Surviving Agent Orange

  ...the defoliant had drenched my body, and I wheezed uncontrollably from the fumes of this poison as I traversed the killing zones that were then my life...

Contributed by Joseph Kinney, Combat Marine



At the brink the phone call caught me off guard.

It was shortly after 5 p.m. and I was beginning to slow down after a busy afternoon. When I recognized the voice, my pulse quickened. I just knew that the message couldn't be good. My caller, a veteran's administration physician, calmly told me that I had Agent Orange.

As I hung up the phone, a flood of emotion overwhelmed me. I had Agent Orange. If this was going to happen to me, why now? I had lived a life defying odds at every turn, occasionally overcoming barriers or adversity that would stop many. Now, it seemed as though the supreme test was at hand. At this moment, I desperately needed the presence of God to calm my shattering nerves and to brace myself for the journey ahead. Yes, I needed a God that had always seemed important to me. For much of my life, God had been inconvenient.

Agent Orange was a disease that terrified me in the 1970's and 80's when I saw friends, young men with lives to live, die ravaged by vicious cancers and other disorders. The defoliant had drenched my body, and I wheezed uncontrollably from the fumes of this poison as I traversed the killing zones that were then my life. But I was a combat marine, and I obeyed orders. Agent Orange was the price I would pay to fight for my country.

Just how could I look at my wife, Manoela, and children in the face and tell them what I had learned? They certainly did not deserve this, especially my children. I decided to obtain some information from the Internet. I read that Agent Orange can manifest itself in cancer, diabetes, or neurological disabilities. Mine was the neurological version. I was told that I could expect a steady deterioration of my nerves but that the "end game" was unknown. The pain of each step was often excruciating, like walking on razors. At night, as I struggled to sleep, my legs would cramp and I would experience "shocks" from the bottom of my feet to my calves. My best hope, I was patiently informed, was to stabilize my condition, now mainly located in my legs.

For me, a future that I had taken for granted was now in doubt. Would I be able to see my son, Johnny, who is just a year old, graduate from high school? Would I watch, Tommy, now 3, play football or basketball for the local high school? Will I ever witness Patrick, just 9, graduate from college? And then there is Paul-Claude, 18 and the apple of my eye, soon off to university. Would I live to cuddle his children?

Twenty years ago I learned that the words "Agent Orange" has a brutality of their own. When I first heard of this lethal malaise several years ago, I immediately thought of "A Clockwork Orange", Stanley Kubrick's vile movie. Little did I know how similar they were.

Certainly the government officials who decided that Agent Orange could be used as a defoliant in Vietnam were, in their own way, violently disrespectful of those of us that this herbicide would rain upon. As hard as it seemed, I wanted to believe that they were just doing their jobs. In spite of my fervent hopes, Agent Orange did not fade into the sunset back in the mid-1980's. By 1984, thousands of Vietnam veterans had become ill, and many sued the chemical giants Dow and Monsanto for the sicknesses that had arisen from their exposure. The issue gained both legitimacy and urgency when Admiral Elmo Zumwalt's son became terminally ill with the disease, and the Admiral lent his name and passion to the veteran's cause.

Zumwalt, who ran America's armed forces during the height of the Vietnam War, had ordered the spraying in the first place. Unfortunately for still another group, myself included, the horror of Agent Orange had never totally faded from the horizon. The affliction simply was dormant deep inside my cellular structure.

According to my fateful caller, a neurologist, veterans in significant numbers were still getting sick from long-ago exposures. Their stories just don't make the front page of the newspaper. When I got the news of my condition, I accepted it gracefully but firmly. My doctor had a job to do and he had done it. I know that he wanted a different outcome. He had told me that Agent Orange was a possible diagnosis for my health problems, but I somehow had deluded myself into thinking that I would never hear those words in connection with my condition.

I am a fighter, and I will never give up until the last breadth of air is squeezed from my lungs. That is a lesson that I hope my boys can take from me, especially if I meet an early death. I want them to know that life is very precious, even if it involves that of a person entering this country illegally across the desolate Arizona desert, an enemy soldier that they confront in combat, or a man about to be executed on death row for a heinous crime. I have learned that we must have respect for life or we lose our moral authority as a culture. We are strongest when we reach out to the weak, and we are enriched when we give hope to the hopeless.

The government went to a lot of trouble to find out why my nerves were dying. Ironically, they really don't have a plan to fix me up. I have learned that until a few months ago veterans with Agent Orange in our part of North Carolina were routinely sent to Duke Hospital, where physicians would develop monitoring and treatment plans. This was a great marriage: Duke physicians got to see challenging cases, the veterans got access to world class health care, and the VA was able to divert some of its most ill patients. Unfortunately, I will not be going to Duke. As an Agent Orange newcomer, I have learned that there is no money in the budget for me. A mix of spending cuts and expensive cases from the war in Iraq have forced the VA to channel dollars in other worthy directions. I could believe that this means that I was once again expendable in the larger scheme of things, much like I felt that I was when I was a 19-year-old marine fighting in Vietnam. Just because I believe that something is right or wrong doesn't make it so in the souls of others. I must look deep within myself, and call upon the love of God to strengthen me in this vital test.

