Agent Orange continues to cause mass devastation, as documented in ‘The Last Ghost of War.’
By: Susan Van Dongen
With the ongoing trauma and uncertainty of the war in Iraq, the Vietnam War is a fading memory, although plenty of people are starting to make comparisons between the two. But while we put the Vietnam conflict on the back burner, an unfortunate legacy still looms large for the Vietnamese people and the Americans who served.
"The United States sprayed a lot of herbicides, but mainly Agent Orange, during the war, which had the unwanted byproduct of dioxin," says documentary filmmaker Janet Gardner, whose most recent work, co-produced with Pham Quoc Thai, is The Last Ghost of War.
The Last Ghost of War asks the question, "Were dioxin-laden herbicides ‘chemical weapons,’ and if so, who should be held accountable?" It will be screened at McCormick Hall at Princeton University April 7. A panel discussion with a number of experts involved in the film and a reception will follow.
"Dioxin has long been suspected to cause certain cancers including non-Hodgkins lymphoma as well as birth defects, although scientist say that (this) has been difficult to prove," Ms. Gardner says, speaking from her studio in New York City. "They do confirm that it has gotten into the food chain and caused public health problems in parts of Vietnam… ‘The Last Ghost of War’ explores the most persistent consequence of the war and its devastating effects. What happened in Vietnam could also happen in Iraq, possibly with another substance, for example with depleted uranium.
"I know that we use a lot of armaments with depleted uranium in Iraq and I’m thinking about the aftermath, after the soldiers lay down their guns we find out more and more that’s one of the great lessons of Vietnam," continues the Rocky Hill resident. "People of a certain age remember the Vietnam War like it was yesterday. They would do well to re-examine the past because it informs us about the present. We’re already seeing people coming back from Iraq with devastating illnesses."
Veterans started to fall ill in the mid-to-late ’70s, launching a series of protracted lawsuits against the federal government. When the Agent Orange Act was finally solidified in 1991, a long list of diseases was officially said to be "service-related." These include chloracne, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, various soft tissue sarcomas, Hodgkin’s disease, multiple myeloma, respiratory cancers, prostate cancer, peripheral neuropathy, type 2 diabetes and chronic lymphomatic leukemia.
The herbicide, which was used to destroy the deep jungle foliage and make it more difficult for the enemy to hide, is insidious because it is invisible. It’s not as though you can sweep Agent Orange off your porch, or brush it off your car. In addition to causing health problems in the veterans themselves, the byproduct of dioxin is feared to break the genetic chain and therefore cause birth defects in their children and grandchildren.
In the film we see Kerry Ryan, the child of Vietnam veteran Michael Ryan, struggle with a series of birth defects associated with her father’s exposure to Agent Orange. Kerry, who passed away in 2006, was born with deplorable conditions such as a double set of reproductive organs, badly deformed intestines and half a spine.
"I fight the Vietnam War every day, just watching my daughter," Mr. Ryan says in the film. "It just never stops."
And that’s only our side of the world. The Last Ghost of War compassionately covers the issue of Vietnamese children hit with genetic deformities and illnesses, passed through parents or grandparents who were in the war or near where Agent Orange was sprayed. Dioxin also gets into the water system as well as the soil. Animals eating plants ingest it, then through their body fat pass it along to humans. Since the waterways are contaminated, fish have absorbed it into their flesh as well.
"It was used to destroy the jungle canopy so the Viet Cong couldn’t hide, that was (the military’s) motive not to kill people," Ms. Gardner says. "Dioxin is a tiny part of Agent Orange but it’s the unwanted byproduct, and over time the effects can add up."
Ms. Gardner and Mr. Thai spent a lot of time at Tu Du hospital in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) where there is a special unit for children and infants with enlarged heads, bulging eyes and missing limbs, all said to be related to the aftermath of Agent Orange.
