Tag Archives: Agent Orange Blue Water Veterans Ken Olsen

Forty-three years later, time is running out for tens of thousands of sailors suffering from various cancers, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and heart conditions caused by Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War. For nearly a decade, VA, acting on a Bush administration directive and a punitive court decision, has severed their benefits or denied their claims. Under these new VA rules, so-called “Blue Water” and “Blue Sky” veterans are deemed not to have suffered any ill effects from the millions of gallons of toxic defoliant spread across the jungles during the war, regardless of any contact they may have had with it. The government’s rationale: they did not set foot on land or couldn’t meet VA’s stringent requirements for proof that they were exposed. Continue reading →