ASA 150E
Professor Valverde
This week's theme talks about the Legacy of Environmental Degradation. In this week's reading, "Scorched Earth: Legacy of Chemical Welfare in Vietnam by Fred A. Wilcox describes the horrendous effects of Agent Orange. Wilcox indicates, "Agent Orange, the most widely used herbicide in Vietnam, was named after the orange stripe painted around the fifty-five-gallon barrels in which it was stored" (1). This depicts that there were so many chemicals that were released in Vietnam. In addition, "nearly forty years after the last spray mission, scientists continue to find high levels of dioxin in the food and water near abandoned military bases and in the blood, fatty tissue, and mother's milk of the Vietnamese who live near these installations" (2). This indicates how the chemicals affected the lives of Vietnamese people. These chemicals were consumed and were inside the body which then affected many generations of families down the line for hundreds of years. Children were deformed and had to live with these defects for the rest of their lives. The effects of Agent Orange reminds the Vietnamese of the grief, sorrow, and pain of the history of war. It as well serves as a reminder of the outcome of what had happened. I remember I took Professor Valverde's class on National Aesthetics and we watched a documentary on the effects of Agent Orange and the lives of the children that had disabilities because of it. It broke my heart seeing that. A question I have is how can we prevent the effects of agent orange to be passed on to other children?
Source: https://www.theorganicprepper.com/usda-approved-agent-orange-its-coming-to-a-farm-near-you
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