I’ll call him Mr. Trinh. He’s a small but physically imposing man, sitting in the visitors’ lounge of an intensive care unit at Cook County Hospital. Although he is past 55 his hair is still jet black, and this makes him appear no more than 40. As he speaks, his demeanor is impassive, even though he is waiting for his son to die. He pulls a set of rosary beads from his pocket, clutches them in his right hand, and begins his story with an air of dignified resignation.
“My duties increased when the Americans began moving out of Vietnam in the early 1970s. At that time I was involved in coordinating supplies for much of the country. But everything changed in 1975 when the Communists took control of Saigon. They renamed it Ho Chi Minh City, and with the occupation there were no longer jobs available in the city. I could not continue with my education and was forced to move with my family to the countryside, where we grew food that was sent to Ho Chi Minh City.
“By 1986 the bump on his hand was now quite large and ugly. We began to worry that perhaps this was more serious than the doctors had told us. We went back to the university, where the doctor agreed this was quite unusual. He attempted to do a special X ray by injecting something into Pham’s arm above the elbow. I remember the pain in Pham’s face when the doctor did the injection. The X ray was not successful and the doctor told us that perhaps it was time to go out of the country, possibly to America to have Pham’s hand evaluated.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
“There are very strict rules before one can be allowed to leave Vietnam for medical treatment. One way you are permitted to leave is if you have cancer and there is a special treatment available in another country. Although none of the doctors had mentioned it, we believed that that might be what the bump on Pham’s hand was. We went to see one of the most important physicians at the university to get him to sign a consent stating that Pham had cancer. Although he was quite important, this doctor acted quite disagreeably and said he doubted that the bump was cancer. He refused to sign a consent.
“At Cook County Hospital the doctors did a biopsy of Pham’s hand, which confirmed that he had cancer. They did more tests and found that the problem in his lungs was not tuberculosis but spread from the malignant tumor on his hand. They told us the prognosis was not good and that they would have to do surgery immediately. Before Christmas they amputated his right arm and administered chemotherapy.
“When America went to war in Vietnam, its conventional army fought infantry unencumbered by heavy weapons and independent of long supply lines. Since the American way of war relies on overwhelming fire power to devastate the enemy and hold down American casualties, the jungles of Vietnam hampered the American war machine. Heavy weapons, virtually immobilized in the jungles, were restricted to travel on highways and deployment in large base camps. Our infantry, which required large amounts of supplies, could not use the jungle as effectively as the enemy. In many respects, the battlefield favored the enemy, affording him cover and concealment. It takes only simple logic to figure out that if the battlefield conveys an advantage to the enemy, change the battlefield.”
After Ranch Hand was terminated, the National Academy of Sciences issued a paper on the short-term effects of Agent Orange on South Vietnam. The paper estimated that more than 36 percent of the mangrove forests, 10 percent of the inland forests, 3 percent of the cultivated land, and 5 percent of “other” land was sprayed one or more times. A 1978 Air Force report stated that 8 percent of the Agent Orange sprayed was used against enemy food crops–fruits, beans, peanuts, and potatoes. Vietnamese scientists noted profound changes in the pattern of bird life in herbicide-treated areas, specifically a marked decline in the peacock and pheasant populations.
