Guest Author - Gary King

Message from a Vietnam Veteran to Veterans Host:

I received a message from a Vietnam Veteran who is service-connected for Cancer, caused by Agent Orange. His stepdaughter is the birth child of another Vietnam Veteran. Her birth father was also service-connected for AO Cancer.

His stepdaughter is recognized by the Veterans Administration (VA) as a Level III Agent Orange Spina Bifida Child. His wife, Suzanne, and he would like to contact other parents or caregivers of Level II Agent Orange children. Level III is the VA’s highest disability rating for Agent Orange children and corresponds to a service-connected disability rating of 100% for a veteran.

For his wife and himself there are two main problems in caring for their daughter: First, the VA pays her a monthly stipend for her living expenses but DOES NOT provide full medical care for her. This means that the bulk of her health care DEPENDS on charity, like Medicaid or help from the Shriners or Elks. OR…. On what little his wife and he can afford, which, as we all know, would be very inadequate to cover the kind of medical attention she needs or would need.

The Veteran also told me that he felt he had to be careful in mentioning things like charity and help from the Shriners or Elks because the Federal government could or might take away her Medicaid services IF, and I repeat, IF, his wife and he are proven to be contributing to her medical care or living expenses.

Bizarre, but it is the way the Federal Law is written.

They feel that once the government has acknowledge that these Level III children are indeed completely disabled by birth defects caused by Agent Orange, they should receive full medical care just like a 100% service-connected disabled veteran does.

Secondly, he and his wife provide full time aid and attendance care for their daughter in their home. But they can see a time coming when they will no longer be able to continue because of age and their own health problems. They are concerned about what happens to their daughter when they are gone or to frail to continue caring for her.

They feel the VA should provide some sort of safe and dignified home or residential care for their daughter and the few like her when a family no longer exists to provide her daily care, which incidentally does not involve a great number of people. The VA recognizes fewer than 1,100 persons as having birth defects caused by Agent Orange. Of those 1,100 persons, less than 200 are rated by the VA at Level III of disability, like their daughter.

This Vietnam Veteran and his wife would like to get in touch with other parents of Agent Orange children actually acknowledged as such by the VA, so that they might work together to address these two problems and others that might be common to families like his who care for an Agent Orange child in the home. Also, to visit and talk!

The veteran asked me if I could put him and his family in touch with other families like theirs? He feels the VA has an interest in keeping these families apart and will not assist him in this.

Thank you for your time.

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I appreciate this veteran contacting me and I know there are some other families out there who may be in the same situation. Those reading this who are in the same situation, please contact me at either concur@netins.net or gking@koreanvet.com and I will put you in touch with this veteran.

The Operation Ranch Hand Study, which actually has the Air Force studying themselves, is FLAWED and has been proven to be flawed, yet many agencies and organizations used this study as reference for their findings in health matters. The VA is one of them and their awarding of compensation, as in this case, is rare. But it does happen and evidently there are more families out there who are in the same boat as this veteran.

This veteran deserves every penny he gets and he also deserves all the help he can get. He put his life on the line and he served as his country asked him to. And what he brings up in his message is a good point.

I have a hard time understanding the kind of thinking that goes into the VA’s determination of LEVEL III AGENT ORANGE CHILD, which has the VA paying that child a monthly stipend for living expenses but does not provide full medical care for her. They have diagnosed her as being an Agent Orange Child and they have, in fact, admitted that it is Agent Orange-related, but yet, they do not provide full medical care for her. Perhaps that is one way the VA is saving money. Give them a little change, pat them on the back and tell them we are helping you, and then NOT provide the medical expenses, which of course would cost them some money.

I am a service-connected Korean, Vietnam Veteran but my rating is NOT Agent Orange related. I thank God for that. But these Vietnam Veterans WERE exposed and this Veteran and his family have made a couple of requests which I think are worthy of your attention.

The laws need to be changed and so does the thinking of the VA. The veterans they rate as 50% service-connected, authorizes them to FREE medical care and treatment, for things that are not even related to Agent Orange. Now we find out that they can make a determination that the child of a Vietnam Veteran has Spina Bifida because of Agent Orange and rate that child as 100% service-connected at 100%.

In my books, 100% means exactly that -- 100%, which means complete, total, full, all, or whatever. So how can they pay the compensation or a pat-on-the-back sum but not provide FULL medical treatment for her.

If a Vietnam Veteran himself or a female Vietnam Veteran are diagnosed as 100% service-connected for an illness cause by Agent Orange exposure, they receive FULL medical treatment FREE. So how is it that the child of one of these veterans is not afforded the same kind of benefit? It is time the American people get involved in this and not only start asking some questions of those they elected to office, but also standing up to be counted and demanding some answers.

The United States government, without doing all their homework, and knowing full and well that Agent Orange could possibly harm human beings, went ahead and sprayed it all over the place in Vietnam, at their own discretion, wherever they chose, and seemingly on some of our troops, with full knowledge of what they were doing. And for that, they should not only be held accountable but should be willing to pay for what their ignorance of chemical outreach would do to humans.

Our veterans served their country with honor and they did so because they were honoring everything we hold sacred. They trusted their government and they did what they were requested. But their government betrayed them and betrayed their trust and acted without reservations about the costs to human health.

There have been a lot of cover-ups. Their have been a lot of lies and a lot of manipulations. There have been increased efforts to hid all the facts and to simply try to wash this all away. But it has not worked and they have not yet paid the piper for their little game.

Regardless of all the wrongs committed in the spraying of Agent Orange and other chemicals on Vietnam, it happened and it will not go away. The health problems it created are cropping up and getting worse. And this may just be the beginning. Our Vietnam Veterans are human beings, just like everyone else out there. They, too, have families, and their children are now beginning to pay for what our government did by spraying Agent Orange. And they need to compensate these veterans and their children affected by Agent Orange and pay the FULL DUES for everything they caused. Is that so hard to understand?

I think something else needs to be pointed out here: they are getting ready to launch another space shuttle and how much do you suppose that costs. How much of that money could have been used to compensate our veterans? How much more could be acquired simply by using some common sense, intelligence and integrity in what they do, when they do, and in some of the programs money is being spent on.

Contact me if any of you are in the same situation this Vietnam Veteran and his family are in or if you know anyone else who is in the same category. And we will then go from there, I have some ideas about this and we will start the ball rolling.

I see things like this happening and read more and more about the use of Agent Orange by our military and then the sneaky little tricks they use to try to hide it and it reminds me of something I read in the Bible: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!”