From 1962 to 1972, Australia, with the United States, was involved in a war in Vietnam.
There is a wound from that war
still unhealed. It is the account of the Agent Orange controversy in
Australia’s Official War History. It insults worthy Vietnam veterans and
gets the story oh so wrong. But we should start from the beginning.
The US Air Force wanted to
unleash its massive firepower but the enemy was hidden under the dense
canopy of the Vietnamese jungles. To the US Air Force the solution was
simple; defoliate the jungles by the aerial spraying millions of litres
of herbicides, especially Agent Orange. Australian and US troops as well
as the local population suffered exposure to this deluge of Agent
Orange through its pollution of the waterways, foliage and the ground as
well as directly from the air.
After the war,
evidence emerged from the US that exposure to Agent Orange might cause
certain cancers and other problems. The evidence, however, was
contested; some experts arguing one way, some the other. But the law
applying to war veterans gave them the benefit of any doubt raised by
this clash of expert opinion.
This concession for war
veterans was not new. Since the First World War, Federal Parliaments had
passed legislation making special provision for dealing with war caused
injury and illness.
So Vietnam veterans were
confident their claims for medical treatment and compensation for cancer
linked with exposure to Agent Orange would succeed.
READ MORE & WATCH VIDEO: Australian War Memorial
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