Opinion: Abroad in Vietnam, Agent Orange

For those of you who have been following along, welcome back to the blog. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Landri, and I am a student reporter currently abroad in Vietnam studying peacebuilding, communication and the history of the Vietnam War. Each week, I have been sending dispatches back to Utah State about what I am learning and experiencing in my time away — anything from museum trips to food reviews.

This week, however, the topic is a little different than my usual updates, which is why I thought it was important to switch things up a bit for this installment. Today, I don’t want to talk about my days and my classes. I want to talk about Agent Orange. 

In my time here, I have come to recognize Agent Orange as one of the most devastating legacies of the Vietnam War. Starting in 1961, the U.S. government authorized a military aerial operation called Operation Ranch Hand to deforest and defoliate the dense landscape of Vietnam. According to David Zierler, writer of the book “The Invention of Ecocide,” the purpose of the operation was to improve visibility, remove vegetation from routes and destroy enemy crops. 

To complete the job, they chose to spray herbicides and chemicals throughout the country. These chemical deployments were given code names based on the color of their band on the storage drum. The initial drops of herbicides were purple and blue-striped drums, respectively called Agent Purple and Agent Blue. 

Eventually, orange-striped drums of a new mixture would replace these defoliant agents in 1965 when it was found to be more effective. This mixture, Agent Orange, would ultimately account for 61% of the recorded herbicide use during the Vietnam War, based on a report from the National Library of Medicine. This was due, in part, to its toxicity. Just one application of Agent Orange killed entire mangrove forests, or coastal wetland trees, in weeks.

To this day, herbicides themselves have a wide application from farming and forest management to lawn care and common-weed removal. However, with the use of defoliants like Agent Orange, sharp lines were drawn between the use of agricultural herbicides and their application within chemical warfare.

As stated in William Buckingham’s report on Operation Ranch Hand, Agent Orange destroyed nearly 3.1 million hectares of tropical forests and mangroves by 1971. These landscapes are essential to the function of Vietnam’s ecosystems, and the damage done to them took decades to recover. In a paper from the Journal of Soil Science, studies also show certain substances dropped during the war can remain for decades, continuously harming the land. More importantly, they have continued to cause harm to the people of Vietnam.

Agent Orange itself is a composition of different chemicals and chemical byproducts known as dioxins. At the time of the war, there was limited research on the health effects of dioxin, but it is now recognized that dioxins can cause various health problems such as birth defects, reproductive harm, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and neuropathy, as reported by the Cleveland Clinic.

Still today, the people of Vietnam face issues directly related to the 10 years of herbicidal spraying across the country during the war. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam Ministry of National Defence reports that an estimated 4.8 million Vietnamese have been exposed to dioxin, including 3 million to Agent Orange. Photos of children malformed since birth, women with peeling skin and men with disabilities caused by dioxin cover the internet under a single search term.

Furthermore, poor communities are more likely to live in areas with minimal dioxin/Agent Orange cleanup efforts, meaning they are less likely to have access to clean water and uncontaminated food, as noted in a San Jose State University Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science. These communities bear the greatest burden of toxicity and have the least access to healthcare and aid, not just concerning Agent Orange but also overall in the population.

These problems, along with uncertainties surrounding foreign aid within the U.S., leave the future of herbicidal cleanup operations for dioxins like Agent Orange unknown and the problems Vietnam faces underrepresented and unchanged.

The hardest part I think comes down to what we can do about it. As a student, oftentimes we feel powerless when it comes to making large, systemic changes. Still to this day, the U.S. government has not taken responsibility for the effects of Agent Orange and dioxins, so future reparations have to start with me and you.

Moving forward, the United State’s ability to provide meaningful aid to those affected by Agent Orange, focusing on long-term cleanup efforts, healthcare access and financial support for affected families, will determine the relationship between our two countries. Only then can the legacy of Agent Orange be addressed in a way that ensures justice for the people still impacted by its devastating effects.

This solution rests on the willingness of all parties to confront the past and work toward an equitable and sustainable future, whatever that looks like. Today, it starts with a conversation. Tomorrow, this ongoing peacebuilding might begin with you. 

For more information about Agent Orange or if you would like to contribute to an advocacy program, visit warlegacies.org or vietnamfriendship.org.