Somehow, though, this is more difficult than I can imagine. Our fathers, the NBC anchor John Brokaw proclaimed, were the greatest generation. I guess that this means we are something less noble, maybe even losers. The superb Princeton sociologist Paul Starr wrote of us, the expendables, in his landmark book "The Discarded Army". We were young men who never quite fit into the mainstream, Starr told a reluctant nation. We were largely poor White, African American, or Hispanic. We were not the sons of Harvard or the children of the powerful. As the movie "Platoon" illustrated, we were young boys thrown together struggling to survive in the face of a sophisticated and unrelenting enemy. To save ourselves, we came together more as gangs than functioning military units to stay alive and, hopefully, return home. Our war, in truth, was a torrid mess exceeded only in offense by the malevolent treatment we received once back home.

In the 1970s and 1980s, it wasn't a particularly good idea to claim status as a Vietnam veteran. We truly were, as Starr had written, forsaken human beings. During the 1990s, our situation began to change and respect came our way in small doses. The aftermath of 9/11 further enhanced us. VA hospitals, long a dumping ground, began to emerge as vibrant health care institutions. The doctors I saw at the VA are as good as any I had ever seen. It would be easy to slip into a "Why Me?" state of mind. That is the easy path. I will not. Yes, I am somewhat angry that no one really seems to know what will happen to me, other than the dose of medicine I am taking will be doubled. I may never have a treatment plan or even know if the disease I have can be stabilized. These are the cards that have been dealt to me.

In writing these words, I only wish to sound the alarm, not so much for me, but for the rest of Starr's Discarded Army. I will take my medicine and pray that this aging father will have as many sunsets as I can possibly enjoy that God grants me. I do not wish that these words sound shrill or bitter. Not now, not ever. As I face this fight, I know fully that my fate is in God's hands. I certainly know that the Government can be stretched beyond its resources, and that making tough choices on how to spend scarce resources demands wisdom. That's why we have elections. I must have faith that those we place our trust in will make the right decisions, no matter how painful those decisions may be for my family and me.

As I edge closer to the brink, I only grow stronger. Rather than add up my complaints, I simply relish my many and often continuous blessings. God made me rich with each of my children: Paul-Claude, Patrick, Thomas, and John. In October, we will have still another baby, finally a girl, God willing. Each of my children has brought me joy that makes my life rich enough. You each have brought joy to my heart and occasional tears to my eyes. As I journey through this world, I see countless families that are devoid of meaningful communication. As parents, we just don't communicate enough with our children. While talking is important, it is hardly seems adequate given the complexity and challenge of the times that we live in. Speaking involves the art of listening, which is always subject to interpretation, even more so than when another generation is the receiver. Even more important, what we say tends to erode in memory with the passage of time. Clearly, this doesn't always yield the result one would like in terms of permanent understanding. For me, it seems far more certain that the written word is a preferable if additional medium in sharing word of my values with my children. I have taken a different path in my life. I only became a father at 37, not long before some of my buddies were grandfathers. Soon, I will father my fifth child and first girl!

As an aging father, I believe that I have so much more to share with my children if only because so much water has passed underneath my bridge. Has God made me a better dad? I only wish to be there for them, to encourage them when they were down, and to nudge them through life's inevitable defeats. As I think about what I want my kids to know about me, I often think of my grandfather, my dad's father. My grandfather Kinney was a special man who said very little but who taught me a lot by his choice of words and kind heart. My grandfather was a terrific soldier and person. On my home office wall you will see his photograph and his commission as an officer in the United States Army. Next to that is his riding crop from his days as a horse cavalry officer and the burial flag that he wanted me to have. He was a man of few words but he taught me a lot. He had served in Panama from 1921-1926 and I have been told that he was one of the last men in the Army to kill an enemy from a horse. My grandfather knew the terror of the war I was about to face in Vietnam. He and I spent several hours together just before I left. He knew that I was afraid and endeavored to brace me, in his own gentle way, for the difficult period that was ahead. As we chewed the proverbial fat, he shared many insights with me. One, in the form of a rhyme, hit me like a bolt of lightning, helping me to understand the uncertainty that is so much a part of life and living:

"For every evil under the sun, there is a remedy or there is none. If there be one, try and find it. If there be none, never mind it."

These words tempered my desire to be right in all things. It also taught me that many things that happen couldn't be readily explained by reason. Things happen, they just do! I had yet to understand and appreciate the providential hand of God. But Grandpa helped me appreciate and to realize that there isn't an earthly answer for everything. As a father, I feel an obligation to help my children find the truth and meaning in their lives. I hope that what I write here will be an ongoing contribution to each of them as they emerge as adults long after I pass. While I hope that they shall find fortitude from the lessons I wish to teach, I also hope that they also find compassion and a desire to serve your fellow man.

Each word I write is a gift laden with the hope that they will always act with honor and decency, built firmly on a foundation and a love of the Lord, and what he has done for them. In choosing to live for Jesus, they will have made me proud and given me a sense that I had done my job. With that, my life will be rich enough.

To learn more about Joseph Kinney, read his exclusive Op-Ed's for Military.com.