JayBeacham.com-A Voice as an Instrument

From November 1955 to April 1975, there was a war in Vietnam, Loas and Cambodia known as the Vietnam War.

American military personnel were there from 1959 to the end in 1975, when they withdrew from Vietnam.

During that time tons of chemicals were dumped on the country.

Defoliants of various kinds, DDT and other pesticides, and other chemicals.

A friend of mine was a helicopter crew chief and according to him, his helicopter got in on some of that spraying. Every two weeks DDt to rid the area of mosquitos. The props would pull some of the spray mist up and cover the helicopter and crew. Upon landing, water would be hosed on the machine and them to clean the mist away. It surely didn’t remove all of the pesticide.

Over the years since then he has noticed things in him and other veterans of the conflict.

He says, “We’re all crazy.”

A neighbor near my farm was in the Delta fighting there. He is very erratic in his behavior, at times violent, especially towards the bamboo that grows on my farm. Believing somehow that the bamboo is his enemy. Attacking it with poisons, and physically assaulting it in all weathers.

Strange? Crazy? perhaps.

Two of my cousins and other friends have died younger than normal or lingered with all sorts of ailments until death overtook them. Others have lost all their teeth at an early age. The common factor? They all served in Vietnam during the war.

Was all that chemical spraying worth it?

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