coming up next, boise state university professor lisa brady talks how clinical agents were used in the korean and vietnam wars. u.s. troops began to see v4 and landscapes as an enemy rather than an obstacle. defoliations the missions and the long-term damage. this class is about an hour and 15 minutes. professor brady: ok, so today we will be talking about the wars in korea and vietnam from an environmental history perspective. many of you are aware of how the war progressed. these are important wars in

american history, not only because korea was the "forgotten korea was the first hot war in the cold war, in which the united states really did go to war with communist enemies. in this case, north korea and the volunteer army in china. and because it really does impact our world today. korea is one of our most important allies, trading partners, and so our involvement in korea was a very important moment. vietnam is very important for its role in activism and in getting many of the younger people in the united states involved in politics, involved in protest. and it demonstrates that the united states government is very much influenced by his constituents and responses to it. but we are going to focus on the environment of both these places.

and we are going to start here with korea. so, that means land of the morning calm -- what koreans believe is the phrase that best captures the essence of the peninsula. the war we are going to talk about is the fighting between 1950-1953. the u.s. and allied troops. the war went on much longer than that. it began in 1945 or 1947, when there were capitalism arguments. the war is ongoing. it is only governed by an armistice not a peace treaty. so, those years are only reflective of u.n. involvement in an actual combat situation. the map there is of the korean peninsula.

tigers are very important to the people and their culture, history, tradition. for centuries, koreans had seen their peninsula in the shape of a tiger. that is why i have that map up there, other than a boring political map. here is the more boring political map of the peninsula. i have these appear to show you what the climate is like in korea. again, we are taking the war from an environmental perspective. it is important for us to know what are the types of weather patterns and temperatures and the kinds of conditions that u.s. forces faced when they get over to korea? on the left there, there is the average low temperatures in the heart of winter. they range from at the very tip their, let me see if i can get back, about -4 degrees on

average in that part of north korea. and down here, in the southern areas, it is more about 36. hovering right around freezing on average from december through february. the summer temperatures there are much warmer. it is a climate where you have very cold, very dry in the winter and very hot and subject to monsoons in the summer. ranging from about 64 degrees in the northern parts of korea, all the way to the 80's down here in the southern part. keep in mind, these are averages. averages, and so you can have temperature ranges in the peninsula and along the peninsula anywhere from double digits below zero fahrenheit to triple digits above fahrenheit in the summer. the peninsula itself is about 84,000 square miles total, about the same area as utah. and it is 600 miles in length, and at its narrowest, right where the line is, it is 120 miles in width. it extends out into the marine

and estuary regions outside, the water regions there. and the dmz is about 150 miles total. 70% is mountainous, it is very rugged terrain. we are getting on to talking about military experiences here. so all of this is just leading up to give you a sense of what kind of terrain and climate that u.s. soldiers and marines faced when they were on the ground. 70% of the peninsula is mountainous, about 20% is suitable for agriculture -- most of that is in the south. the mountain today is heavily forested, mixed growth forests. they had been previous to the war, as well. but as i will show you in the pictures, the war devastated the forest. it undermined the stability of the mountainside and graded long-lasting environmental

implications for the peninsula and the people who lived there. now it's location is -- here's a picture of some of the mountains that are there. it's location is at the crossroads of asia. it has three very powerful nations surrounding it, china, russia, japan. all of which had designs on the korean peninsula. but at many points in korean history, it has been the object of conquest. as early as the 16th century between 1592-1597. when the japanese attempt to conquer the peninsula. in 1904, russia and japan fought over control for the resources. that ended with japan getting control over korea, and eventually in 1911, making it an official colony. it has a long history of complex on its territory. and the conflict we will talk

about is 1950-1953, the u.n. war in korea. the next several slides, i does want to demonstrate most of the military activity on the peninsula in part to show how it ranges all the way across. the war officially begins on june 25, 1950 -- when north korean forces move across the dmz. it was a temporary demarcation line at that point, between the northern government and the southern government in the hopes that at some point soon, the korean people would be able to elect a single government. in any case, the army moves past the demarcation line and captures seoul. and moves into south korean

territory. within a few weeks, the north koreans had moved all the way down to what is called the perimeter. they had all but eliminated the south korean army and its ability to retaliate against them. and this is what brings the united nations into the war. september 15, we have operation that you might be for know you're with. this is macarthur's brilliant plan, that rather than pushing entirely by land, but to do it by a marine landing just near seoul. an act as a pincer movement to capture troops in south korea, and force a compromise or a surrender.

