For These Women, the Battle Continues
NAM VET Newsletter, Page
19-21 Volume 4, Number 5 May 9, 1990
By: Cal Orey - Woman's World Investigates - April 17, 1990
Input by: G. Joseph Peck, NAM VETs Managing Editor
In the last 10 years, Lily Adams's life has been one medical crisis after
another. She's suffered from skin disease, endured a life-threatening pregnancy and given
birth to a son with serious intestinal problems.
Maureen Nerli has also lived through medical nightmares. She speaks wistfully of the days
when she was "as healthy as a horse." Now her life's a round of migraines,
body rashes, dizziness and thyroid problems.
Illness is Penny Burwell's constant companion too. She's been hit with bone disease,
kidney stones and gynecological problems that resulted in a hysterectomy. Penny says her
doctors think "I've come into contact with something that's done very bizarre things
to my body."
According to Lily, Maureen and Penny, Agent Orange is the cause of their problems.
All three say they were exposed to the dangerous chemical when they served in Vietnam.
From 1962 to 1971, 12 million gallons of Agent Orange were dumped on the tiny country.
American troops sprayed it from the air and sea in an effort to strip away the enemy's
jungle cover.
Ironically, the chemical once used in an effort to save American lives may now be
destroying them.
One of the reasons Agent Orange is so dangerous is that it contains dioxin, a
cancer-causing contaminant that has been linked to birth defects, infertility, miscarriage
and disorders of the immune system.
Because dioxin doesn't dissolve in water, Americans in Vietnam were inadvertently exposed
to it in their drinking and bathing water and in the local food.
Out of the more than 500 military women who have reported coming in contact with Agent
Orange, 85 to 90 percent were nurses.
"Many nurses told us they were stripping clothing off the dead and dying
soldiers," says Paul Sutton, head of the New Jersey Agent Orange Commission. These
soldiers had been out in the jungle, and their clothing was probably saturated with the
deadly chemical spray.
Marilyn Edgerton-Mallard was one of the Army nurses who tended these men. Today she is
certain that her exposure to Agent Orange is the cause of her infertility.
"I didn't think being around Agent Orange had affected me until many years
later," Marilyn says. "I tried to get pregnant and couldn't." Eventually
Marilyn underwent a hysterectomy, which she believes was necessary because of her exposure
to the chemical.
What does the government have to say about an issue that may affect thousands of women who
served in Vietnam?
Not much. Hard, scientific data is sketchy. The government paid the Centers for Disease
Control $20 million to conduct an Agent Orange study but, like most research on this
subject, it didn't include women.
And, shockingly, women who served in Vietnam, in the Red Cross and USO, both civilian
volunteer organizations, are being totally ignored.
Maureen Nerli, who is a former USO worker, says, "Ever since I came home from Vietnam
I have had one illness after another."
Maureen is also distressed that although she served 18 months in Vietnam as a volunteer,
her service isn't officially recognized by the government, which excludes her from VA
health benefits.
"The VA doesn't deal with us. They classify us as non-Vietnam veterans," she
says. Therefore, USO and other civilian workers can't get compensation. (Army nurses can,
but only if they are seriously disabled.)
Vernon Houk, M.D., of the Environmental Health and Injury Control of the Centers for
Disease Control explains, "It's possible to do a study of military women who served
in Vietnam because we know who they are, but it is not possible to do a valid study of the
non-military women because there is no master list."
Maureen Nerli understands the frustration. "I have a friend who
served in Vietnam with the Red Cross," she explained. "My friend called me a
couple of months ago. She was hysterical. She said, "I'm so nervous and depressed. I
can't have kids because I was
sprayed with Agent Orange when I was in Vietnam. Does anybody care?"
Lily Adams, 41, an Agent Orange activist from California, was an Army nurse in Vietnam.
Says Lily, "We keep on saying to the government we don't want compensation - we want
you to do research. The VA is saying that if it does the research and it proves there's a
connection it's going to go bankrupt."
The issue of compensation is thorny. In 1984, after years of litigation, a $180 million
fund for Vietnam veterans was created by Agent Orange manufacturers to resolve the
class-action suit filed against them. The fund excludes spouses an birth-defective
children of vets - and, of course, it excludes all civilian volunteers such as Maureen.
Since there's not enough money to cover all vets, disabled veterans and their dependents
are angry.
So is Karen Johnson, a vet who spent two years in Vietnam as an Army reporter. She's being
compensated with a small monthly amount because she'd 60-percent disabled, but she is
still irate over what she calls the government's "gobbledygook."
She suffers from a chest ailment and is desperate to know more about Agent Orange. Will
she get worse or die from long-term effects of the poison?
Says Bart Stichman, attorney and litigating director for the Vietnam Veterans of America,
"The VA would be compensating veterans if it believed there was a connection between
Agent Orange and various disabilities. But it doesn't. So no vet with an Agent
Orange-related illness is getting very much now." The government must step in to
compensate vets, he says. So far, it has refused, but is reexamining its position.
For the women who gave so generously of their time, energy and talents during the war,
this realization is cruel. It's ironic that after serving their country faithfully, they
don't know whom to turn to for answers about the mysterious Agent Orange.
Until there is more medical data, the thousands of women who served in the U.S. during the
Vietnam War will continue to fear the enemy within.
In a very real sense, they have met the enemy - and it is their own government.
My Vietnam Related Websites:
Women in
Vietnam ~ Read about ALL the women who served . . .
The
Irish on the Wall ~ An effort to locate the Irish who died in Vietnam
Tim
O'Brien's Home Page ~ National Book Award Winner and Americal Vet
Emily's Poetry
~ By a Red Cross Donut Dolly
Shrapnel in
the Heart ~ The most moving book you will read on Vietnam
All About
Vietnam ~ An annotated bibliography of books about Vietnam for
sale thru Amazon Worldwide!
Battle
Dressing ~
Project Hearts
and Minds ~ Help put Viet Nam back together
Photos
from a Holts' Military History Tour ~ My trip to Vietnam, February 1998
My Other Websites:
Maybe
Later . . . ~ My Creative Nonfiction
Irish
in Korea ~ Irish men and women who gave their lives in the Korean War
Literature
of the Korean War ~ Don't let the literature be forgotten
Samuel
Pepys ~ One of my favorite authors
Chicago
Theatre Z - A ~ This is the best theater town in the country!
Soccer
Literature ~ I'm a fan and I read
O'Leary Lantern
~ Fire! Fire! Fire!
Gil
Thorp ~ THE Coach (apologies to The General!)
Poetry
of the First World War ~ Owen, Hardy and others
Chi-COW-go
~ Cowz plus Commentary (this used to be a cow town)
Graham
Fulton, Scottish Poet ~ Charles Manson Auditions for the Monkees
Other Important Websites:
The
Truth About Caroline ~ a really good Young Adult book by
my niece, Stacey M. Lane Grosh
Remember
Oklahoma City ~
The Civil Service and Military will
NEVER forget!
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