The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 9 | Issue 37 | Number 5 | Sep 21, 2011

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US Military Defoliants on Okinawa: Agent Orange　　沖縄における米軍枯葉剤−−オレンジ剤 •Japanese translation is available

Jon Mitchell

US Military Defoliants on Okinawa:Agent Orange Japanese translationi s a v a i l a b l e(http://www.projectdisagree.org/2011/12/japan-focus-id-3601.html)

Jon Mitchell

Introduction

On August 19th, 2011, Japan’s Ministry ofForeign Affairs released a statement inresponse to recent media coverage about theUS military’s use and storage of defoliants(including Agent Orange) on Okinawa duringthe Vietnam War. MOFA announced that,although it had requested the US Departmentof Defense to investigate these allegations,Washington had replied that it was unable tofind any evidence from the period in question.As a result, Tokyo asked the US government tore-check its records in more detail.1 This wasthe first time that the Japanese governmenthad asked the US about military defoliantssince 2007 - and its refusal to accept thePentagon’s stock denial was rare. The currentannouncement arose after two weeks ofunprecedented press reports which allegedthat these chemicals had been widely used onOkinawa during the 1960s and ‘70s.

With fresh revelations coming to light on aregular basis, this is still a rapidly developingissue. However in this paper, I will attempt tounravel the situation as it currently stands.Starting with a brief overview of the role ofOkinawa during the Vietnam War and themilitary’s use of defoliants during the conflict, I

will then explore the Department of VeteransAffairs (VA) rulings of 1998 and 2009 thatappeared to offer official recognition of thepresence of these defoliants on the island.Following this, I will summarize US veterans’accounts of their experiences handling thesedefoliants on Okinawa - including theirtransportation, storage, spraying and burial. Inconclusion, I will assess the obstacles thatthese veterans and Okinawan residents face inwinning an admission from the Pentagon - pluspossible signs of hope that, while difficult, suchan acknowledgement is achievable.

Okinawa and the Vietnam war

After its capture by the US military in June1945, Okinawa was quickly transformed into aforward base for Operation Olympic, theanticipated Allied invasion of the Japanesemainland. The atomic bombings and Sovietdeclaration of war on Japan rendered thatassault redundant - and as the victors focusedtheir attention on the Tokyo-centeredoccupation, Okinawa’s significance plummeted.By November 1949, Time Magazine haddubbed it a “forgotten island”, claiming that,“For the past four years, poor, typhoon-sweptOkinawa has dangled at what bitter Army mencall ‘the logistical end of the line.’"2

This attitude of neglect was reversed by MaoZedong’s consolidation of Communist rule inChina and the outbreak of war on the Koreanpeninsula in June 1950. The US government -with the encouragement of Emperor Hirohito -now perceived Okinawa’s importance as astrategic buffer against communism in theregion. In 1952, the Treaty of San Francisco

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effectively ended the Allied occupation ofmainland Japan, but its Article 3 spelled out thefuture of Okinawa:

“The United States will have theright to exercise all and anypowers o f admin is trat ion ,legislation and jurisdiction over theterritory and inhabitants of theseislands, including their territorialwaters.”3

Soon after the treaty was signed, the USmilitary - under the auspices of Ordinance 109 -embarked upon an aggressive campaign ofbase building across the island, extendingearlier base construction. Lending Okinawa thenickname, “The Keystone of the Pacific”, theseinstallations were used throughout the KoreanWar, but it was during the conflict in Vietnamthat they truly came into their own.

In the 1960s, Okinawa became the hub of theentire war in South East Asia. American shipsoffloaded their cargoes at Okinawa’s portswhere, nearby, bases stockpiled materiel -everything from beer and toilet paper to morehazardous items such as mustard and nerve gas(discussed below in Operation Red Hat - the2009 Fort Harrison VA ruling). From KadenaAir Base, B-52s departed on daily bombing runsto Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia - while inOkinawa’s northern Yambaru jungles, mock-Viet Cong villages were constructed andpeopled with daily-hired locals for that addeddose of reality in war games.

In the span of a little over 15 years, Okinawahad gone from being the “logistical end of theline”, to the linchpin of US strategy in theregion - leading Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp,Commander of U.S. Pacific forces, to state in1965, “Without Okinawa we cannot carry onthe Vietnam war.”4 Despite this, however, therewas one essential component of its warmachine that the Pentagon still denies ever

passed through Okinawa: military defoliants.

