Navy Vets Say They Suffer From Agent Orange
WASHINGTON (CN) - Navy veterans sued the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, demanding "the presumption of exposure to Agent Orange for members of the Armed Forced of the United States who served afloat off the coast of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War."
The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association, and Military-Veterans Advocacy Inc. sued Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki in Federal Court
The veterans claim they were exposed to Agent Orange while serving offshore Vietnam and the government won't pay their medical bills and denied benefits to survivors of veterans who "died from complication[s] of Agent Orange."
The United States sprayed Agent Orange (2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin) and petroleum across the Vietnamese countryside in the 1960s and 1970s as a part of Operation Ranch Hand, a program to defoliate Vietnamese jungles and destroy food supplies during the Vietnam War.
The chemicals washed into rivers and streams and eventually into the bed of the South China Sea
"During the Vietnam War, the coastline, especially in the harbors and within the thirty fathom curve was a busy place, with military and civilian shipping constantly entering and leaving the area in support of the war effort," the complaint states. "Whenever ships anchored, the anchoring evolution would disturb the shallow seabed and churn up the bottom. Weighing anchor actually pulled up a small portion of the bottom. The cavitation of military ships moving along the coast line, especially within the ten fathom curve, at high speeds, further impinged on the sea bottom. This caused the Agent Orange to constantly rise to the surface."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/08/06/60010.htm