Half a century after the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, the war continues to cast a long shadow. With over 4 million Vietnamese lives lost, the pain endures—not just in memory, but in the devastating effects of Agent Orange. This toxic chemical, sprayed during the war, still causes severe health and environmental consequences today. Discover how the legacy of war refuses to fade. 🕊️💔🌏
#AgentOrange #VietnamWar #ToxicLegacy #EnvironmentalJustice #USHistory #VietnamHistory #ChemicalWarfare #WarCrimes #HumanRights #VeteransIssues #PostWarTrauma #USVietnamRelations #LegacyOfWar #DioxinDisaster #WarAftermath #GlobalHealth #MilitaryHistory #NeverForget #HistoricalTruth #EnvironmentalDamage #PeaceAndHealing
#AgentOrange #VietnamWar #ToxicLegacy #EnvironmentalJustice #USHistory #VietnamHistory #ChemicalWarfare #WarCrimes #HumanRights #VeteransIssues #PostWarTrauma #USVietnamRelations #LegacyOfWar #DioxinDisaster #WarAftermath #GlobalHealth #MilitaryHistory #NeverForget #HistoricalTruth #EnvironmentalDamage #PeaceAndHealing
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00:01Half a century ago, the US withdrew from Vietnam,
00:05leaving a trail of tears for four million dead Vietnamese,
00:09half of whom were civilians.
00:12And even today, unlike other wars that receded into collective memory
00:16once the cities were rebuilt,
00:18nature revived and new generations were born.
00:23But the Vietnam War has yet to become history.
00:27At first glance, the girls were born healthy and strong.
00:34Labour went well. However, over time, they started to weaken.
00:40At 10 months, the eldest could stand normally,
00:43but at 20 months, her legs gave out.
00:47The same happened to the youngest, but when she was three to four years old.
00:53The eldest is 43 years old now, and the youngest is 30.
00:58There was also a boy who had the same health condition.
01:01He died at five years old.
01:03He was a smart and handsome boy, but his arms and legs began to fail,
01:08and he began to weaken.
01:11Tam is a single mother who lives in a coastal city in southern Vietnam.
01:16Her two daughters, Hugh and Vy, were poisoned by the notorious Agent Orange.
01:23Nearly half of Vietnam is covered in thick jungle,
01:27which is a blessing for those who know how to navigate it,
01:30but a curse for those who don't.
01:32Frustrated by constant ambushes, in 1960, the U.S. concluded
01:37that the most efficient way to proceed with the war
01:40would be to deny cover and food for the North Vietnamese soldiers
01:44by defoliating the crops and thick forests
01:47that American bombs couldn't penetrate.
01:50We have a lot of areas where the enemy are hiding under this canopy of trees,
01:54and our job is to defoliate so that the enemy is not able to hide them.
01:58To do that, the U.S. began spraying herbicides over Vietnam.
02:02The most infamous was Agent Orange, named for the orange-striped barrels it was shipped in.
02:08Agent Orange contains one of the most toxic chemicals known to science, dioxin.
02:13Even in tiny amounts, dioxin can cause cancer, reproductive and developmental anomalies,
02:18and damage to the nervous and immune systems.
02:21Dioxin can also be transmitted across generations,
02:24as it is retained in human and animal tissue for long periods of time,
02:28altering the cellular and hormonal balances of the host.
02:31Although the use of Agent Orange was highly controversial even during the war,
02:36the U.S. government maintained that it was safe, not a chemical weapon,
02:40and was merely used to clear the dense jungle that concealed the enemy.
02:44Some scientists have protested that large-scale spraying could upset the balance of nature.
02:50American officials say it doesn't hurt humans or animals,
02:53or have any lasting effects on soil and vegetation.
02:56We don't poison anything. What we do is over-fertilize, just like the normal people using their garden to fertilize the plants to grow.
03:04We just over-fertilize. We give them too much, and the plant gets all this fertilizer, and it just grows itself to death, is what it does.
03:12In reality, the chemical war the U.S. waged on Vietnam was the longest, largest, and most consequential for environmental and human health in history.
03:21Over nine years of spraying, the U.S. military used 80 million liters of toxic chemicals, 61% of which was Agent Orange, containing 366 kilograms of dioxin.
03:34As a result, 3 million hectares of forests and croplands were stripped bare, water supplies contaminated, wildlife habitats destroyed, ecosystems disrupted, and rare animal and plant species became extinct.
03:494.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed, 400,000 died or were permanently injured, 2 million suffered from illnesses, and half a million babies were born with horrific birth defects.
04:01But the Vietnamese weren't the only victims. Agent Orange has claimed the lives of 300,000 U.S. Vietnam veterans, almost five times the 58,000 who died in combat.
04:14I went to Vietnam, and then I went back to Vietnam a second time.