Military defoliants - a brief overview

During the 1930s and ‘40s, the US militarypumped millions of dollars into researching arange of defoliants to deprive enemy soldiersand civilians of jungle cover and crops. Thefindings proved too late to use in World WarTwo, but from the late 1940s and throughoutthe 1950s, the Department of Defensecontinued wide-scale tests of these chemicals inforests and farms across the continental UnitedStates and Puerto Rico.5

Depending on the balance of chemicals, themilitary labeled the barrels containing thesedefoliants with a different colored stripe -giving rise to the names by which they werecommonly known - Agents Pink, Green, Purple,White, Blue and Orange. In 1962, the Pentagonofficially initiated Operation Ranch Hand - thedecade-long spraying of South Vietnam, Laosand Cambodia. Between 1962 and 1971,approximately 76 million liters of defoliantswere used - of which, roughly 4 million literswere spread by “hand sprayers, spray trucks(Buffalo turbines), helicopters and boats.”6 Tothose of us whose main image of Agent Orangehas been shaped by iconic TV footage of C-123airplanes trailing clouds of mist, this smaller-scale spraying may come as a surprise.

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Spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam

But as Vietnam War journalist, Philip JonesGriffiths, describes, “the use of herbicides wasnot confined to the jungles. It was widely usedto suppress vegetation around the perimetersof military bases and, in many instances, theinteriors of those bases.”7 Fred A. Wilcox makesa similar point when he writes, “baseperimeters were routinely sprayed.” 8

This localized spraying was conducted by GIswithout the protection of even basic safetyequipment since it was not until the late 1970sthat the general public became aware of thetoxicity of the dioxin contained in thesedefoliants. Throughout the 1960s, themanufacturers, Dow and Monsanto, repeatedlysuppressed memos related to the dangers oftheir products.9 Furthermore in 1969, the USmilitary, despite suspecting the risks as earlyas 1967, continued to assure its personnel that“(Agent) ORANGE is relatively nontoxic to manor animals. No injuries have been reported topersonnel exposed to aircraft spray.”10

By 1971, the barrage of scientific evidence andpress reports on the health dangers of thesedefoliants finally forced the Pentagon to call an

end to Operation Ranch Hand. But theremaining defoliant stocks continued to beused to suppress vegetation for many moreyears. Scientists estimate the total volume ofdioxin contained in the defoliants manufacturedbetween 1961 and 1971 to be over 360kilograms11 - an apocalyptic amount given thefact that its lethal dose is measured in parts pertrillion. In Vietnam alone, the Red Crossestimates that “3 million Vietnamese have beenaffected by Agent Orange, including 150,000children born with birth defects.”12

Although, the manufacturers of these defoliantshave never paid any compensation to thepeople of Vietnam, in 1984, they settled out ofcourt with exposed US veterans for $180million.13 The US government currentlyassumes that any American service memberwho was stationed in Vietnam between 1962and 1975 was exposed to military defoliantsand is eligible for assistance with dioxin-relateddiseases - including prostate cancer, Hodgkin’sdisease and multiple myeloma. The VeteransAffairs Department (VA) maintains an officiallist of areas where the Pentagon acknowledgesits defoliants were used - including Canada,Thailand, the Korean DMZ, Laos, Puerto Ricoand over a dozen US states.14

Military Defoliants on Okinawa - the 1998San Diego VA Ruling

For a fleeting moment in July 2007, it seemedthat the Department of Defense was on theverge of adding Okinawa to this list of locationsafter the Kyodo news agency ran an articletitled: “Agent Orange was likely used inOkinawa: U.S. vet board”.15 Journalists haduncovered a 1998 VA ruling from the San DiegoRegional Office that awarded compensation toa US veteran who claimed that his prostatecancer was the result of his service on Okinawafrom 1961 to 1962.16

The former service member, a driver for the USMarine Corps, “reported that he had been

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exposed to Agent Orange while in the processof transport, as well as when it was used inNorthern Okinawa for War Games training.”The veteran stated that military defoliants wereused “particularly near base camp perimeters.Spraying from both truck and back pack wereutilized along roadways too.”

In its ruling on the case, the VA stated that:“the veteran was indeed where he said he was,at a time when military build-up from a supportstandpoint was considerable, doing a job whichwas entirely consistent with the mixing andother transport of herbicides, and at a timewhen these were both used and warnings notnecessarily given.” It concluded, “Serviceconnection for prostate cancer due to AgentOrange exposure is granted.”

The 1998 ruling broke new ground in threesignificant ways. For the first time a USgovernment department had awardedcompensation to a veteran solely attributable toexposure to defoliants on Okinawa. Due toOkinawa’s role as a hub for GIs transiting toand from Vietnam, the majority of veteransserved in both locations - thus muddying theissue of where their exposure had occurred.But in the 1998 ruling, the veteran had neverbeen to Vietnam - thus his dioxin-connectedillness could be pinned to Okinawa.

