A Repeat of Agent Orange in America’s Heartland?

An e-mail arrived this morning from the “Marine Corps Vietnam Tankers Historical Foundation”. I signed up for this news feed because I served in the First Tank Battalion, First Marine Division in Okinawa and then Vietnam in 1965-1966.

The title of the e-mail speaks volumes about America’s political priorities when measured between health of the environment and the individual and corporate profits.

The title of the e-mail was “Dow & Monsanto Join Forces to Poison America’s Heartland”. Source: Truth Out.org by Richard Schiffman

About Monsanto Company—it is the world’s largest provider of patented genetically modified seeds for crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton, bringing in $10.5 billion this past year.

In fact, anything that makes food more expensive benefits Monsanto, which is why this corporation encourages the use of genetically engineered crops.

Schiffman says, “In a match that some would say was made in hell, the nation’s two leading producers of agrochemicals have joined forces in a partnership to reintroduce the use of the herbicide 2,4-D, one half of the infamous defoliant Agent Orange, which was used by American forces to clear jungle during the Vietnam War. These two biotech giants have developed a weed management program that, if successful, would go a long way toward a predicted doubling of harmful herbicide use in America’s corn belt during the next decade.”

Note from Blog host: Because I served in Vietnam and was exposed to Agent Orange, I am on the VA’s Agent Orange list. The VA (The United States Department of Veterans Affairs) lists these diseases on the VA Website as Veteran’s Diseases Associated with Agent Orange.

VA has recognized certain cancers and other health problems as presumptive diseases associated with exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides during military service.

Schiffman says, “The problem for corn farmers is that “superweeds” have been developing resistance to America’s best-selling herbicide Roundup, which is being sprayed on millions of acres in the Midwest and elsewhere. Dow Agrosciences has developed a strain of corn that it says will solve the problem. The new genetically modified variety can tolerate 2,4-D, which will kill off the Roundup-resistant weeds, but leave the corn standing. Farmers who opt into this system will be required to double-dose their fields with a deadly cocktail of Roundup plus 2,4-D, both of which are manufactured by Monsanto.”

Note from Blog host: This actual article is much longer than what I’ve posted in this comment. You may find the rest at Truth Out.org

Discover Pain, Pollution and People

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

His latest novel is Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

“This Emotional Life” on PBS

PBS Tackles Happiness In ‘This Emotional Life’
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122207615

I understand that this series on PBS will also be discussing PTSD. Since PBS offers Podcasts of programs that have aired, you may want to listen in.

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

Politics as Usual

Amazing. Politics as usual.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091230/ap_on_go_co/us_airliner_attack_demint_1

Here we are fighting a war with an enemy that wants to destroy America and everyone in it, and the Republicans are putting obstacles in the way of America’s safety net that is supposed to protect America against terrorists while blaming the democrats for what happened on that Northwest flight.

Let’s not forget that Americans are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and many come home missing parts or with PTSD.

In Vietnam, I remember congress passing rules of engagement. We weren’t supposed to shoot until we saw who was shooting at us so we wouldn’t hit noncombatants leading to bad press in the media.

Try that in the jungle when you cannot see anyone and someone is shooting at you.

Near the end of my tour, we had a young lieutenant just out of West Point who drummed it into us that we weren’t supposed to shoot unless we saw who was shooting at us. Then he was pinned down on a patrol and he was shouting at us to lay down covering fire.

Yea, right!

No one fired. Then a voice, “We can’t see who is shooting at you.”

What are we supposed to say to the enemy who wants to kill us? “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! You aren’t playing by the rules. This isn’t’ fair. You are a cheater. I’m going to tell your mommy what you are doing.”

What does congress and the media think war is, a game of Risk (that board game kids sometimes play)? Hey guys, we aren’t made of plastic here. We bleed and even if we walk away, we leave damaged.

What do you think? Maybe we should shoot the politicians and the reporters instead.

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

The LBJ Induced Anger and Rage

This is a rant. If you are a die-hard Democrat or Republican with more loyalty to your political party than to the country, you do not want to read this. It will get your blood pressure up.

Each time I write one of these posts, I open the cage where the demon raptors live. I write about what happened in Vietnam—the anger, the experiences, the flashbacks or someone else’s experiences, and I hope one of those raptors will use its flaming wings to take flight and never come back.

After forty years, I’ve learned there is no guarantee those raptors will stay away.

Starting last week, I have been angry with LBJ, the Democrat, and GWB, the Republican—AGAIN!

I’m also disappointed in the people that voted for them. President Lincoln said, “You can fool some of the people most of the time and most of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” If so, there are many fools out there and some of them will call me worse for writing this.