04:18I didn't ask any questions when I was an 18-year-old boy growing up on Long Island. But I'm asking a hell of a lot of questions now as a 34-year-old man sitting paralyzed in a wheelchair for the last 13 years.
04:33Unlike other chemicals used in Vietnam, Agent Orange did not affect its victims immediately. Its first impact was mostly visible in various forms of cancer. But then the children were born.
04:44Here we are people who live here in society, most of our children, most of our children, at the time, what they called crib death, of our babies dying. And we were coming home, we were reducing our children so we can create our families to deal with the society. And yet they crippled, they're dead.
05:11When the North Vietnamese side first publicly blamed the defoliants for widespread miscarriages, congenital anomalies, and what they called frequent monstrosities in Vietnam, the U.S. government dismissed those claims as communist propaganda.
05:27Only when a study linked dioxin to birth defects in laboratory animals, fueling intense public pressure, was the spraying of Agent Orange discontinued in 1970.
05:40Their dad served in Tuohua, where that toxic substance was sprayed.
05:47His military unit was stationed in the mountains, in an area affected by the chemicals used by the Americans.
05:55Tuohua, located on a three-mile stretch of beach along the South China Sea, is one of four new air bases constructed in South Vietnam from 1965 to 1967.
06:08He didn't know he had been exposed.
06:11We found out only in 2000, during a medical exam.
06:16We thought we were just ordinary people who happened to give birth to disabled children with weak arms and legs.
06:23When they were little, they could eat on their own.
06:28But as they grew older, they lost that ability.
06:32So now, I have to feed them.
06:34Everything needs to be done.
06:36Feeding, bathing, laundry.
06:38At night, when their bodies go numb from lying in one position for too long, I have to turn them from side to side.
06:46All through the night, I take care of both of them by myself.
06:51Even when their father was with us, it was the same.
06:55He was always working, and I was sewing and caring for the girls.
07:00I used to sew until three to four in the morning.
07:04Their father left us 24 years ago.
07:07He couldn't handle it anymore.
07:09It's certainly been difficult for me.
07:13Because their illness progresses with time, the older sister, Hugh, is in a worse condition.
07:20She constantly gets sick, suffers from a vestibular disorder, and can't move.
07:34She used to practice moving her arms and legs, but the doctor said she shouldn't.
07:47This disease doesn't improve with exercise.
07:50The older she gets, the weaker she becomes.
07:53The defolions are in her blood and genes.
07:57Each day passes, and all I want is to be healthy, so I can be happy, and so everyone else can be happy too.
08:09I wish I could hire someone to help my mom.
08:12She is old now, and can't do everything on her own, but I don't know what I can do to make money.
08:27The majority of Agent Orange victims are the poorest of the poor, and there is only so much the Vietnamese government, being one of the poorest in the world, can do to help them.
08:37For instance, Hugh and V receive a total of $160 in monthly benefits.
08:42Despite repeated calls from local and international organizations, the US government has never offered direct compensation to the Vietnamese victims, nor has it officially taken responsibility for the suffering it caused.
08:56Until the early 2000s, the United States wouldn't even acknowledge the causality between dioxin and birth defects in Vietnamese children, suggesting that it might have been a lack of iodine or malnutrition.
09:08While close to non-existent financial assistance, has been a source of contention between the two countries for many years.
09:14I want to make clear that the United States government understands the concern to the government of Vietnam and the Vietnamese people about the impact of dioxin on the environment and human health.
09:25It wasn't until 2007, three decades after the war, that the US Congress approved the first funding for environmental and health damage in Vietnam.
09:34To date, about $400 million has been allocated to address the legacy of Agent Orange.
09:40Two-thirds of that money went to clean up former US air bases where the herbicides were stored during the war, and $139 million was used for medical assistance for the victims in surrounding areas.
09:52In comparison, American victims of Agent Orange have received over $20 billion in disability benefits.
09:59Surprisingly, or maybe not, despite the extent of environmental and human devastation, the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam has never been attributed to war crimes.
10:09Even though a large number of Vietnamese children are still being born with Agent Orange-related birth defects that have now manifested in a fourth generation of victims.
10:18I'm not prepared to say that the United States government agrees with the definitions that are currently used. That's why we need more scientific research.
10:29Many scientists believe the effects of Agent Orange could last for hundreds of years, as study after study has shown the persistence of dioxin in Vietnam's soils, water, animals and fish, that eventually end up in the food chain and poison people.
10:44When President Nixon announced the end of the war in 1973, he called it peace with honor.
10:51To end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam.
10:55The departure of American forces indeed brought peace to Vietnam.
10:59But where is Washington's honor when for five decades it's been hiding from people poisoned by its toxic politics?
11:05Do you ever feel angry about what happened to you?
11:09It can't be described. It can't be described. No words can capture it.
11:14I can't explain it. I can only stand strong and do what I must do.