by James Glaser
December 19, 2004

Today I received my copy of the Agent Orange Review, a booklet that comes out several times a year from the Veterans Administration. In it there are articles that tell me about new health conditions I can look for that are caused by my exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam over thirty years ago.

In the War in Iraq today there are many things that our troops can start thinking about. Just about all of the troops have been exposed to Depleted Uranium. There have been a lot of studies about its use and none of them sound good. Just like Washington and the Pentagon knew Agent Orange was hurting the troops in my War, they know that Depleted Uranium is hurting today's troops, but it works so well, as did Agent Orange.

Since 1978, when testing started, 384,836 Vietnam Veterans have gone through the series of tests that make up the initial examination that show the level of dioxin in their blood and fat from exposure to Agent Orange. No matter what level you have, you will get no compensation unless you come down with one of the many diseases that are associated with exposure.

Of course many veterans get no compensation, because they didn't get sick soon enough. You see to get help you had to get sick within a certain time period, never mind that many Vets got sick, but they had no idea of what was wrong with them and really our Government wasn't making any effort to inform the Veterans either. Many of the time periods were over before there was even an Agent Orange Program at the VA Hospitals.

So today we have a new batch of Veterans that will have to jump through the same hoops that Vietnam Vets did and for sure the science will be years behind the pain and suffering that Veterans returning from Iraq suffer.

Remember back to when the troops came home from the first Gulf War and there was something called Gulf War Syndrome? Well at first the VA blew those guys off, even while thousands were dying. Today over 150,000 of those Veterans are getting disability pay from the VA while over 10,000 of them have died from the sickness they got in that war.

We don't know everything Depleted Uranium will do to our troops or to the Iraqi people. We do know that many scientific studies have shown that people get sick from exposure. We also know that thousands of our current Veterans will suffer from Post Traumatic Stress. Then there are the thousands of Veterans who have lost limbs or eyes in this war.

After every war the Troops that fought for our country suffer for decades. These troops pay and keep paying for the War that politicians start.