they are successful in that. and by october of that year, you have you forces, south korean forces, and other u.n. troops moving up towards the border with china. they move up the river and push the north korean forces all the way to their very northern border. this is moving back and forth across the peninsula in a very rapid pace. lots of devastation in the wake, they have lots of artillery, tanks, aerial bombardments -- in fact, i will read a description of an aerial bombardment later on in the lecture. but it is again important to know that this war was not stationary in its first year. it went back and forth, back and forth. devastation was widespread across the peninsula. so, in 1951, january, you and forces are forced to retreat. that is because chinese forces are now involved in the war. this is not according to china

and official chinese government force. this is the people's volunteer army. many millions of chinese troops who are there to support their communist comrades in north korea, that is how it is described. to enter into the fight. so again, the north koreans and the commonest troops moved back beyond -- and the communist troops moved back and conquer seoul again. in early spring, 1951, we start to see the beginning of stalemate. this happens to be along the same line where the dmz is today. this is an active part of the war.

where you have troops from both sides going back and forth across the line, fighting over hills, outposts, engaging in mountain warfare. it is incredibly difficult and tragic for many of the men involved in the fighting. this is where a lot of them lost their lives here. again, i show the slides this to show how much of the peninsula was affected by the war. and how much of its climate and geography u.s. ground forces encounter. because we are really focused on the u.s. experience here. i'm not going to go into talking about the 70 nations that fought in the war, we're going to focus on the american troops. so as we talked about in this class before, we talked about the principles of war. and one of them is that more on paper, such as these maps and drawings and strategies by the main decision-makers, is not the

same kind of war on the ground. weather and terrain are key elements in any military decision. military historians have not adequately addressed how these things affect the individual, how they affect the landscape of places where the war is fought. they have certainly done a good job of explaining the importance of weather and terrain to warmaking decisions. but we need to look at the environmental perspective to understand ramifications that the conflicts take and have. so many of the soldiers and marines that end up in korea, especially in the first part of the war, they are veterans of world war ii. air combat experienced soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors. they understood what the battle was. and what was expected of them. but when they could not anticipate was what they would face on the ground in korea. most of these men had not heard of it, they did not know where it was. they were not aware of the long-standing political animosity between korea, japan, russia -- all of this is a new

experience for them. certainly the terrain and weather was very different from what they had experienced. for example, master sergeant james hart, who was in the second battalion of the fifth regiment combat team wrote that they went into combat. at the time, i thought i was in good physical condition. but i found out differently. korea is just one hill and mountain after the other. and since we also carried about 80 pounds of equipment, soldiering in korea was pretty exhausting. this is from someone who served in world war ii and was used to battle and the rigors of being a soldier. sergeant albert snyder, who was in the seventh infantry division, noted that "in mid april 1951, two men were seriously injured during the firefight with enemy troops. i was involved in the firefight. but harold and i were assigned

to accompany the soldiers as armed escorts against enemy guerrillas in the area." snyder had to take over when the koreans became too exhausted to carry the wounded men. and he says that the terrain was very rough, and i found the job utterly exhausting. one more here. corporal harold l. matheson said that one thing never changed in korea -- the hills. they all look the same. there was always one more we had to take. this again is especially true when the war becomes a stalemate. and they are fighting over little bits of territory, sometimes just 100 yards apart. enormous trenches, they're going back and forth -- capturing a hill, retaking the hill. it is his constant climbing and going down the hills, fighting

over the mountain tops. and it became incredibly exhausting. letter number two, this is the picture of the mountainous terrain in korea. here is a statement of the kinds of weather that the u.s. soldiers and marines experienced there. whether of course was very important to the experience of the soldiers. in winter, especially early in the war when the troops were not well-supplied, they had to use supplies left over from world war ii. intended for climates and places not like korea. so they had boots that were not appropriate for climbing mountains. or for withstanding deep, deep freezing cold. they also had overcoats and the uniforms were not well suited for cold climate, either. so one soldier -- sorry a marine actually -- private first class

entered korea in march, 1952. in the time of the stalemate. and he said like everyone else who served in korea, i have a lasting memory of the cold. we wore heavy parkas, thermal mickey mouse boots. but he said i could not get warm during the winter months. at the same time, i found the summer heat oppressive. mostly because of the high humidity. in addition to being under fire, in addition to the rigors and problems of combat, they had to deal with these climate issues in korea, as well. he went on to say that during the night, the chinese repeatedly blew their bugles -- he is talking about a wintertime conflict. even when they had no intention of attacking our line, it was one of their gimmicks to make us jumpy. at christmas time of 1952, they