The second significant point is that the rulingappeared to contradict the Pentagon’s officialline on the subject. In 2004, General RichardMyers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,had issued this response to an enquiry from theHouse of Representatives Committee onVeterans’ Affairs: “records contain noinformation linking use or storage of AgentOrange or other herbicides in Okinawa.” Hefurther stated, there was “no record of anyspills, accidental or otherwise, of AgentOrange. Therefore, there are no recordedoccupational exposures of service members inOkinawa to Agent Orange or s imi larherbicides.”17 After the Kyodo article was

published, the Department of Defensereiterated this stance.

Thirdly, the 1998 award opened the floodgatesfor hundreds of other veterans who longsuspected that they, too, had been exposed tothese defoliants on Okinawa. Had this rulingbeen made in a civil courtroom, then it mighthave set a legal precedent upon which otherscould have based their own claims. However,the VA does not work that way - a point wellillustrated by this 2010 denial of a veteranattempting to support his own application withthe 1998 ruling:

“Board decisions are not precedential. 38C.F.R. § 20.1303. Thus, any reasoning,conclusions, or other findings made in anyother Board decision, … has absolutely norelevance to this adjudication and the Veteran'sclaim will be decided on the basis of theindividual facts of the case.”18

Due to this protocol, in the thirteen years sincethe 1998 award was made, no other veteranshave been awarded compensation for theirexposure to military defoliants on Okinawa.

Operation Red Hat - the 2009 FortHarrison VA ruling

Exacerbating the frustrations of many formerservice members was a further comment madeby the VA Regional Office in Fort Harrison,Montana. In November 2009, it ruled on theclaim of a supply clerk who alleged he had beenexposed to defoliants while stationed onOkinawa between 1962 and 1964. Although theVA rejected the veteran’s claim, it unwittinglyappeared to offer up evidence that directlycontradicted the Pentagon’s stance on theissue.

“The records pertaining to Operation Red Hatshow herbicide agents were stored and thenlater disposed in Okinawa from August 1969 toMarch 1972.” 19 (my italics)

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This assertion is entirely consistent with publicrecords regarding the 1971 Operation Red Hat.During the two-phase project, the Armyremoved its stockpiles of over 12,000 tons ofbio-chemical weapons (including nerve andmustard gas) from Okinawa to Johnston Islandin the south Pacific.2 0 It has long beensuspected that some military defoliants wereincluded among these shipments - especiallysince in the same year, the US moved overthree-and-a-half million liters of militarydefoliants from South Vietnam to Johnston.21

Moreover, the statement that herbicides were“disposed in Okinawa” is supported by aveteran’s account regarding the burial ofdefoliants at three locations on the islandduring this period (see below: Disposal ofdefoliants at Camp Hamby, MCAS Futenma andKadena Air Base).

Coming so soon after the 2007 Kyodo report,this latest disclosure raised the hopes of manyveterans sick from dioxin exposure on Okinawa.Yet the VA - without exception - continued todeny all claims. Previously, many of theseformer service members had been fearful thatgoing public with their experiences would harmboth their reputations and their chances ofreceiving compensation - but now manyrealized that they had very little to lose.

Veterans speak out

On April 12th, 2011, The Japan Times publishedmy article, based upon the testimonies of threeUS veterans, titled “Evidence for Agent Orangeo n O k i n a w a . ” 2 2 J a m e s S p e n c e r , alongshoreman, described the unloading ofhundreds of barrels of Agent Orange at NahaPort and White Beach. Joe Sipala, an Air Forcesergeant stationed at Awase Transmitter Site,explained how he regularly sprayed thedefoliant around the base in order to killweeds. Lamar Threet, a medic on Camp Kue,explained how Agent Orange was used on theinstallation - including an incident where aservice member was drenched in defoliants

when a barrel tipped over. Accompanying thearticle was, for the first time, a photograph of adrum of Agent Orange on Okinawa.

All three men stated that they were sufferingfrom illnesses that the VA recognizes as beingsymptomatic with exposure to Agent Orangeand, had they been stationed in Vietnam, theywould be eligible for health care support.However their claims were denied dueprimarily to the fact that the Department ofDefense still insists that it has no records ofmilitary defoliants on Okinawa.

The publication of the April 2011 articleencouraged more veterans to come forwardwith their experiences.23 Taken together, theseaccounts detail a comprehensive picture of howmilitary defoliants were transported, stored,sprayed and buried on over a dozen Okinawaninstallations from Naha Port in the south to theJungle Warfare Training Center in the north.They suggest the presence of thousands ofbarrels of Agent Orange, Yellow, Pink, Purpleand Blue on the island for a 14-year periodbetween 1961 and 1975, spanning both thepre- and post-reversion era.

