Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure (2011) / Chapter Skim
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2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
2 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Pages 29-46
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From page 29... ...
A summary of American involvement in Vietnam, focusing on the role of the Blue Water Navy, is presented first, including a discussion of the missions and roles of the several Navy sectors, such as the Brown Water Navy and the Coast Guard. A synopsis of the legislation regarding veterans and Agent Orange since the Vietnam War and of the recent legal issues that have arisen over Blue Water Navy veterans' compensation then follows.
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From page 30... ...
American troop levels decreased rapidly thereafter, and in 1973 after the Paris Peace Accord, virtually all remaining American troops were withdrawn. Fighting continued between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, however, until April 30, 1975, when Saigon, the capitol of South Vietnam, was captured by the North Vietnamese, and the South Vietnamese army surrendered.
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From page 31... ...
In the present report, blue water refers to the more narrow legal definition of persons who served in the Navy during the Vietnam War and were stationed on ships that spent time in the waters offshore of Vietnam but never entered inland waters or set foot on land in Vietnam. The Seventh Fleet, which is the section of the US Navy Pacific Fleet permanently stationed in the Western Pacific, had a presence in Vietnam and Vietnamese waters dating to 1950 as part of MAAG-Indochina.
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From page 32... ...
Examples of substantial carrier bombing operations include Operation Flaming Dart; Operation Rolling Thunder, which was an aerial bombing campaign over North Vietnam; and Operation Barrel Roll, which targeted Laos. Carrier groups assigned to bombing operations would often be rotated into active bombing duties for a period of days or a month, during which a carrier group was responsible for running air bombing operations for a particular number of hours per day in one of the two major offshore operating areas used by the Navy in Vietnam (Yankee Station off northern South Vietnam and Dixie Station in the south)
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From page 33... ...
Those operations involved both Blue Water Navy and Brown Water Navy vessels. Surface Gunfire Support Another role of the Blue Water Navy was to supply surface gunfire support to ground troops in Vietnam.
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From page 34... ...
Many auxiliary ships -- including floating barracks and floating base platforms, hospital ships, gasoline tankers, and repair ships -- regularly docked in bays or traveled the inland waters in Vietnam and so are not considered part of the Blue Water Navy. The Brown Water Navy in the Vietnam War A primary mission of the Brown Water Navy was to prevent the movement of supplies supporting the NLF along the rivers and coastal waters of South Vietnam.
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From page 35... ...
The Coast Guard operated under the authority of the Navy and served in five major categories of operations: preventing enemy and enemy-supply movement, port security, aids to navigation, ensuring the safe and efficient transport of supplies by merchant ships, and search and rescue. Some Coast Guard personnel served on small ships and boats that functioned as part of the Brown Water Navy; others served aboard larger ships, such as the high-endurance cutters, which had crews of around 100–150 men and were part of the Blue Water Navy fleet (Scotti, 2000)
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From page 36... ...
In general, these sailors experienced living conditions similar to those of noncombat personnel in the other services that were stationed in Vietnam on similar missions. THE DEBATE OVER BLUE WATER NAVY EXPOSURE TO AGENT ORANGE A variety of tactical herbicides were used by the American military in Vietnam during 1962–1971 to defoliate forests and destroy crops.
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From page 37... ...
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 37 FIGURE 2-1 Aerial herbicide spraying missions in southern Vietnam, 1965– 1971. SOURCE: Reproduced with permission from Hatfield Consulting, http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~tpilsch/AirOps/Images/RanchHand/ Map-spray_msns-RVN-65-71.jpg (accessed February 22, 2011)
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From page 38... ...
The Blue Water Navy's Exposure to Tactical Herbicides During the Vietnam War As with any war, it is difficult or impossible for those serving in the conflicts to identify the many chemical agents to which they might have been exposed intentionally or unintentionally during active duty. Because of the impossibility that most Vietnam veterans could prove that they had been exposed to Agent Orange or other herbicides in Vietnam during the war, the 1991 act created a presumption of service connection;
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From page 39... ...
Haas v. Peake Attention to whether Blue Water Navy Vietnam veterans were or should be eligible for a presumptive service connection to herbicide exposure increased as a result of a challenge to the VA precedent opinion in the court case Haas v.
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From page 40... ...
The court also cited the VA's history of granting presumptive service connections for members of the Blue Water Navy who had received Vietnam Service Medals and commented on the issue of whether exposure was possible: Given the spraying of Agent Orange along the coastline and the wind borne effects of such spraying, it appears that these veterans serving on vessels in close proximity to land would have the same risk of exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange as veterans serving on adjacent land, or an even greater risk than that borne by those veterans who may have visited and set foot on the land of the Republic of Vietnam only briefly (Haas v. Nicholson.
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From page 41... ...
Although these veterans were not eligible for an automatic presumption, each case needed to be reviewed to determine whether a nonpresumptive service connection was justified or the veteran in question actually qualified for the presumption because his boat docked or entered Vietnamese inland waters while he was aboard. Royal Australian Navy The original Haas claim cited direct spraying and aerial drift of herbicides as possible routes of exposure for Blue Water Navy personnel off the coast of Vietnam.
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From page 42... ...
The Australian study cited accounts from Australian sailors who served on RAN ships, that the ships frequently drew marine water in or near the mouths of estuaries and river deltas to make potable water and used marine water from the open ocean to make distilled water to run the boilers; the boilers required far more distilled water than did the ships' crews. Subsequent information received from the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs indicated that although RAN standard operating procedures required that, except in emergency circumstances, potable water was to be made only when 10 or more miles from populated shores, these procedures were not always followed and the reasons for doing so were not clear (Eileen Wilson, Australian Department of Veterans Affairs, personal communication, October 10, 2010)
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From page 43... ...
. The largest Blue Water Navy ships, the aircraft carriers, rarely entered inland waters or came close enough to shore to dock due to their large size and vulnerability to enemy attack.
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From page 44... ...
Underlying the controversy of Blue Water Navy Vietnam veterans' claims to a presumption of herbicide exposure are the legal mandates to compensate veterans for their current health problems. Vietnam veterans who served on the ground and on the inland waterways of Vietnam are eligible for compensation for their health problems regardless of the time they spent in Vietnam and the potential for their exposure to the tactical herbicides, such as Agent Orange, that were widely used during the war.
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From page 45... ...
2008. Further definition of Vietnam "Blue Water" versus "Brown Water" service for the purpose of determining Agent Orange exposure.
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