even played christmas carols over the loudspeakers to make us homesick, i presume. we heard silent night and all of the other well-known carols drifting out over no man's land freezing our butts off thousands of miles from home. so unfortunately for them, the carols did not make them feel like they were in a nice, philly place. it made them feel more homesick. it made the climate and the conditions of war that much worse. so one of the most famous battles of the korean conflict, so one of the most famous battles of the korean conflict, especially for u.s. marines, is the reservoir. as the map labels it, chosin. this engagement occurs between november and december of 1950. it is an extremely cold winter that year. and there is just this very

serious engagement here between u.s. troops, u.s. marines and the chinese people volunteer forces. tens of thousands of them engaged against thousands of marines. according to corporal in the seventh marine division who served there at the reservoir, he said that with fighting all around us we remained 70% under watch. at 1:00 that night, we were ordered to move back about 200 yards. this time, we set up 3.5" rockets in the road. we try to dig in again, but the ground was so hard, we had little success. there were firefights everywhere, so they put us on hundred percent watch. somehow, we managed to avoid conflict with the enemy, we sure as hell did not avoid the cold. the thermometer had dropped 30 degrees below zero, a strong wind blowing.

they're in the valley area here, surrounded by mountains. and they are faced by tens of thousands of hostile troops. he recalled as they moved through the area, on their retreat in december, we moved down the hill slowly. slipping and sliding, then we would just walk -- sometimes in snow that came up to our knees. those in the front of the column got the honor of breaking the path for the rest of us. he concluded his memoir with saying that no one had to tell us all serious the situation was. we walked by one place that had three dead chinese soldiers, all frozen to death at their post. we again have a situation terrible in the best of times, when you had enemy troops engaging with you attempting to take over the territories they you control. but you have the added problems of environmental obstacles come of a, the snow, the wind. for supplies, especially in 1950, when the marines did not

have proper winter clothing. the marines withdrew from the coast area, those who came out words were known as the chosin few. which is a nice little play on their motto of the few, the proud. according to alan, the foremost historian of the korean war, the reservoir campaign was a geographic victory for the chinese. nevertheless, the campaign ruined the army group, which did not return to the front until march 1951. and that battle convinced the united nations command that allied ground troops could defeat chinese troops the matter how numerous. this is important moment for history, and the korean war itself. here are the examples of despite the u.n. forces, they could in

fact -- if not be victorious, at least hold at bay numbers of the enemy that are hundreds of times their own. he continues, the chinese remain vague on their losses in the battle. but according to their records and estimates, they put the knife army group casualties in the range of 40,000 to 80,000. wounded plus the deaths and incapacities from the cold. and here is the important point for us. 7,338 to the cold -- almost twice the number of casualties due to climate rather than combat. other losses and metadata some 6000 americans and koreans.

so, korea's climate and terrain, as much an enemy an obstacle as the forces -- the human forces. so i do not want to talk about how nature is an agent in the war. certainly, humans act as agents in the war, as well. and at times, here in the next slide i will show you, they are actually attacking you enemies as well as the landscape itself. and to the landscape becomes part of the strategy, part of the operational tactics they have to obliterate the cover from behind which their enemies can hide and launch attacks. so if korea as a physical entity poses challenges and was as much an enemy as the north korean and chinese forces, along with fellow u.n. troops, u.s. forces left a lasting mark on the landscape. and here is how they do this.

they have these modern technologies, right? they have chemical agents, tanks, artillery, airplanes with massive capacities for carpet bombing. that is what happens in korea. modern weapons of war, the hills, mountains, forests, other medications that led to erosion. which in turn damaged the river and ecosystem and the flooding and instruction of the agricultural lands. which remember, is only about 20% of the peninsula, itself. so huge amounts of food have to come from very small amounts of land. and so any kind of destruction, temporary or permanent, is going to have an impact on the ability of civilians to maintain any kind of stable lifestyle during the conflict, or after it. as well as getting food for the truth.