One little girl, Pham Thi Thuy Linh, writes and turns the pages of books with her feet because she has no arms. Her grandfather was directly exposed to Agent Orange. A boy with a shrunken leg but broad smile careens around in a wheelchair and beams at the camera. Thirty years after the end of the Vietnam War, they are among several millions of victims of Agent Orange. The film introduces viewers to four of these victims, all plaintiffs in a class action suit against 32 U.S. chemical companies.
"American Vietnam veterans had a great fight to get a settlement from the chemical companies," Ms. Gardner says. "Their lawsuit was eventually settled out of court. But the Vietnamese people watched this and learned something and filed their own lawsuit."
We see lawyers for the Vietnamese plaintiffs battle it out in federal court against a legion of corporate attorneys. The filmmakers also sought out retired chemical workers and American Vietnam veterans who were exposed to the same toxic herbicides. They speak on camera, bolstering the claims of the Vietnamese victims.
Ms. Gardner says she and Mr. Thai went out of their way to present both sides of the stories, but the chemical companies were not willing to speak to them, except for one lawyer. "It was difficult because most of the chemical companies’ lawyers refused requests for interviews," she writes in an e-mail. "The exception was Andrew Frey who represents Dow Chemical Co. In addition (we) interviewed an Air Force historian, Dr. William Buckingham, who wrote a book for the Air Force on the spraying program and represents the U.S. military’s perspective."
Narrated by Kevin Kline, The Last Ghost of War was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities and the Center for Asian American Media in San Francisco. Several Rutgers scholars are attached to the project, including biochemist Peter Kahn, who appears numerous times on camera, speaking about the scientific aspects of the problem, and George Morren, an anthropologist from Rocky Hill (and Ms. Gardner’s husband). Marilyn Young from New York University, the author of The Vietnam Wars, was a consultant on the project.
Dr. Kahn will be at the screening to answer questions as will Constantine Kokkoris, one of the lawyers representing the Vietnamese people. Dr. Jeanne Stellman from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University will also be on hand.
Since the completion of the film, the Ford Foundation has donated $2.2 million toward health care programs and environmental cleanup, writes Ms. Gardner in an e-mail. "The U.S. government also contributed $400,000 toward cleaning up dioxin near DaNang airport which was a U.S. military base and storage site for the herbicides."
Unfortunately, the first class action lawsuit was dismissed. Now an appeal for the case is to be heard in June at the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City.
"That’s why this is so timely," Ms. Gardner says. "Their appeal has dragged through the courts. The lawyers are doing all this work pro bono."
Ms. Gardner’s interest in Southeast Asia began years ago, when she covered post-war Vietnam and the Agent Orange issue for The New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine and other publications. She is a veteran of NBC News’ The Today Show, WNBC’s NewsCenter 4, WRC’s News4Washington, Conde Naste Publications and The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
"I was taken to Vietnam on a delegation in 1987, in fact one of the first Americans to go back after the war, so I became familiar with the plight of the people," Ms. Gardner says. "They’ve been living with dioxin for more than 32 years… It must be cleaned up so more people don’t suffer.
"That was my goal with this project to show the lingering effects of dioxin," she adds. "The U.S. government has made a gesture toward beginning to clean up its former military bases, working with the Vietnamese."
Ironically, just as this piece was being written, there was an obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer for a Connecticut man named Billy Walkabout. A native Cherokee, he was believed to be the most decorated Native American soldier of the Vietnam conflict, with the Distinguished Service Cross, a Purple Heart, five Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars. He was in the hospital on the kidney transplant list but died from renal failure and pneumonia before he could receive a kidney. His relatives said he had suffered from health complications due to Agent Orange exposure for years. Mr. Walkabout was only 57.
The chemical compound with the Cold War-ish name is alive and still plenty deadly over here and over there.
The Last Ghost of War, produced by Janet Gardner and Pham Quoc Thai, will be screened at McCormick Hall, Room 101, Washington Road and Nassau St., Princeton University, April 7, 2 p.m. Panel discussion, Q&A session and reception to follow. For information, call (609) 258-5006. On the Web: www.princeton.edu. Janet Gardner on the Web: www.gardnerdocgroup.com