Marine Scott Parton on Okinawa 1971

1. Transportation

“The entire Vietnam War - including AgentOrange - flowed through the Naha Naval Port.”

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According to veterans’ accounts, the vastmajority of military defoliants arrived inOkinawa at Naha Port - and to a lesser extentWhite Beach and Tengan Pier. Sometimes, thebarrels had been damaged during the voyagefrom the United States - and dock workerswere exposed to the leaking chemicals. Afterarriving at these ports, the barrels weretemporarily stored before being transferred tosmaller vessels which carried them to Vietnam.Alternatively, the defoliants were taken bytruck to Kadena Air Base or Futenma AirStation - from where they were flown to thewar zone.

Companies mentioned by veterans as involvedin this transportation of defoliants to and fromOkinawa are the Bear and the States Linemerchant marine ships; individual vesselsinclude SS Sea-Lift, SS Transglobe, and SSSchuyler Otis Bland.

The use of civilian ships to carry militarysupplies is well documented in histories of theVietnam War - and it suggests that thePentagon’s claim that Department of Defense(i.e. military) records contain no informationabout the transportation of Agent Orange maywell be a lexical sleight of hand.

2. Storage

“The things I remember best in the supplyyards are the piles of aluminum coffins and the55-gallon barrels with orange stripes aroundtheir middle.”

After the defoliants had been unloaded fromthe docks mentioned above, veterans state thatthey were then stored at three main locations -Machinato Supply Depot, Naha Port andKadena Air Base - until orders were received tosend the chemicals to South Vietnam.

Machinato Supply Depot is the area mostfrequently mentioned in interviews withveterans. “There were hundreds of orange-striped 55-gallon barrels,” recalls one former

forklift driver. “At Machinato, we regularlyloaded them onto palettes to fill RBX orders(Red Ball Express = a World War Two phraseborrowed by Vietnam War service members torefer to the convoy system supplying the frontlines).” According to their testimonies, inaddition to Agent Orange, there were alsobarrels of Agent Yellow and Agent Blue atMachinato. One former truck driver was able togive the precise location of Machinato’sdefoliant storage area, “The drums were keptclose to the sea in an open yard betweenSecond Logistical Command’s temporaryhousing and the lumber yard.”

Naha Port is the second storage areafrequently cited. Veterans claim that thousandsof barrels of defoliants were unloaded andstored in wharfside warehouses. Testimoniesranging from 1961 to 1970 reveal that NahaPort was used to stockpile the military’s fullspectrum of defoliants including Agents Pink,Purple and Orange. “At the time, we handledeverything in the same way,” says one veteranstationed there in the late 1960s. “I didn’t evenknow what those orange-striped barrels wereuntil I saw some in a TV documentary 20 yearslater.”

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Kadena Air Base is the third large-scalestorage area mentioned by veterans who claimthat - by the late 1960s - “the existence of vastnumbers of barrels of Agent Orange on Kadenawas common knowledge.” Former servicemembers allege that these defoliants werestored there before being loaded onto flightsbound for South Vietnam. Another veteranrecalls seeing barrels of the defoliant atKadena’s Chibana Depot - the scene of the1969 nerve gas leak that prompted the Army tolaunch Operation Red Hat.

In addition to these three main storage areas, itseems evident that many other US basesmaintained smaller stocks of defoliants in orderto keep their grounds clear of vegetation. Thesize of these stockpiles ranged from “about 50barrels or maybe more” on Camp Schwab to asingle barrel on Awase Transmitter Site thatwas refilled as necessary by a visiting supplytruck.

3. Spraying24

“It was easy, effective - and most importantly itkept the habu snakes at bay.”

While the veterans explain that the vastmajority of military defoliants were transportedto Vietnam, they also claim that the chemicalswere employed as localized herbicides - in asimilar way to that described by Griffiths andWilcox in South Vietnam. “Since no recordswere required to be kept,” stated one veteran,“many commanders ‘acquired’ Agent Orange asa cheap way to hold back vegetation.”

Former service members described how thedefoliants were loaded into backpack sprayersbefore being used around perimeter fences (onCamp Foster, Awase Transmitter Station, CampSchwab, Camp Kue, Machinato Supply Depotand Yomitan Dog School25) and airbase runways(Kadena AB and MCAS Futenma). Also, thereare reports of spraying around the housingareas of Machinato and Camp Zukeran - as wellas officers clubs and the grounds of Camp

Foster’s Kubasaki High School (see below).

After the barrels of defoliants had beendepleted, there are accounts of the drumsbeing re-used to burn garbage. Such a practicewas particularly hazardous since, according toStellman et al., “Approximately two liters ofherbicide residue remains in the 208-literbarrel after it has been ‘emptied’”26 - moreover,the process of combustion is believed to elevatethe toxicity of dioxins.27

4. Civilian exposure

“We served our country and now we suffer.What about my children and Okinawanchildren? Do they suffer too?”