-- troops. not all came from rations, it came from the land, as well. so the next several slides provide some illustrations of this. this picture here is of a white phosphorus attack, a chemical agent that when it comes into contact with the air, it becomes fire. it basically catches on fire. and anything it touches also becomes engulfed in flames, that includes vegetation, and of course human beings. and certainly there were many chinese and north korean's who were afflicted by white phosphorus in these kinds of attacks. napalm was also used widely to clear forest areas, vegetation, foliage, so the enemy cannot hide. they had less cover. aerial bombing, this was probably the most widespread agent of destruction in the

korean war. this image here is a post-bombing reconnaissance picture. and here -- sorry, wrong button. here, you see a mountain ridge, that white area there. these are streams or estuaries, not estuaries, but streams are flooded areas along the rivers. and the rice paddoes that have been flooded. all of the white pock marks have been dropped from the plane. widespread destruction, that is one very small area, you can see the amount of damage. and when the mountains are pretty high, they have these pock marks that take away the soil and the trees, and when they are up against the rivers,

they become saturated with the runoff from the mountains. and this creates serious problems for agriculture, forgetting clean water, and of course for the fish and other animals that live in the streams. this is just one picture of the mountains, the artillery ordinances use in the war. i don't know if you can see them. but right there, are three u.s. soldiers. you get a sense of the scale of the massive amounts. all of that artillery and ordinance harmed the landscape. here you can see the trees utterly shattered from both artillery and aerial bombing. i will read a fairly extensive quote here. by an airman who actually witnessed one of the nighttime

bombings of the green landscape. this comes from captain john thornton, a u.s. army helicopter pilot, who on april 19, 1951 witness a nighttime attack. he was a prisoner war. "suddenly, as if on cue, the nearby hills were brilliantly illuminated by flares from the night bombing. the cast spooky shadows and dancing forms across the rugged terrain. then, like mythical griffins, flying above the flares, hidden men and fire machines and rockets. tumbling napalm canisters fell from the planes like loose parts. splattering across the ground, they lit up the hills with an even greater intensity. the attacking fighters were met by tracer rounds sparking sideways from an aircraft that

groped like targets and i. as the dying flares diminished on the parachutes and flickered out, the beleaguered mountains retreated momentarily into the safety of darkness. their existence revealed only by the open wounds burning on their slopes." yes, michael? michael: were they able to recycle the shells? or was it just waste at this point that they had left over? lisa: good question. they were not just waste. they would be recycled into an variety of different uses. it depended on who actually got control of them. how they were used, but the u.s. army would actually just recycle them. yes. please, michaela. michaela: how are the white phosphorus attacks carried out? lisa: it was put into canister but they were shot -- honestly i

do not know if it was from handheld guns or tank artillery. i would have to check on that. anyways on their shot into canisters and when the land, they would break open. the white phosphorus would come out and essentially explode. >> i read a small article, that it also caused blindness. the after effect from the phosphorus after it burns -- lisa: so the question is does white phosphorus cause blindness by explosion, flare, or reaction? i actually do not know. my guess it would be the flash, or more likely from the burning actually. that the eyes were burned or affected by the heat that it

generated. brittany? brittany: a lot of these were using vietnam. so why is it that all of this environmental stuff happened in vietnam and not korea? lisa: a great question. if you do not mind, i will answer it in a few slides. maybe two or slides in. it would be a perfect segue. ask a little bit later. these were also used in world war ii. not the first time these kinds of chemical agents were used in war, but we will talk about why vietnam becomes such a flashpoint for protests against them. ok, to the couple more pictures to give you the sense of the landscape damage. to korea by these just three years -- right?

well, three years on the calendar. four years by month of fighting. here's a picture of old baldy. on the main line of resistance, where the line exist. -- dmz currently exists. it earns his name from lieutenant belton woods, because of the heavy fighting, all of vegetation was destroyed. it had been covered in forest and scrub. now it looks like this. in 1953, private first class james davis said that most of the fighting took place on outposts -- ugly, treeless hills located well in front of the mainline. while the communists lost a lot of men trying to defend them, we lost a lot of men. this was a kind of territory they were fighting in. and here is a picture of the mainline a resistance, the mlr.

the 38th parallel, this is a picture of colombian troops. you can see their trenches cut along, and this was where the men would take cover as shells and artillery would be coming in. now, this looks fairly dry now. but remember, korea has monsoonal season. in the spring and summer it rains buckets. so these would be filled with rain and mud, it is very slippery. there on very steep slopes. that is a big danger for men who are positioned on the mainline of resistance.

ok, let's talk about the casualties of war. then we will get to brittany's question. most of you have probably heard about 54,000 four korea. but about 10 years ago, the pentagon came out and said 54,000 is the total number of casualties of all servicemen worldwide. just like if you're in the service during a conflict, you become a veteran of the war whether or not you actually served in the war. that is where those numbers come from. it is looking at the war and the serviceman who were wounded or killed during the war in service to the united states. to the actual casualties --yes, rob? rob: i'm question on the trenches. when you said they filled up, that means mosquitoes. was ddt the main use for that? lisa: so ddt was still for abatement and lice. much of korea at this time was

very agricultural. it would be little hamlets, houses do not have running water. they do not have the infrastructure to support any kind of hygiene. they would go into rivers and streams and lakes. things like that, but only when they found them. ddt would've been one of the major tools to fight the infestations they would have faced. that, and smoke. using fires as a way to get mosquitoes away from you. that was one of their tools and strategies. casualties, u.s. deaths, 92,000 wounded.

