Download PDF of this full issue: v13n4.pdf (6.5 MB)

Returning To Vietnam: Vet Attends Agent Orange Conference

By VVAW

Roger Quindel, Secretary of Milwaukee Jobs with Peace campaign, was recently invited to Vietnam to participate in an international meeting of trade unionists who are working with and concerned about chemical and bacteriological weapons. He is now one of only five U.S. veterans who have been to Viet Nam since 1975.

Roger was born in Milwaukee, volunteered for Vietnam in 1968 and was wounded during the Tet offensive. He is a member of the Disabled American Veterans.

He has been a chief steward in the UAW while working at Allis Chalmers, a machine shop instructor and is currently working for the Sherman Park Community Association. Roger lives with his wife and two young children on Milwaukee's west side.

In Quindel's presentation to the conference on chemical weapons, he stated to the delegates representing 62 countries:

"This trip has been a vivid reminder to me of the horrors of the Vietnam War. The statistics of the ware—more explosives used than during all of WWII, 90,000 tons of herbicides, 2 million Vietnamese and 55,000 of my fellow soldiers dead—are implanted in my mind. The brutality of war I know from my experience. But the living reality and legacy of the war has been brought home to me anew: deformed babies in Tu Du Hospital; the Vietnamese man who call himself "Bob"—whose mind had been captured by the "ugly side of America." And the reality has been a powerful emotional experience."

"But what of the U.S. veteran so callously used by my government. More veterans have now killed themselves than have died in the war—56,000 by 1981 when the government, shamed by this fact, what evidence he saw of defoliants' damage in Vietnam. Rogers' response was:

"The First time I saw a defoliated forest was when I was a soldier in Tay Ninh province, on of the most heavily defoliated areas. I thought, "My God, what a huge forest fire.' But then I remembered having seen burned forest; life kind of asserts itself afterward, some of the trees escape, grass starts growing right away. This was different; it was all gray.

In the Ma Da forest where jungle trees used to stand 140 feet tall, there is today nothing but a vast wasteland. In 20 miles, we didn't see a living creature.

"You see, defoliants speed up the natural aging process. A tree which would normally live 100 years, lives it life in a matter of weeks.

"Autopsies which have been done of some Vietnam veterans who were involved with Agent Orange Victims International and other organizations have revealed 30-year-old men with the organs of a 90 or 100 year old.... These are the evidences of dioxins' deadliness.

"One of the most emotionally difficult situations during this trip was during a trip to an obstetric hospital. It was so difficult because I am an American and, even if I didn't do any defoliating, I feel responsible for my country's actions.

"First they showed us a couple of Siamese twins—really one and half kids, one normal and half of the other coming out of its side. They were alive.

"Then they took us to an exhibit—it was awful! 85 glass jars, the kind we might use for flour or sugar, filled with stopped keeping records. Even government statistics, which often grossly understate reality, admit 26% of all Vietnam-era veterans are unemployed. The record is even worse for disabled veterans, and veterans of color.

"The chemicals used so freely in Vietnam have also left their legacy on the health of the veteran and his family. Liver disease, cancer, skin disease, deformed children, miscarriages and more are the results of chemical war.

"While we close whole towns like Times Beach, Missouri because of dioxin contamination, the government has refused to admit that Agent Orange and other chemicals have affected the health of US veterans.

"My government has done the same to the Atomic veterans of the 1950's—soldiers who were forced to witness test after test of nuclear weapons from close distance and with no protection.

"Why? Why does my government ignore the plight of its own veterans? Because to admit that Agent Orange has affected the health of the Vietnam Veteran is to admit that the health of the people of Vietnam was affected by these same chemical weapons. And my government which wants to spend $5.6 billion dollars on a chemical weapons buildup needs to ignore Agent Orange in order to do this.

"My government cannot admit poisoning with nuclear radiation tens of thousand of US soldiers during Atomic tests and sell the U.S. people on a 5-year, $1.6 trillion dollar military budget.

"The world is at the crossroads. We can blindly plunge on to a nightmare of toxins and nuclear war or a world with peace and prosperity for all.

Recently interviewed by a Milwaukee newspaper Roger Quindel was questioned about formaldehyde and examples of the most grotesque deformities; some of them were kind of babies but others were just little blobs with an arm or leg sticking out someplace. All of this matching what the veterans in this country have said. The difference is that over there they are trying to uncover it, collecting data. In this country, the government tells each vet that their complaints and disorders are due to his own personal habits or makeup. There are 40,000 veterans already who are party of the lawsuit."

Questioned on national security and the lack of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, Quindel said:

"We pushed them into the camp of the Soviet Union. Even today, we have no relations with them. Who are they supposed to have relations with? The U.S. government actions have led to everything they say they don't want.

"We spend almost 300 billion dollars on military spending. That's more than everything else combined. Think of what we could do with that; we could retool the steel industry, retool our machine tool industry, everybody could have and education, we could fix our roads. The people who spend this kind of money on defense are wrecking our national security. They are physically ruining it and they are ruining our reputation in the world, undermining everything that most American people stand for.

"I think it's tragic that we've forgotten Vietnam and the lessons to be learned from our involvement."

(VVAW appreciates the contribution of papers and news clippings by Roger Quindel that made this article possible.)