I don’t know about LBJ, but there are millions that still believe what GWB did in Iraq was right. Those people are probably the ditto heads that listen to idiots like Rush Limbaugh.

LBJ and GWB have a lot in common. Both started wars with lies and deceit. The facts say that both Vietnam and Iraq were unnecessary, and many that served with courage in those wars now live with roadside bombs inside their heads and never know when one might go off.

It’s been documented many times that GWB wanted to start a war in Iraq well before 9/11. “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it—”

But enough about GWB. It’s LBJ’s turn to burn, who, it seems, started the Vietnam War with lies.

Before he was assassinated, President Kennedy talked about getting out of Vietnam. Listen to what Tip O’Neill, former speaker of the house, says.

The next blow to America was the CIA’s alleged involvement bringing drugs into the United States, possibly creating today’s drug problems that are eating the country like a malignant cancer.

What is it that sets America apart from most of the World? The Bill of Rights, right?

The reason for The Bill of Rights was to protect American citizens from the corruption of government. Sad to say, the evidence shows that The Bill of Rights has become a rusty, leaky bucket.

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

Before PTSD, it was called Combat Fatigue or Shell Shock

In World War II, they called it combat fatigue or shell shock. After the Vietnam war, they called it post-Vietnam syndrome (as if it had never existed before Vietnam).

Now, it is called PTSD and the military is trying to do something about it. Researchers are testing soldiers to see if they can learn who will be more affected by traumatic events. The ongoing wars have provided scientists with opportnuites to learn more.

Here’s a link to a piece by Alicia Chang, Associated Press: http://health.yahoo.com/news/ap/us_med_predicting_ptsd.html

Resource Guide

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

What is PTSD?

Most combat veterans that have PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, do not talk about it. Many are heavy drinkers attempting to drowned the disorder to keep the monster at bay. Booze and drugs do not work. They make the vampire worse. Get your life back. Support and understanding is out there.

What is post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD (visit this source for more information)?

PTSD is an illness. You can get PTSD after living through or seeing a dangerous event, such as war, a hurricane, or bad accident. PTSD makes you feel stressed and afraid after the danger is over. It affects your life and the people around you.

If you have PTSD, you can get treatment and feel better.

Who gets PTSD?

PTSD can happen to anyone at any age. Children get PTSD too.

You don’t have to be physically hurt to get PTSD. You can get it after you see other people, such as a friend or family member, get hurt.

What causes PTSD?

Living through or seeing something that’s upsetting and dangerous can cause PTSD. This can include:

Being a victim of or seeing violence
The death or serious illness of a loved one
War or combat
Car accidents and plane crashes
Hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires
Violent crimes, like a robbery or shooting.

There are many other things that can cause PTSD. Talk to your doctor if you are troubled by something that happened to you or someone you care about.

Combat PTSD: What are the Symptoms?

http://ptsdcombat.blogspot.com/2006/03/combat-ptsd-what-are-symptoms.htmlIntrusive – Re-experiencing of the traumatic event(s)

Distressing recollections
Flashbacks (feeling as if you’re back in combat while awake)
Nightmares (frequent recurrent combat images while asleep)
Feeling anxious or fearful (as if you’re back in the combat zone again)

Avoidant – Drawing inward or becoming emotionally numb

Extensive and active avoidance of activities, places, thoughts, feelings, memories, people, or conversations related to or that remind you of your combat experiences
Loss of interest
Feeling detached from others (finding it hard to have loving feelings or experiencing any strong emotions)
Feeling disconnected from the world around you and things that happen to you
Restricting your emotions
Trouble remembering important parts of what happened during the trauma
Shutting down (feeling emotionally and/or physically numb)
Things around you seem strange or unreal
Feeling strange and/or experiencing weird physical sensations
Not feeling pain or other sensations

Since returning from Vietnam in 1966, I couldn’t put a term to the symptoms I was experiencing. For fifteen years, I was a heavy drinker and never talked about what happened. The nightmares that are called flashbacks came at night and were vivid and real. There are many nights even now where I will wake and listen for warning sounds that danger is near. I’ll reach for the weapon I keep close to where I sleep to make sure it is still there.

Learn more from PTSD Vet Charged with Murder

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

The Uncles of World War II

I read a post in another bog yesterday by a GI who came back from Iraq with PTSD. He mentioned that World War II veterans didn’t suffer from PTSD. Someone at the VA told him that.

Bull shit! The truth is that PTSD has been around for thousands of years. It is nothing new. The only difference is that we now have a name for it.

Three of my uncles fought in World War II. Two were in the navy and fought in the Pacific. My mother’s younger brother lied about his age and joined when he was seventeen. He worked with radar and submarines and stayed in the navy for thirty-three years. He retired a lieutenant commander.