a total of 128,650. they sound like very specific and accurate numbers. but of course, there is always a bit of uncertainty when it comes to the actual numbers of dead and wounded because we can keep good records. -- can't always keep very good records. that is just the united states. south korea, there were 217,000 casualties approximately. and at least a million civilian casualties, missing and wounded. north koreans, about 600,000 civilians according to their record. and the chinese suffered in the korean war. of course, while this is definitely a human tragedy, war

always is, there are other casualties as well. as i try to demonstrate in the last several slides. the landscape was a casualty. if suffered tremendously during the war. forests, rivers, lakes, streams, all sorts of natural landscapes were affected by the combat. the infrastructure, what there was, was utterly decimated. that means sewers, no running water. all of these things are going to contribute to post-war disease, malnutrition, the agricultural lands were also affected. so, now i am going to turn to vietnam. so we can talk about a contrasting experience for u.s. serviceman. they certainly are is a different geography and climate. but here is where we have an

answer to the question as to the actual strategy of attacking the landscape, especially through the use of chemical agents. so while most of these instances in korea were tactical uses of chemical agents to enhance the u.s. force ability to identify and view their enemy, it was not a strategy. it was not a large-scale strategy. it is in vietnam where we see the strategy of using chemical defoliants come into place. that difference of scale and the use of this particular chemical, agent orange and the other rainbow agents, really generates an outcry among scientists and civilians back in the united states. that is where we have a difference. yes, victor? victor:: weapons and warfare --

lisa: 1925 is the geneva convention. victor: how are they used justifiably by the u.n.? lisa: the question is, how does the united states get around the geneva convention? we do not sign it until 1975. we were not under the restrictions, even though it was actually u.s. citizens and congressman who wanted to put the geneva protocol into place. in response to the problems of world war i and the use of mustard gas and other chemical weapons. during that war, that is the other key element of this. weapons versus agents -- you notice i have been very careful to call chemical agents, not weapons. weapons are nerve gas, mustard gas used against human

personnel. chemical agents are used against non-human aspects in the strategy. and so it is against nature not against humans, that is how we get around using those kinds of things. but during vietnam, it was not an issue because we were not a signatory to the protocol of the geneva convention. brittany: how does using the agents make a winning strategy when there is not like a clear definition of gaining territory or fighting for territory won or lost? lisa: the idea behind the use of defoliants in vietnam is that that jungle right there is an easy place for the enemy to hide. right? so if you can get rid of the jungle, the enemy has to come out and face you on the battlefield.

so it is not necessarily gaining control over territory, but it is denying cover to your enemy troops. yeah, and i will talk a bit about that in just a moment, as well. you are always anticipating me. that is good. and i will talk about the geneva convention, too. you guys have great questions. this is a map here of vietnam. it is this long, thin sort of s-shaped nation here. often described as a descending dragon. there is a bay here that is called the sending dragon bay -- descending dragon bay. dropping all these gems, pearls in the bay. that is why you get these lovely

outcroppings in the water. but the nation itself, you can see it. right? i think it is a lovely idea to think of it as a dragon. what i want to focus on here is less on the soldier experience and more on the shift in strategy by the u.s. to see the environment itself as the enemy, not just as an obstacle, but as the enemy. and as cover for the enemy. i do want to show a picture here of u.s. soldiers here and north vietnamese soldiers here in a very similar landscape. these are pictures from the ho chi minh trail. u.s. soldiers are trying to destroy the ho chi minh trail and flush out the north vietnamese. enemies there, these are north vietnamese troops who are using the trail as their supply line.

and, you know, it is the same conditions. clearly, they do not have the same experiences in them. the north vietnamese are very clearly familiar with the terrain, the jungles, how to deal with the weather and the water in the region. and the u.s. soldiers simply are not. they do not get the kind of training. and most of them are not there long enough to get experience with it. most of them had one year course of duty. -- one year tours of duty. the ho chi minh trail was a series of trails that was used by the north vietnamese and the viet cong as a way of supplying their allies in the south. and it was really considered to be this amazing feat of engineering, because it is carved out of a serious jungle terrain. and as i say the greatest feat of military engineering of the 20th century, this was not done with mechanized vehicle.

