Discuss: Agent Orange: A Chapter from History That Just Won’t End

Placido Salazar,
I would like you to email me at . It took my mother and me 9 years to get the VA to accept that AO killed my dad. We won.

Placido, if you email me at , I perhaps can connect you to a man with information. I do not see why they keep doing vets this way. :(

Also...for kids of veterans if anyone is interested, there is a grassroots group coming together to help organize & get together on the issue.

What VA is now trying to do with those of us with PTSD is to put
us through a “14-week intensive treatment” that “will take your mind back to the event that caused PTSD, insensitize your mind and you will be ‘cured’. 

I told the psychologist that is the most stupid thing I have heard.
How can anyone duplicate the same
frame of a mind of a scared GI going through the jungle, or at a desolate post in total darkness, scared at not knowing when a bullet or a grenade will cut him down?  Suddenly all hell breaks loose and you see human blood and pieces of human flesh all over the place.

But, to me, it seems like if that psychologist declares you “cured”
they remove you from eligibility to continue treatment or drawing a
pension.  All of a sudden, the psychologically sick veteran will be broke, unable to cope with his still-very-much-present PTSD and I believe that many of us might end up comitting suicide.  I guess that is what VA is looking for, since that would save the government money.... and to our government, it is ALWAYS about MONEY over human life.

Ben,
Denny and I always knew you could deliver from the night around the campfire at Willow as you pontificated and entertained us all for hours....remember that?
We want to congratulate you on a fantastic article, the incredible depth and creativity born out of your life experience as a result of your dad’s tour in Viet Nam and your ability to express it so amazingly well ......way to go Ben!  Keep on healing and helping others!
Denny and Teresa Coomes

There are some interesting results with the new treatments for PTSD. I hope that many veterans take advantage of it.

Placido,

I’m in Vietnam right now and meeting many of the former ARVNs, VC, and NVA.  Getting to know the people of this country--the women, the children, and the men--in a way my father never had the chance to do.When I talk with war veterans over here, I can tell that they have struggled with ptsd in the same way American GIs have.  I think the VA should spend the money to get all veterans back over here.  I know it will never happen, but I think revisiting the former war zones and seeing how the people here have managed to move on with their lives, managed to forgive, themselves and others, in the face of often devastating poverty, is something ever man in the American uniform should get to see.  When I show the people photos of my father in Tay Ninh, they light up, pull out their own snapshots from that time and buy me beer.  I hope you get the cahnce to come back.

Ben

Ben, I think you are right. My Dad talks about wanting to go back to see Can Tho now. He wants to see what it is like in peace time & finds it interesting that you can go on “vacation” there. Of the Vietnamese I have met, they are wonderfully grateful & in high spirits. Totally amazing to me. Thanks for your story & everyone else’s comments. Very interesting.

Ben thanks. It’s brilliant that is why it touched the hearts of so great amount of people. Keep on!