For the most part, the veterans’ accounts attestto the transport, storage and use of thesedefoliants within US bases, suggesting thatprimarily US service members were put at riskof dioxin exposure. However, there is evidencethat civilians - both Okinawan and American -may also have come into contact with thesechemicals.

i. Okinawan base workers

Whereas veterans’ testimonies from themid-1960s state that it was usually Americanpersonnel who sprayed defoliants on base,towards the end of the decade, it appears thetask had been delegated to local nationals. OnCamp Kue, for example, one former servicemember recalls that, “Okinawans sprayeddefoliants under the guidance of Americansupervisors.” On Camp Foster, another veteransays he witnessed “on many occasions theOkinawan grounds keepers spraying defoliantaround the buildings and refrigeration units.”On Machinato Supply Depot, too, there arereports of Okinawan workers involved in boththe loading and spraying of Agent Orange.

As well as Okinawans involved in spray teams,other veterans expressed concern that thelocally-hired stevedores who helped to unload

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the drums on the docks may - like theirAmerican counterparts - have been exposed tothe chemicals which leaked from damagedbarrels.

ii) Okinawan farmers

Veterans claim that the Okinawan people whoobserved the effects of the defoliants wereimpressed with their power to kill vegetation.These former service members state that, inthe same way American goods were unofficiallybartered for Okinawan produce, small volumesof military defoliants were exchanged with localresidents. Although veterans believed thatthese Okinawans were farmers, they did notsee how the chemicals were used once handedover.

iii) Department of Defense Dependant schools

Among the veterans’ accounts, there aremultiple references to the spraying ofdefoliants around DoDD schools during the late1960s - with Camp Foster’s Kubasaki HighSchool specifically mentioned by two servicemembers. They claim that Army and Okinawangroundskeepers regularly used Agent Orangeto kill weeds close to classrooms, playgroundsand playing fields. One veteran stated that itwas common knowledge that the defoliantscame from the same supply yards as the onesthat sent the barrels to Vietnam. Otherveterans claim that this pattern of usage wasconsistent with how these herbicides weresprayed elsewhere on Camp Foster.

5. Disposal of defoliants at Camp Hamby,MCAS Futenma and Kadena Air Base.

“The Army did what it always does. It buriedthem.”

The 2009 comment from the Fort Harrison VAconcerning the disposal of herbicide agents onOkinawa between 1969 and 1972 seems to becorroborated by a former forklift driver whowas assigned to Machinato Supply Depot.

According to the veteran, in 1969 he witnessedthe burial of dozens of barrels of Agent Orangeafter they had been damaged duringtransportation at sea. 2 8

“I watched them dig a long trench. They hadpairs of cranes and they l i fted up thecontainers. Then they shook out all of thebarrels into the trench. After that, they coveredthem over with earth. Where was this? Gothrough the main gate of Hamby Yard (currentday Chatan). Go a quarter mile and those wereour Connex (container) yards. The trench wasabout a half mile from the ocean - close to therocks.”

Hamby Yard, according to this veteran, was notthe only place where Agent Orange was buried.Towards the end of 1970 - with the US militaryunder increasing pressure to scale back its useof the defoliants29 - two other stockpiles wereburied on MCAS Futenma and Kadena AB. “TheArmy was just doing what it always did,”alleges the veteran. “They buried those barrelsbecause it cost less than shipping them all backto the States. It was cheaper that way.”

The repercussions of the 8.8 talk atOkinawa Christian University

In August 2011, I presented my research onmilitary defoliants at Okinawa ChristianUniversity, Nishihara.

Part 1

Part 2

In the week leading up to the talk, theOkinawan dailies ran extensive stories aboutmilitary defoliants on the island. On August 6th,the Okinawa Times led with “Defoliants used onnine (U.S.) installations.”30 The following day,the Ryukyu Shimpo ran three articles titled“Defoliants used on eight installations,”31

“Investigations needed within bases”32, and

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“Two generations struggle with diseases” 33 -based upon an interview with former Air ForceSergeant, Joe Sipala. On August 9 th, themainland Asahi Shimbun picked up the issueand ran the story “US military stored defoliantson Okinawa during Vietnam War, it isclaimed.”34 This was followed in the evening bya primetime news report, “The Okinawa-Defoliant connection.”35

