THE BLUE WATER NAVY AND AGENT ORANGE

As we celebrate Veteran's Day and the 100th anniversary of World War I's end, we need to pause a moment and remember that justice has yet to be done for one group of U.S. veterans - the men who served in the Tonkin Gulf during the Vietnam War.

H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, was passed unanimously by the House of Representatives in June, but has stalled in the Senate. This sad event is largely the result of the Trump administration. Paul Lawrence, the Veterans Administration undersecretary for benefits testified against the bill at an August 1 Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing. The bill has since been stuck in committee.

H.R. 299 would extend Agent Orange disability benefits and health care to men who served aboard ships off the coast of Vietnam. Such benefits have already been granted to soldiers who served on land during the Vietnam War, but has been denied to those sailors who never touched shore, but who are now suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, a herbicide used during the war to defoliate the jungles and forests in Vietnam.

Although they never came ashore, these sailors were exposed primarily by their drinking water which was drawn and desalinated from the Gulf itself, the same gulf that contained Agent Orange from the Vietnam river system and from wind borne contamination.

I urge all Americans to contact their senators and urge them to move H.R. 299 out of committee and onto the Senate floor and, once there, to approve the bill.