Back in January of ’24 I bastardized Country Joe McDonald’s Viet Nam Agent Orange song to fit Korea over on the vets board.
https://democraticunderground.com/117911460
But as you might guess, the presumption of exposure for many soldiers was a Democratic effort to enact the PACT ACT although it did get bipartisan support:
The PACT Act was introduced by Representative Mark Takano (D-CA) and was signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 10, 2022. It aimed to improve healthcare and benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances, from VN and Korea for Agent Orange, Iran, Iraq for toxic burn pits.
Long before any knowledge of AO exposure, I was sharing the photos of my switchboard on a Facebook page for telephone people and one guy asked me how I was doing. I said fine, why would you ask? He had served in Korea, way down south of the country and said when we pulled out most of the front line troops, the Koreans began finding lots of buried and disposed of Agent Orange drums etc and lots of guys were getting sick and had I ever heard of the PACT ACT.
I learned quickly, within two years I had my diagnosis. Anyone that served on or near the DMZ and had developed several diseases were presumed to have been caused by AO. If you notice in that slide deck, I don’t think you will see any green vegetation, I guess it never crossed our minds why. Not only surficial contact but it could have been in our water, no idea where our water came from. When the Corp of Engineers began paving the dirt Main Supply Route in the summer of 1970, trucks like the ones in the Southern Boundary photo ran up and down the dirt road 12 hours a day for the entire summer. Funny thing was there was no wind in the summer, but a constant 30 mph wind in the winter, The dirt was like Georgia red clay and it hung in the air and we breathed it all summer, our clothes, even in our lockers, were tinted red. I just think it was everywhere.
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