My dad’s older brother James was on the USS Hornet when the Japanese sunk her early in the war. Along with hundreds of others, he ran along the flight deck and then the hull as the aircraft carrier rolled over. Destroyers picked him up along with other survivors. Uncle James was a drunk. When he was in his seventies, he died a drunk. I’m sure his drinking was caused by the war.

Uncle James came to the house once and told my dad to leave my mother and his sickly son, because we weren’t worth it. My mom picked up a cast iron frying pan and chased him down the street hitting him with it. She told him to never come to the house again if he was drinking. I never saw him again.

Uncle Lloyd was my mother’s younger brother. Since he worked for the railroad, the Army sent him to India where he was put in charge of munitions trains running bombs and ammunition to the Burma Road where trucks carried death across the mountains. On the other side of the Himalayas, the war with Japan raged in China and Southeast Asia.

Uncle Lloyd hitched a ride in one of the munitions trucks and arrived in Burma close to the front lines. At one point, he had to run for his life during a major Japanese assault. To escape capture or death, he waded across what he thought was a rice paddy only to discover it was an open cesspool.

The construction of the Bruma Road

He escaped, flew back to India and came down with a skin disease. His hair, his fingernails and his skin started to come off. He was sent back to the states and spent months in the hospital as army doctors struggled to save his life from the bacteria/fungus that was eating him alive.

Uncle Lloyd lived to be ninety-three. He told me that every few months he had to go to the nearest VA hospital and soak in a tub of purple liquid to control that bacteria/fungus. Most veterans don’t talk about what haunts them. Uncle Lloyd had his combat demons too. He awoke often through the decades remembering wading through that neck-high shit to escape the Japanese.

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

The Creative Writing Class at war with the Vietnam Vet

The GI Bill helped pay my way through college. In 1971, I was in my third year; attending my third college. My third college was Fresno State. I was in a creative writing class when a debate about the war in Vietnam started after a young girl read her short story about ‘evil’ American pilots dropping bombs on North Vietnamese children.

I was the only Vietnam veteran in the class. I struggled to explain to the obviously brainwashed kids that American pilots dropping bombs over North Vietnam were thousands of feet above the targets and did not see the carnage. They were gone by the time the bombs exploded, and they were following orders. In the military, you followed orders or faced a court martial.

“How could someone sleep at night knowing they had dropped bombs killing innocent children and women,” one girl said. Others joined in, and the discussion turned into an argument. It was them against me. It was frustrating. The consensus was that any American in Vietnam was a baby killer. To them, the American pilots had to know what they were doing and were evil.

Eventually, the professor put a stop to the argument.

My first night in Vietnam, I relayed an order that killed a dozen Vietcong. I never saw the bodies. I never saw them die. I was in the radio tent a hundred yards from the action when a call came from one of the tank commanders saying there was noise in a ravine that led to the top of the hill. During the day, wires had been strung in that ravine with tin cans tied to them and there were rocks in the cans.

The tankers heard the rattle of rocks and called asking for permission to fire napalm into that gully. The officer on watch said yes, and I relayed the order. The tankers lit their flame and fired. The next morning, twelve blackened, burned bodies were found in the ravine. They all had weapons. They were coming to kill United States Marines.

Our colonel had devised a plan, and it succeeded. He had given no orders to build bunkers or spread concertina wire along the perimeter to protect us on our first night in country. The platoon of flame tanks had been left aboard the Navy ship until dark when they were brought ashore and guided to the hill where the platoon of tanks was positioned to protect against an attack.

In Europe during WWII, American bombers firebombed cities nightly during the closing months of the war against Hitler’s Germany. In one night, in one city, forty thousand civilians including women and children had napalm dropped on them. In Japan, firebombs dropped on Tokyo burned a hundred thousand in one day. There were no attempts to avoid hitting civilians to bring Hitler’s Germany and Japan to their knees. It was understood that war was ‘hell,’ and we fought to win. What has changed?

Discover A Night at the “Well of Purity”

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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran.

His latest novel is the award winning suspense-thriller Running with the Enemy. Blamed for a crime he did not commit while serving in Vietnam, his country considers him a traitor. Ethan Card is a loyal U.S. Marine desperate to prove his innocence or he will never go home again.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was fighting for the other side.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper left-hand column and click on “FOLLOW!”

John Kerry, Purple Hearts, PTSD and WMDs

John Wayne movies molded my young brain, and fired my imagination. As a child, I dreamed of being a hero. Then at nineteen, I went to war and my thinking changed drastically. Narrow escapes from death ended my hero dreams, and I was fortunate to arrive home from Vietnam without a Purple Heart.

