How do you know if someone that is emailing you is a legit person or not? I have received a number from a kdmorgan(?) saying her husband was in Vietnam and exposed to agent orange and had tonsil cancer. Has anyone else received emails of this sort? Normally when I receive an email from someone on the board, the way the person speaks comes through, this seemed almost form letter like. If I am wrong and it was a real email I apoligize.

Sherrie

The first thing you can do is search the message board member database for the person you are getting mail from. I just did that, and there is no kdmorgan listed. (Top of the page next to my profile). It is possible that their email name from yahoo or wherever is different than their board name. But the question comes up, why are they writing to you about this particular topic?

This topic of Agent Orange and oral cancer has come up before. As a Vietnam veteran, and a medic who served in several different areas of the country, I can tell you that the cancers associated with Agent Orange, Agent White, etc. are almost exclusively lymphomas. Admiral Zumwalt, who ordered the spraying, lost his son (a brown water delta sailor like Sen. Kerry) to lymphoma after the war and his son's repeated exposure to the defoliant. The records are very complete as to which areas of the country were affected by operation ranch hand (The C130's and C47's that did the spraying). and also what ground units were in the areas at the time of spraying. Almost every guy I have ever talked to with oral cancer who blames it 35 years later on this, wasn't even in the areas sprayed, or was not attached to the units in question. Ironically, many of them are/were tobacco users, and they, and sometimes even their doctors who do not wish a confrontation with them, decline to consider that the number one cause of oral cancer is right in their hands, not in the jungles of Vietnam. The tragedy of the world's highest rate of birth defects in Vietnam is directly related to our country poisoning their soil, and the ground water below it with dioxin, which will be there for several hundred years. Once it is in the food supply there isn't anything anyone can do about it. The second tragedy from all this is our government's cover up and denial for over 20 years that Agent Orange caused cancers in it's servicemen. (As if Vietnam Vets needed yet another slap in the face.) Now that they have admitted the truth, most of those exposed are dead. Anyone interested in the details of this sordid story should read

I did a google search on kdmorgan and came up with several posts she put on a different veterans resource groups so it appears legit. She was asking the same questions. I have other veteran friends who were "in country" and are having some serious health issues that are related to agent orange. The VA has been quietly allowing more claims in the ao area.

Agent Orange, like the gulf war syndrome will be the next genereation's box to open up with the answers that are not being reveled to us now. And yes, I am sure the VA is doing this quietly and would not like a stampede of claims, (and the inevitable ones form the families left behind) at a time when we are going broke spending billions a day on a war, where our loved ones are once again fodder for bad decisions. We are spending millions on providing the Iraqi's with a healthcare system

Your right Brian!!!

My blood starts to boil when I think of all the
BILLIONS of $$$$$$ we are throwing overseas. I'll take 1% for the Oral Cancer Foundation, Thank You!!!
My two cents worth.

My son served one stint over there in the USMC and it was more nerve racking than having Oral Cancer.

Danny Boy