this was done a lot of it with cut down and created by hand. so the ho chi minh trail becomes a priority for u.s. forces. what they wanted to do was make it unusable. so they attempted to destroy the trail by a variety of means. first, was to create storm clouds through silver iodine. try to wash out the road, because also goes through rugged terrain. they thought they could wash out the area, the viet cong could not get their supplies down the ho chi minh trail to the south. that did not work very well. as you might imagine. they also tried to use what was called a chemical soak. they would get big huge burlap bags of the agent and drop it along the trail, wait for

natural rain to come and create this mess that they hoped would wash out the trail. the viet cong and the north vietnamese were pretty hip to the fact that was going on, and they would scoop up the chemical agent and move it away. it was not an issue. these kinds of things could not create allies in order to get rid of the trail. so what do they turn to? they turn to bombs there and agent orange and a lot of other places in vietnam. here is one report, an official report, on the operation that would come to be known as operation ranch hand. "south vietnam is covered with dense forest. utilization of concealment has afforded great energy.

from the outset therefore has been difficulty of locating the enemy, without information about the disposition, allied forces cannot support firepower. -- exploit their superior firepower. it is for way by which allied forces obtain facilities and the sites of infiltration route." back to the point i made earlier, this is the use of agent orange and other defoiliants to get them out of the mangroves and engage in military combat. ok, agent orange was that the -- not the only way that the u.s. forces helped denude the landscape. it is estimated that about 60%

of the forests were destroyed or seriously damaged by the war. and this is an example here, you can see the crater here -- those are bomb craters, artillery craters. according to geographers, although bombardments were heavily utilized in the war, aerial bombardment inflicted damage to the forest on a scale never before congress. much of the damage inflicted on the forests, through the highly explosive shrapnel, was the same as seen in previous wars. bombs destroy vegetations outright. it left it impregnated with shrapnel. u.s. air force bombers in the war practiced carpet bombing. in which b-52 bombers would fly over and lay over a blanket of bombs into an area thought be occupied by enemy forces.

the b-52 bombers left wide swaths of craters. here are some of them. typically they consisted of 3-12 aircraft, is caring 108 500-pound bombs. it saturated an area with bombs approximately half a kilometer wide and 1000 meters wide. conservative estimates place the number of craters left behind from the missions at about 26 million. those are the craters. by comparison with the previous wars of the 20th century, during world war ii, a total of 2 million or drop in all theaters of the war. in korea, the total munitions were one million tons. between 1965-1971, the u.s.

dropped over 14 million tons of munitions. this was one of the effects of that. so let's get on to operation ranch hand. this is a video that i'm going to show you here. of u.s. servicemen using agent orange. and i have to get it at the right point. otherwise, the first part might make you motion sick. and i also have to press play. sorry. [industrial noise] lisa: there you can see the effects of agent orange. canessor brady: there you

see the immediate effects of agent orange.

lisa: there you can see the -- yes, michael? michael: how quickly did it take affect? when they shot it out there, it did not look like it was instantly killing stuff. professor brady how it works is : it essentially gets into the leaf, onto the leaves of the mangroves. of the grasses around there, and it goes into the root system and kills it from within. it is not an instant effect. but it is a long-lessing kind of effect. it kills a plant from within. yes, scott? scott: i noticed you show the killing of the foliage, but yet, firemen were right, they were having problems with being shot

at by viet cong moving along at different rates of speed. that foliage may be dead, but it is still there. wouldn't the use of fire or napalm be more effective? in the sense of clearing the actual landscape? professor brady i will show you : pictures later. but, yes, it was an incredibly difficult mission. but it was a fairly safe one. they do not have enemies firing on them. many were charged with deploying agent orange in this manner were of course shot at because the enemies were along the riverbank. michaela: you can see getting in the water, how it affect the animals? and they were being shot at, house affecting humans might have landed on?

lisa: you noticed they had no protective covering. the soldiers sprang the agent orange and a protective covering. so agent orange is a topical toxin. if you're exposed to it, you're going to have long-term health effects. it would not be an immediate reaction, however. most of the men who were spraying the agent orange did not know they were getting themselves into serious health trouble thereon. -- later on. in terms of getting in the water, that is excellent point. agent orange is not water soluble. it remains in the water. it only degrades by sunlight. basically, the only thing is sunlight. so when he gets in the water, it stays in the water and you can ingest it -- animals can ingest it and get into the food system. and there are numerous studies that indicate that the systems -- the persistence of agent