They say close only counts in horseshoes. I say it also counts in war. This morning, I awoke thinking about John Kerry and how his reputation was smeared during his presidential campaign.

John Kerry fought in Vietnam. He was wounded three times. They were not serious wounds, but they drew blood. Even flesh wounds earn Purple Hearts. One wireman in my communications platoon was awarded a Purple Heart. While in the field sleeping in his shelter half, his unit came under attack. Mortar rounds dropped in like hail. Half asleep, he scrambled out, tripped on one of the lines that held his shelter half up, fell and hit his head on something. He needed stitches. His sergeant put him in for a Purple Heart.

One of the tankers in that action was scrambling to get into his tank. In his rush to get inside the protection the tank offered, he slammed the turret hatch on one of his hands and crushed all the bones in it. He was also awarded a Purple Heart. He earned a ticket home too, and was discharged from the Marines with a VA disability for the crushed hand.

Bob, a history teacher I taught with, was in the Navy and served in Swift Boats like Kerry. Bob was the mechanic that kept the twin engines running. He told me once that the safest place in that swift boat was between the twin engines. On the water, the swift boat was an easy target and the metal hull was thin.

Those of us that did not bleed during combat and never earned Purple Hearts were still changed by narrow escapes from death. I had several and came home with a case of PTSD that still haunts me decades later.

John Kerry’s flesh wounds show that he came close to death. Yet, during his campaign for president, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth cast doubt on his courage, and George W. Bush, the man who used family influence to get into the National Guard and avoid combat, somehow became a hero, walked into the White House and served as president for eight years starting two wars. I have no idea what kind of president John Kerry would have been. I wonder if he would have used bogus evidence for WMDs and invaded Iraq.

Abraham Lincoln said “You may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all the time.”

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

Lightning strikes O.P. 39

I went to sleep at 11:00 p.m. and woke to dark listening to the crickets, noisy sentries that say all was well. It wasn’t raining and there was no thunder or lightning. However, staring at the glowing red numbers on the clock radio reminded of the rainy days I spent on O.P. 39 in 1966. There’s a picture on my Website. It’s about two-thirds of the way down the page. The thirty-nine meant the elevation above sea level.

I have no idea what triggered that particular memory. No one shot at me. No mortar rounds or rockets hit the hill. The fighting was taking place miles away. Maybe it was those red numbers on the clock radio. On the other hand, O.P. 39 offered a lesson on how fragile life was. Such lessons taught most of us veterans not to take life for granted.

There were two of us from the 1st Tank Battalion there. We were working a radio relay during a major offensive north of Chu-Lai. It rained most of the time. There were other units involved in that operation so there were other radio operators. The radios were on folding tables in a tent near my shelter half. There was also an artillery unit that fired support for the grunts fighting in the hills.

Outside that tent was a metal-lattice tower with a bunch of antennas on top. My watch started around six. I woke early when I rolled off the air mattress to flounder in several inches of water. It had rained hard all night and flooded the spot where I had pitched my shelter-half. I’d picked a spot surrounded by boulders that offered protection from incoming fire. That spot may have been safer than most, but it was in a slight depression.

After I stripped off the soaked clothing, changed into something dry, then slipped into my poncho, I heated up a can of C-Rations, ate, and afterwards brushed my teeth. While this was going on, thunder rumbled and lightning strikes blossomed around the hill. Soon, I was on my way to the radio tent to stand watch. I was going to start early.

If I had been ten minutes earlier, I would have been killed. The Marine I was replacing died moments before I arrived. Lightning hit the antenna array, went into his body through the headset and cooked him. The medics were carrying his corpse out of the tent when I arrived.

There was no time to be shocked or ponder why him and not me. Regardless of the fact that the rain, thunder and lightning were still around, I had a job to do. I powered up my radio jeep and used the set behind the front seats. I grounded the radio, turned the speaker loud and did not use the headset.

Discover The ambush; the king cobra and the water buffalo

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Lloyd Lofthouse, a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, is the award winning author of The Concubine Saga.

And the woman he loves and wants to save was trained to hate and kill Americans.

To follow this Blog via E-mail see upper right-hand column and click on “Sign me up!”

The Soulful Veteran's Blog

Living with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and surviving.

Tag Archives: United States

A Repeat of Agent Orange in America’s Heartland?

“This Emotional Life” on PBS

Politics as Usual

The LBJ Induced Anger and Rage

Before PTSD, it was called Combat Fatigue or Shell Shock

What is PTSD?

The Uncles of World War II

The Creative Writing Class at war with the Vietnam Vet

John Kerry, Purple Hearts, PTSD and WMDs

Lightning strikes O.P. 39