Essay About Agent Orange

Facts about Agent Orange. According to the Veterans Administration Public Health, Agent Orange is a blend of tactical herbicides the U.S. military sprayed from 1961 to 1971 during Operation Ranch Hand in the Vietnam War to remove trees and dense tropical foliage that provided enemy cover. Approximately 19 to 20 million gallons of “rainbow” herbicide combinations were sprayed over widespread locations in Vietnam; however, Agent Orange was the combination used most by the U.S. military. As noted by the Veterans Administration Public Health, the name “Agent Orange” derived from the orange stripe painted on the 55-gallon drums used to store the chemical. Heavy amounts of herbicides were used to eliminate thick ground cover in the jungles, as well as the borders of Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam, including mangroves on the southernmost peninsula of Vietnam

in Frey et al 1), is a theoretical frame for understanding the environmental impacts and the related adverse consequences of militarism and war-making (Frey et al 1). The nature of utilizing Agent Orange and other herbicides during the Vietnam War was felt by some researchers as injustice or toxic violence. The use of these herbicides (as mentioned throughout this paper) were to defoliate vegetation and inhibit future vegetation growth and to remove canopy covering along supply routes, military zones and areas along U.S. military bases. The scope and scale was much larger than the original plan of Operation Ranch Hand. However, the full scope of contamination will remain unknown due to the drifting of herbicides during the military spraying and the unaccounted-for stockpiles of herbicides that remained in the country after the war. The herbicides contained lethal doses of dioxins and were sprayed on thousands of villages in levels 25 or higher than normal ranges of agricultural use in the US. This toxin has a half-life of