orange in hotspots all around vietnam or where it was stored for future deployment have resulted in serious genetic and birth defects for the people who were exposed to it for longer time. cancers other kinds of internal -- cancers, other kinds of internal diseases are connected to it, as well. and of course, the civilians. and the enemy troops that were also -- it is a terrible, awful toxin. that is a great herbicide, but it is persistent. it has long-lasting human effects. operation ranch hand begins in earnest in 1963. that is when it is ramped up. initially, it was an attempt to create vegetation-free buffer

zones around military bases. as a defensive kind of use, and along transportation routes, but it soon developed into a battlefield tactic. aimed at guerrilla fighters come as we have been talking about. throughout the vietnemese countryside. i will turn to joseph again. he has written extensively on this. he says, the vietnam differed from previous wars because the destruction of key components of the country's key environment became a deliberate military strategy. in world war i and ii, the damage inflicted was incidental. and that the damage was a side

effect of the intention to eliminate enemy forces. in vietnam, a major portion of the u.s. war effort was the elimination of forests. deforestation of the dance, forest was toical eliminate cover for enemy troops. to create landing strips for aircraft to establish landing zones are troops to point helicopter. so does that answer your question? good. here is another way it was deployed. arial spraying. and more than tripled, jumping from 230,000 acres in 1965 to 840,000 and doubled again to 1.7 million acres in 1967. after spring 1.3 million acres in 1968, ranch hand began to

taper off. and it ceased in december of 1970. so as i mentioned, agent orange is not water soluble. it degrades in sunlight, a clings to soil particles, so even if it was contained in one place during the war, if it was left there as much of it was in the years just after the fighting, it would get into the soil and spread to the rain. you have a larger infected area. contamination in the soil of industrialized nations, this is

just to give you a comparison, is less than 12 parts per trillion. in vietnam, researchers found levels of two 365,000 parts per trillion. 262,000 parts per trillion on the base, and former storage areas as well. hundreds of thousands of times larger than what you normally find in an industrialized nation. the epa and a variety of international groups are tempting to clean up hot spots. and they have been doing that since 2003. but obviously, this is an enormous problem and will likely not be solved anytime soon. so to your question, scott, these are pictures of defoliant areas. when you think about the kinds of vegetation it was sprayed on, if it is a dense and scrubby vegetation, you will still have the branches and may be that can be used as cover. but a lot of the foliage is palm trees. so if you eliminate that, this comes to your question about how effective it was. against snipers.

the idea that it would reduce the vulnerability of ambush, and also intend to force them into open battle, was of course wrong. it did not happen. many of the men who were employed in this operation were shut down or shot at in more heavily forest areas. the idea of course was to destroy the environment, bring the enemy out into the open, fight the war the way it is meant to be far. not behind the cover of the jungle, but out on the battlefield. this was not a useful tactic however in the end. it was not successful. one of the major targets of

agent orange were mangroves. this is a picture of a man growth today in vietnam. before 1943, there were about 250,000 hectares of mangrove forest. a section was severely devastated by toxic chemicals during the war. the tremendous consequences of the disc breast the destruction of man growth -- of the the structure and of the man growth -- just some scientific studies recently. 86% of villages affected by agent orange were sprayed more than two times in 11% of those villages, 2600, maybe about 3000, were sprayed 10 times with agent orange. most of the defoliation campaign

focused on the man growth forests --mangrove forests and the two most affected were outside of saigon and -- so, a wide swath of destruction with agent orange. here is an area targeted by agent orange before and after. so, it not only destroys the trees. it can lead to the calcification of the soil depending on what kind of soil type it is or the lateralization of the soil, meaning that it becomes infertile. so it's long-term impact for many of the areas affected by agent orange. so, victor, to your question about the protocol -- that was signed by all european powers, but the united states did not sign. in part because of a powerful lobbying effort by the u.s.

armed forces that did not want to lose a potential weapon or means of defense and the chemical industry. so you had to major groups working against the signing of the geneva protocol. the u.s. failed to ratify it, even though it was one of its original proponents. and in 1966, the u.s. claimed it did not use chemical weapons in vietnam. it instead used chemical agents, and not against personnel. so, they are not weapons if they are not anti-personnel, used for anti-personnel purposes. the u.s. used chemical agents including napalm and phosphorus in world war ii and in korea, they flushed out enemy bunkers, but began using herbicides in vietnam to clear out around basis as a defensive measure. they were always careful to call it a chemical agent.

