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Final Agent Orange Settlement Approved

By VVAW

Federal Judge Jack Weinstein has approved his final plan for distributing the Agent Orange settlement money. As it first appeared, it is the lawyers ($30 million to date) and a few vet "leaders" who have made out like bandits; vets and their families are left out in the cold.

No one who is partially disabled will receive a cash settlement. Children disabled due to birth defects as a result of Agent Orange will remain penniless. The $150 million will be distributed over a 10 year period. The maximum payment to a disabled vet is $12,800 ($1280 per year for 10 years) and widows can claim, at most, $3400.

The interest on the settlement is not being distributed; instead, the estimated $50 million will be given to a non-profit vets organization run by veterans (chosen by the judge and paid salaries comparable to the lawyers fees) to provide non-cash services to an estimated 250,000 vets and their families who are not "eligible" for the monetary restitution.

In order to seal the sellout, the Judge dismissed the claims of Vietnam vets who had tried to opt out of the settlement, denying them their day in court.

Vietnam veterans had fought long and hard for a chance to prove the connection between dioxin and a myriad of health problems including children with birth defects. Our lawyers promised us just much before the train in an open meeting—they would not, they said, accept a settlement. They lied and got $30 million. The judge smiled at vets and their families during the hearings around the settlement. He even cried in Chicago when two children affected by Agent Orange told what it was like knowing they would die before they were 16 years old. In the end his sincerity wasn't worth spit; now he can retire probably living longer than those children will live period.

Vets and their families have not gotten justice—but why should the courts treat us any different than the military or the politicians? They didn't really care about us when we were dying overseas, and they don't care about us dying here.

We hope for one thing out of all this: unity. During the course of the legal struggle, many of us worked together, fought, and spent our savings together. Now we have to keep and build on that unity for the struggles ahead: after all, we have just begun to fight.