent orange

... -coded names because of the identifying colored strip on all the fifty five gallon drum concealing these herbicides. All of these have a different chemical makeup, but the ingredient which makes agent orange dangerously toxic compared to the others is that it contained dioxin, hailed by Harvard Professor to be " the most toxic small molecule know to man". A lethal combination of chemicals know ... embryotoxin, a carcinogen, and a teratogenic according to rodent studies. Embryotoxin is a property known to kill embryos of the pregnant, and teratogenic means that it causes birth defects. Th...

  • Word Count: 269
  • Approx Pages: 1
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

8. The Decline of Veterans Administration

... a powerful mixture of chemical defoliants used by U.S. military forcesused to eliminate forest cover for North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops" ("Agent Orange"). But as the chemical was used in the Vietnam War, there was a controversy over Agent Orange and its effects on the U.S. service men that conducted the release of the chemical. "As late as June 2011, debate continues over ... benefits as other veterans who served on the ground or on inland waters," this controversy has continued for more than four decades ("Agent Orange"). And as of today Agent Orange is still affecting veterans ...

  • Word Count: 1198
  • Approx Pages: 5

9. Vietnam

... of bomb was dropped by the B-52s, this one containing a large amount of the defoliating gas, Agent Orange. Hundreds of millions of acres of jungle were destroyed and even more fields and rice paddies were poisoned because of Agent Orange. South Vietnamese farmers complained about the detrimental effect Agent Orange had on their rice paddies, and its use flooded camps and cities with refugees from outlying ... areas where entire crops were destroyed. Agent Orange was supposed to eliminate the VC's advantageous hiding places, but it only turned the people ... perhaps one of the largest m...

  • Word Count: 2331
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

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