What do governments do best?

In some cases, they are very good at lies and denials. Or, as Sister Anne in 8th grade used to say: they "prevaricate". Is it right to use a person's labor, put them in danger, and then deny responsibility? Ordinary companies that employ labor are not allowed to do that. It's time for the governments responsible to step up to the plate and take responsibility for the workers they poisoned.

Read on about Agent Orange in Okinawa:

Sunday, April 15, 2012


Okinawa bases stored toxic defoliant, ex-soldier says
U.S. vet pries lid off Agent Orange denials


By JON MITCHELL
Special to The Japan Times
JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Thousands of barrels of Agent Orange were unloaded on Okinawa Island and stored at the port of Naha, and at the U.S. military's Kadena and Camp Schwab bases between 1965 and 1966, an American veteran who served in Okinawa claims.

In an interview in early April with The Japan Times and Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting Co., a TV network based in Okinawa, former infantryman Larry Carlson, 67, also said that Okinawan stevedores were exposed to the highly toxic herbicide as they labored in the holds of ships, and that he even saw it being sprayed at Kadena Air Base.

Carlson is one of only three American servicemen who have won benefits from the U.S. government over exposure to the toxic defoliant on Okinawa — and the first of them to step forward and reveal that massive amounts of it were kept on the island.

If true, his claims, which are corroborated by five fellow soldiers and a 1966 U.S. government document, would debunk the Pentagon's consistent denials that Agent Orange was ever stored on Okinawa.

"The U.S. Department of Defense has searched and found no record that the aircraft or ships transporting (Agent) Orange to South Vietnam stopped at Okinawa on their way," Maj. Neal Fisher, deputy director of public affairs for U.S. forces in Japan, told The Japan Times recently.

But the VA's decision to grant Carlson benefits over his exposure to the herbicide would appear to buttress his account.

"I am the tip of the iceberg. There are many others like me who were poisoned but the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) is denying their claims," Carlson said during the interview at his Florida home. "I urge those men to dig in and plant their feet."

During his time in the U.S. Army, Carlson was assigned to the 44th Transportation Company at the U.S. military port in Naha between December 1965 and April 1967.

"Transport ships came in (from the United States) and we would move drums of Agent Orange. We worked 12 hours around the clock until we'd unloaded the ship," he said.

"A lot of the time, when they dropped the barrels in our truck they would leak. I got soaked at least three times and we couldn't do anything because we were driving (the barrels to storage sites) and couldn't shower until we got back to our barracks."

The USS Comet and the SS Transglobe, the most decorated American merchant vessel during the Vietnam War, were two of the ships used to transport Agent Orange to Okinawa, according to Carlson.

Deliveries arrived every two months on average, and 1966 was the busiest time in terms of shipments, he said.