Chemical Warfare

U.S. chemical use in Vietnam was a brutal attempt to use nature against itself by using defoliants like Agent Orange and incendiaries like Napalm and White Phosphorus. Agent Orange is a powerful defoliant that was used to kill the forest the North Vietnamese used as hiding places. It was very successful in that aspect, but it is extremely toxic to life. Millions of Vietnamese people have been affected, from deaths to horrific birth defects. Veterans of the war are also affected by cancer and often don't receive adequate reimbursement from the VA for their struggles.

Chemicals like CN/CS gas were used to flush out tunnels, and alleged VX nerve agent use ultimately backfired; it poisoned the land and its people, basically giving the North the ultimate propaganda tool and destroying any idea of winning over citizens. This destruction was very personal for my grandfather, who was an Air Force technician who spent the war testing the missiles that delivered some of these weapons. He has had survivor's guilt and shame since the war, as he was safely testing weapons while his friends died in the jungles that his weapons were destroying. For him, the war wasn't just a failure of policy; it was a personal story of surviving while everyone he knew disappeared.