Joe Sipala in a 1970 photo

Such widespread media coverage seemed totake the Japanese government by surprise andit spurred the first official reaction on August9th. At a meeting of the Upper House ForeignAffairs and Defense Committee, the JapaneseForeign Minister Matsumoto Takeaki statedthat he had, using diplomatic channels,enquired with the United States about theissue. LDP member Shimajiri Aiko requested aJapan-U.S. Joint investigation - to whichMatsumoto demurred that he would like first tohear the response from Washington. 36

Five days later, on August 14th, The JapanTimes published the forklift truck driver’saccount of the burial of Agent Orange on CampHamby.37 Once again, the Okinawan media wasquick to cover the story38 - and on 19th August,Stars and Stripes, the US military’s dailynewspaper, ran an article titled “Okinawanmayor urges probe into Agent Orange

allegations.”39

The Japanese-language Tokyo-based presschose not to report the issue. However, theJapanese and US governments appeared tograsp more fully its potential ramifications. Onthe evening of August 19th, the Ministry ofForeign Affairs announced that the Pentagonclaimed to be unable to find any evidence ofmilitary defoliants on Okinawa - but theJapanese government was pressing for afurther investigation.

Conclusion

In 1989, Fred A. Wilcox chronicled thestruggles that US veterans faced in receivingrecognition for their exposure to Agent Orangeduring the Vietnam War in the book WaitingFor An Army to Die. Twenty-two years later, thetitle still encapsulates the attitude adopted bythe Pentagon and the VA towards formerservice members citing exposure to dioxins onOkinawa. The veterans interviewed for thisarticle recite an endless cycle of tactics that theauthorities employ to stall their claims - lostdeployment orders, missing medical recordsand requests for the veteran to seek out 40-year old documents that the VA knows neverexisted. Instead of “Putting Veterans First”,many former service members contend that theVA’s slogan should be changed to “Delay, denyuntil we all die.” When asked if he thought theDepartment of Defense would ever admit to thepresence of Agent Orange on Okinawa, oneretired Army member replied, “Imagine howmuch they’d have to pay out. That’s how theywork. They don’t care about the veterans. It’sall about the money.”

His answer echoed the thoughts of almost allthe veterans I interviewed. If the 1998 VAruling had actually been made public at thattime - when the US economy was stronger andthe mood of the nation more favorable toveterans - then perhaps the Pentagon mighthave come clean on the issue. However, theworld has changed significantly over the past

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13 years and, with the US economy in deeprecession, veterans exposed to toxic chemicalson this small outpost of the American Empireface an uphill struggle.

The US military on Okinawa already has adubious environmental track record - includingrendering Torishima Island a no-go zonethrough its use of depleted uranium ordnancein the 1990s and dangerous levels of arsenicand asbestos left on land formerly home toCamp Lester. In this atmosphere, the Pentagonis only too aware that any admission of thepresence of military defoliants on Okinawa maymake it liable for environmental evaluationsand clean-up costs stretching into the tens ofmillions of dollars.

Regardless of these undeniable hurdles, thereare positive signs that the US government willsoon be compelled to end its silence. Accordingto Jeff Davis, Senior Legislative Advocate of theVeterans Association for Sailors of the VietnamWar, “The Department of Defense is decidedlyunhelpful, but you can beat the Department ofVeterans Affairs by overwhelming it withtes t imony , s t a t i s t i c s , s c i ence anddocumentation.”

In the past, one of the main obstacles toveterans forming a united front on this issuewas the bureaucratic and geographicaldifficulties of tracking down those withcorroborating experiences. Joe Sipala has beenat the forefront of breaking down this barrierwith the creation of “Agent Orange Okinawa,” af o c u s g r o u p o n F a c e b o o k(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Agent-Orange-Okinawa/205895316098692).

Sipala uses the site to share media reports,create a sense of solidarity among veteransexposed to agent orange and guide themthrough the hoops and barrels of the VA claimsprocedures. Since April 2011, the site hasreceived over 35,000 views and brought intothe open the testimonies of a dozen moreveterans exposed to dioxins on Okinawa.40

Similarly, social media has engenderedcooperation between veterans fighting forrecognition in other regions where thePentagon, despite overwhelming evidence ofthe presence of these defoliants, denies theywere ever used - most notably in Guam andSouth Korea. This global approach allowsformer service members to better comprehendhow and where these chemicals were deployed- as well as share techniques on accessingrestricted information and pushing the issueinto the public eye.

Meanwhile, the August 8th presentation helpedto facilitate collaboration between Okinawanenvironmental groups and US veterans whowere exposed on the island. Members fromboth sides have entered into correspondenceand there are tentative plans to invite USveterans to Okinawa to identify former storageareas and give talks to community leadersconcerned about the health risks. Okinawangroups are also in the process of gatheringtestimonies from former base workers whomight have handled these defoliants - with thelong-term goal of producing an epidemiologicalstudy.

55-gallon drums of Agent Orange. Photofrom Stars and Stripes story of Aug 19, 2011,

“Okinawan mayor urges probe into agentorange allegations”

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In addition, plans are underway to test soil andwater from the areas where military defoliantswere stored. If comparisons with similarstorage sites in South Vietnam are accurate,there is the very real danger that these areascontinue to be highly-contaminated today.41

Without a doubt, these investigations—and, ifthe charges are confirmed, the subsequentcleanup—will be expensive. But with thepotential health risks so serious, any delay onthe side of the Japanese or Americangovernments suggests not merely negligencebut a cover-up. The harm may extend beyondthe veterans interviewed in this article to USservice members currently stationed on theisland and Okinawans living, working andfarming on areas formerly used to store theselethal chemicals.

Jon Mitchell is a Welsh-born writer based inYokohama and represented by Curtis BrownLtd., New York. He has written widely onOkinawan social issues for the Japanese andAmerican press. A selection of his writings canb e f o u n d h e r e(h t tp : / /www. j onmi t che l l i n j apan . com) .Currently, he teaches at Tokyo Institute ofTechnology.

Recommended citation: Jon Mitchell, 'USMilitary Defoliants on Okinawa: AgentOrange,' The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue37 No 5, September 12, 2011.

See also Ikhwan Kim, Confronting AgentO r a n g e i n S o u t h K o r e a(http://www.fpif.org/articles/confronting_agent_orange)

Notes

My thanks to Joe Sipala, Scott Parton, Masami

M. Kawamura, G.H., Caethe Goetz, Jeff Davis,Rob Avery, Kinue Oshiro-Avery and IzumiNakajima for their invaluable comments andassistance with this article.

1 The full Japanese text of the announcement isa v a i l a b l e h e r e(http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/press/release/23/8/0819_03.html).

2 “OKINAWA: Forgotten Island,” Time,November 28, 1949.

3 A v a i l a b l e , f o r e x a m p l e , h e r e(http://www.international.ucla.edu/eas/documents/peace1951.html).

4 Steve Rabson, "'Secret' 1965 Memo RevealsPlans to Keep U.S. bases and Nuclear WeaponsOptions in Okinawa After Reversion," The Asia-Pacific Journal, February 1, 2010.

5 William A. Buckingham, “Operation RanchHand - The air force and herbicides inSoutheast Asia, 1961-1971”, Office of Air ForceHistory, Washington D.C., 1982.

6 Jeanne Stellman et al. “The extent andpatterns of usage of Agent Orange and otherh e r b i c i d e s i n V i e t n a m , ”(http://stellman.com/jms/Stellman1537.pdf)Nature. Vol 422, 681.

7 Philip Jones Griffiths, “Agent Orange -‘Collateral Damage in Viet Nam”, Trolley Ltd.,London, 2003, 169.

8 Fred A. Wilcox, “Waiting For An Army ToDie,” Seven Locks Press, Santa Ana, 1989, 26.

9 For a concise summary of these cover-ups, seeGriffiths pp. 164 ~ 169.

10 “Employment of Riot Control Agents, Flame,Smoke, Antiplant Agents, and PersonnelDetectors in Counterguerilla Operations,”Department of the Army Training Circular,April 1969.

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11 Stellman et al., 684.

12 For this - and further information on theimpact on the health of people in Vietnam, seet h i s l i n k(http://www.agentorangerecord.com/impact_on_vietnam/health/).

1 3 The primary manufacturers of thesedefoliants are still keen to emphasize that the1984 settlement was not an admission of fault.Dow Chemical Company maintains that “Today,the scientific consensus is that when thecollective human evidence is reviewed, itdoesn't show that Agent Orange causedv e t e r a n ' s i l l n e s s e s . ” L i n k(http://www.dow.com/sustainability/debates/agentorange/).

In 2004, Corpwatch quoted a spokesperson forMonsanto: “reliable scientific evidenceindicates that Agent Orange is not the cause ofserious long-term health effects.” Link(http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11638).

In 2005, Griffiths dismissed these scientists as"the whores of the chemical companies - and ofWashington - who will write stuff saying thatAgent Orange is perfectly harmless.” (from“Conversations with Harold Hudson Channer,”Manhattan Neighborhood Network, aired 5th

September, 2005)

14 The list of locations is available here(http://www.publichealth.va.gov/docs/agentorange/dod_herbicides_outside_vietnam.pdf).

15 “Agent Orange was likely used in Okinawa:U.S. vet board”, Kyodo News Service, July 8,2007.

16 The complete text of ruling #9800877 isa v a i l a b l e h e r e(http://www.va.gov/vetapp98/files1/9800877.txt).

17 Quoted in the Kyodo article of July 8, 2007.

18 VA ruling #1030176 can be accessed here(http://www.va.gov/vetapp10/files4/1030176.txt).

19 The ruling - #0941781 - can be read here(http://www.va.gov/vetapp09/files5/0941781.txt).

20 Operation Red Hat was spurred by a leak ofnerve gas that hospitalized over 20 GI’s in1969. “Operation Red Hat: Men and a Mission”- a cheerily patriotic 1971 Department ofDefense documentary detailing the removal ofthese munitions - can be watched here(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApT4-zKF8OY).

21 Buckingham, 188.

22 “Evidence for Agent Orange on Okinawa”,The Japan Times, April 12, 2011 (available here(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20110412zg.html)).

23 At the time of writing, over 20 veterans withfirsthand experiences of spraying, storing orshipping military defoliants have come forward- with many more claiming to have seen thesechemicals on the island. Of these formerservice members, approximately 75% haveasked that their accounts remain anonymouswhile the VA processes their claims forcompensation. All described the governmentdepartment as “vindictive” and “spiteful” - withone veteran alleging that he was told if he wentpublic with his experiences, the impact onbenefits he was already receiving for injuriesunrelated to dioxin-exposure would be“catastrophic.”

24 In their denials of veterans’ claims, the VAsometimes tries to suggest that the defoliantssprayed by US service members on Okinawawere “commercially-available herbicides.” Thisappears to be a deliberate attempt to obscurethe truth. Veterans state that spray-tanks werefilled directly from the same orange-stripedbarrels that were sent to Vietnam. The VA

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suggested to one veteran that the herbicidesshe inhaled in 1975 was Monsanto’s Roundup -a product that was not on the market until oneyear later. Moreover, the use of militarydefoliants in precisely the same mannerOkinawa’s veterans describe is well -documented throughout Vietnam at this time -posing the question, why would the infamouslyparsimonious military pay extra for herbicidesif they had thousands of gallons of powerful(and supposedly non-toxic) defoliants already athand?

25 The allegation that military defoliants weresprayed around Yomitan Dog School isnoteworthy due to a 1990 report regarding USmilitary working dogs. The study compared therates of testicular cancer in dogs that had diedin the United States, Vietnam and Okinawa.The report found that dogs that died in Vietnamwere 1.8 times more likely to develop testicularcancer than those in the U.S. - whereas the ratein Okinawa was even higher at 2.2 times theAmerican control group. Howard M. Hayes etal., “Excess of Seminomas Observed in VietnamService U.S. Military Working Dogs”, Journal ofthe National Cancer Institute, Vol 82, Issue 12.

26 Stellman et al., 685.

27 Griffiths, 166.

28 “Agent Orange Buried on Okinawa, VetSays”, The Japan Times, August 13, 2011( a v a i l a b l e h e r e(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110813a1.html)).

29 Buckingham, 169.

3 0 J a p a n e s e t e x t a v a i l a b l e h e r e(http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/article/2011-08-06_21694/).

31 The difference in the number of installationscited is due to the Ryukyu Shimpo articlebasing its calculations on VA denial records

whereas the previous day’s Okinawa Timespiece was based upon my own research. TheS h i m p o a r t i c l e i s h e r e(http://ryukyushimpo.jp/news/storyid-180239-storytopic-1.html).

32 基地内の調査必要, Ryukyu Shimpo, August7, 2011.

3 3 親子２代疾患に悩む, Ryukyu Shimpo,August 7, 2011.

3 4 A v a i l a b l e h e r e(http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0809/SEB201108080053.html).

3 5 The TV repor t i s access ib le here(http://www.qab.co.jp/news/2011080930040.html).

36 The exchange was reported by the OkinawaT i m e s(http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/article/2011-08-10_21904/) on August 10th.

37 “Agent Orange Buried on Okinawa, VetSays”, The Japan Times, August 13, 2011.

3 8 See , f o r examp le , th i s TV repor t(http://www.qab.co.jp/news/2011081430124.html).

39 “Okinawan mayor urges probe into AgentOrange allegations”, Stars and Stripes, August1 9 , 2 0 1 1 ( a v a i l a b l e o n l i n e h e r e(http://www.stripes.com/news/pacific/okinawa/okinawan-mayor-urges-probe-into-agent-orange-allegations-1.152587))

4 0 “Agent Orange on Okinawa” - l ink(http://www.facebook.com/pages/Agent-Orange-Okinawa/205895316098692).

41 For an overview of the identification andclean-up of potential dioxin hotspots in SouthV i e t n a m , s e e t h i s l i n k(http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work/agent-orange/cleaning-dioxin-contaminated-soils).