- Joined
- Feb 29, 2004
- Messages
- 1,628
- Points
- 248
1962 Operation Ranch Hand initiated
The United States Air Force launches Operation Ranch Hand, a "modern technological area-denial technique" designed to expose the roads and trails used by the Viet Cong.
Flying C-123 Providers, U.S. personnel dumped an estimated 19 million gallons of defoliating herbicides over 10-20 percent of Vietnam and parts of Laos between 1962-1971. Agent Orange--named for the color of its metal containers--was the most frequently used defoliating herbicide. The operation succeeded inn killing vegetation, but not in stopping the Viet Cong. The use of these agents was controversial, both during and after the war, because of the questions about long-term ecological impacts and the effect on humans who either handled or were sprayed by the chemicals.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Vietnam veterans began to cite the herbicides, especially Agent Orange, as the cause of health problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer to birth defects in their children. Similar problems, including an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages and congenital malformations, have been reported among the Vietnamese people who lived in the areas where the defoliating agents were used.
1971 "Harrisburg Six" charged with conspiracy
The Reverend Philip F. Berrigan, serving a six-year prison term on charges of destroying draft records, and five others are indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiring to kidnap presidential adviser Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington. The "Harrisburg Six," as they came to be known, denied the charges and denounced them as a government effort to destroy the peace movement.
The United States Air Force launches Operation Ranch Hand, a "modern technological area-denial technique" designed to expose the roads and trails used by the Viet Cong.
Flying C-123 Providers, U.S. personnel dumped an estimated 19 million gallons of defoliating herbicides over 10-20 percent of Vietnam and parts of Laos between 1962-1971. Agent Orange--named for the color of its metal containers--was the most frequently used defoliating herbicide. The operation succeeded inn killing vegetation, but not in stopping the Viet Cong. The use of these agents was controversial, both during and after the war, because of the questions about long-term ecological impacts and the effect on humans who either handled or were sprayed by the chemicals.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Vietnam veterans began to cite the herbicides, especially Agent Orange, as the cause of health problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer to birth defects in their children. Similar problems, including an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages and congenital malformations, have been reported among the Vietnamese people who lived in the areas where the defoliating agents were used.
1971 "Harrisburg Six" charged with conspiracy
The Reverend Philip F. Berrigan, serving a six-year prison term on charges of destroying draft records, and five others are indicted by a grand jury on charges of conspiring to kidnap presidential adviser Henry Kissinger and of plotting to blow up the heating tunnels of federal buildings in Washington. The "Harrisburg Six," as they came to be known, denied the charges and denounced them as a government effort to destroy the peace movement.