in response to united states actions in vietnam, and its failure to ratify the protocol, the u.n. refined its definition to include any chemical agent used during warfare that may be toxic to man, animal, or plants. this is where we get the idea of ecocide. the u.n. debated the parameters of the geneva article. scientists in the united states and elsewhere began organizing themselves and other sympathetic people to their view of the use

of chemical agents in war as ecocide. so, it is the destruction, the murder of ecosystems, which they rightly claim have larger human impacts. arthur galston, who was a plant biologist at yale, coined the term. basically said if you are separating an organism from the way they interact with the natural world, you are participating in their death. they protested the war, not only on humanitarian grounds, but it was problematic from a humanistic point of view. he argued that science has been co-opted by the government and the defense department for too long and it was time for science to work for good. not to create things like agent

orange, but things that would better humanity. the american association for the advancement of science sent a-team in august 1970 two vietnam to study the effects of operation ran hand -- ranchland. they found that herbicidal spraying had utterly destroyed fully half of vietnam's mangrove forests and had done irreparable harm to its tropical hardwood forest, and as a result, they were being replaced by invasive bamboo and grasses. the widespread tree kill created soil erosion and nutrient dumping. i failed to mention -- it was not just against forests, but rice patties. eventually operation ranch hand

targeted agricultural regions to deny food to the enemy. operation ranch hand was a failure according to david wheeler, because military planners were unable to distinguish conclusively between areas under civilian control and areas under guerrilla control. in essence, they were killing their own allies in order to hopefully undermine support for their enemy. the result of all of this and the use of such compounds and the increasing call for their eliminations from the american arsenal. the u.s. finally ratifies the geneva protocol with the provision that the united states could still use riot control agents in humanitarian situations and herbicides around basis for defensive purposes. in 1977, all of the remaining agent orange stock was destroyed on jonathan a toll. basically it was collected from centers around the world, u.s.

military bases, taken out into the middle of the south pacific, where this is actually a picture of one that is used in another operation, which was intended to incinerate all of agent orange. these operations were all overseen by epa agents. it was not just the u.s. military in charge of this. epa had to oversee this. and they had to do this out in the pacific because they had to have high enough, hot enough fires to incinerate the agent down to a non-toxic compound. that is again a picture of the operation. so, this is probably been pretty depressing in terms of the long-lasting environmental and humanitarian legacy of operation ranch hand.

there is a little bit of hope in terms of the vietnamese responses to the problems they inherited. in 1988, ho chi minh city created a state run enterprise hoping to rehabilitate their mangrove forests. they also established state owned farms to ease a urban pressures. unfortunately, each of these experiments failed and in 1989, illegal logging cleared most of the remaining forest in the area around ho chi minh city. to remediate that problem, the state returns the land to the

city and the city established a forest protection and environmental management board, which gave swaths of forest to local families to manage them. these efforts have been successful and unesco recognized the mangrove as a man and biosphere reserve. so, it has recovered to a significant extent. local families now have electricity, adequate clean water, quality fisheries, and sustainable timber. they also have a thriving ecotourism industry. not to paint the war as, well, look, isn't it great that this came out of that? but if there is going to be a green lining or a silver lining, at least the local communities have been able to prosper on land once destroyed by agent orange. another point to this is while the use of chemical defoliants was certainly a terrible thing, the radicalization of scientists and students raised awareness of serious problems associated with

chemical agents and other chemical agents' effects on humans and nonhuman nature, thus contributing to the growth of the modern environmental movement. many of the changes we have seen since vietnam have been in part cause of the tragedy of it and -- tragedy of agent orange. i will leave you with a few parting thoughts here. i think we do need to take a close look at nature within the context of war because it does provide new insight into the way the human conflicts depend upon and materially affect landscapes and environment. nature is as much of a constant enemy or obstacle to those who are fighting as illustrated by the voices from the korean and vietnam wars. and absolutely, war is a human tragedy read we cannot deny that.

but it can also be catastrophic for nonhuman nature, but i would also add it gets people thinking about the problems humans create for themselves and for the environment and might actually generate positive change in the long run. are there any final questions or comments? yes? >> what you said about battling nature, it is a constant battle, even on the homefront. something as simple as weed eating your lawn. i know that is silly. man comes in and says, i've got to get that out of my way using whatever means possible and what's again they want to fall back on nature to reclaim it health, to correct the problem. we have seen this in other

wars, too, with forests and what have you. it is a constant battle and it's forever going on. professor brady: it is, it is. i think that is an excellent point, scott. humans, for millennia, have tried to control nature. nature has a certain resilience even in the face of something like operation ranch hand, even white phosphorus in napalm and the strafing of bombs and artillery. and that is the focus of environmental history. that is the purpose of our studying it, to a that nature has an effect on our human history. ok. well, that is the end of class today. so, i will see you next week. thank you very much. if you have questions, feel free to, and talk with me. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >>