♪ ♪ april 30th, 1975. saigon, the capital city of south vietnam, falls. the 15-year-long vietnam war comes to an end.

now, 40 years later, economic reforms have brought remarkable development to vietnam. it's a young vibrant country. less than half the population experienced the war, but many vietnamese still bear the scars. [ speaking foreign language ] ' . agent orange is a chemical defol yapt. the united states and south vietnamese armies sprayed large

quantities over the jungle. their aim was to strip the trees bare. without cover, enemy soldiers couldn't carry out attacks. agent orange contains dieoxin, a substance toxic to the human body. this family has been suffering from the effects for three generations. t imt et is a former soldier who was exposed to agent orange on the battlefield. soon after being discharged, he began experiencing live and kidney problems. he's been on daily medications ever since. his son started suffering joint problems at the age of 6 and eventually lost the use of his hands and feet. >> translator: i had a sickness. none of the people around me wanted anything to do with me. i felt like a pariah.

the family facesa i -- a new ordeal. >> translator: my grandson is not well. i'm worried sick. the doctor says something is wrong with my grandson. >> from parent to child, to grandchild. in this program, we examine the ongoing effects of agent orange. ♪ ♪ >> tam sun, west hanoi. home to a medical facility that treats victims of agent orange. established in 1991 by a german ngo, it's now operated by hanoi

city. this facility focuses on helping children. those with especially severe symptoms are allowed to stay for treatment and rehabilitation. more than 130 children live in the village. this pediatrician is the director. she's treated children suffering the effects of agent orange for 14 years. >> translator: his fingers are bent, so we massage them, to stretch them out. massaging the fingers, one by one, helps the blood to flow. this gets circulation going and keeps the fingers from stiffening.

this child has cerebral palsy. he's afflicted with physical and mental disabilities. agent orange causes deformation and abnormalities in many parts of the body. that includes the heart and other internal organs. >> at the village, a variety of rehabilitation activities is used to restore bodily functions. weaving is one such activity. >> translator: the overall pattern is becoming irregular. if you adjust the weave little bit, it will look much better. >> the instructor is dao dang song, 32. >> translator: he has memory problems, and that makes it hard to learn a new skill.

i give him simple step-by-step instructions. taking things one step at a time buildings thinking skills. in that way, we can gradually help him to make progress and overcome his disability. >> song is himself a victim of agent orange. he came to live at the village when he was 9 years old and stayed 15 years. extensive joint damage limits his mobility. there was a time he could barely move his hands and feet. he still works at the loom every day. part of his ongoing rehabilitation. this is song's family home. they run a small grocery store.

his father dao dang thiet is 63. barely in his 20s, he was drafted by the north vietnamese army and sent to war. thiet showed us a photograph. >> translator: these are my friends. we were all soldiers. this is me. we were all called up at the same time. one was assigned to the quarter master. and three of us, including me, were sent to the battlefield. >> that battlefield was in south vietnam. thiet and his friends marched along the ho chi minh trail to get there. they staged attacks against the enemy, using the jungle as

cover. >> translator: our unit was directly sprayed with agent orange. they were spraying above our heads. we could hardly breathe, so we pressed wet towels against our noses. we completely lost our sense of smell. he were shrouded in black smoke. everything smelled the same. it was suffocating. several days later, thiet was ordered back to the area on a recon mission. he could not believe what he saw. >> translator: there wasn't a single leaf anywhere. it gave us chills. we looked at one another and wondered out loud, what did they spray that could do this?

no one knew what it was. we didn't know it was poison. we had no idea that the united states was spraying a toxin. >> when the vietnam war ended in 1975, thiet left the army and returned to hanoi. almost immediately his health started failing. at the hospital, he was diagnosed with hepatitis b, hepatitis c, as well as kidney disease. he has been taking medications for those conditions ever since. >> translator: i suspected that agent orange might be the cause. at the time, though, no one talked about it. the doctors at the hospital wouldn't tell me anything either. >> later, he began hearing from

soldiers he fought alongside. they told him of children born without eyes. infants with severe mental retardation. thiet too was not spared. >> translator: six years after the end of the war, i was blessed with a daughter. song's elder sister. she never walked or spoke, even as she grew older. no one knew why. people told us she was just unlucky. she was never even a meter tall. her feet were only this big. she died when she was 8, just two days before the vietnamese new year. just the day before, we bathed

her like we always did, but the very next day, she was gone. no one thought she was going to die. my daughter died with tears in her eyes, without ever once speaking a word. >> there would be even more miss fortune. that same year, something began to go around with song's body. >> translator: when i got up in the morning, everything suddenly went black and i collapsed. my parents carried me onto the bed, thinking i had caught a bad cold. my joints began swelling up. >> 6-year-old song had been

stricken by a disease known as aconned row playsia. this condition interferes with bone growth, resulting in short limbs and other complications. song suffered excruciating pain in his joints. soon he couldn't walk. >> translator: song's fingers began to curl and lock in place. i put him on a wagon and took him to get herbal medicines, but none of the medicines had any effect at all. it was a very difficult time. >> translator: none of my friends would play with me, because my body wasn't normal. i had a sickness. nobody around me wanted anything to do with me. i felt like a pariah.

i had no idea what was causing it. i began shutting myself away at home. >> in 1980, five years after the war ended, the vietnam government ordered surveys of the soil where agent orange had been sprayed. experts also tested people living in these areas to find out residual dieoxin levels in their bodies. although it was well known that children were being born with severe birth defects, there were hardly any medical facilities to treat them. a non-governmental organization based in germany stepped forward to answer this need. in 1991, eight peace villages

opened across vietnam. thiet brought his son to the village in hanoi. for the first time, a doctor diagnosed song's disability as resulting from thiet's exposure to agent orange. song moved from his home to the peace village to begin treatment and rehabilitation. >> translator: when rehabilitation began, the pain was unbearable. it felt like 100 -- a thousand needles were being stuck into my joints. every day i took medicines to ease the pain. >> translator: when he first arrived, song had damage to every single joint in his body. he could hardly walk. but he listened to his doctors

and instructors. with the staff pushing him on, he worked hard to recover, amazingly hard. >> this is the room where song underwent therapies. the muscle in the boy's one arm and both legs have become stiff. he can't get up on his knees or even crawl. we're hoping that he'll become able to walk. >> the children perform exercises to restore mobility and function, shadowed by their therapists every step of the way. song continued his rehabilitation for eight years. eventually he was able to walk with the help of a cane.

at the peace village school, song studied vietnamese and mathematics. as a boy, he had shut himself away. the peace village healed more than his body. it healed his mind. >> translator: it doesn't matter what your body is like. just being born is a blessing. we have to accept what we have. blaming others won't make your body or your life any better. when i realized that, i decided to study harder and find something i could do. i kept setting myself new goals. >> when the village started a personal computer class, song

was first in line. he learned how to set up and repair pcs. [ speaking foreign language ] >> in 2007, the peace village put song on the payroll. he was hired to manage computers and teach weaving. around that time, a relative came, calling with important news. a marriage proposal. the prospective breads was vu thi mu. >> who was four years older than song. >> i told her up front about my condition, the very first time we met. i said, if you're okay with the way i am, let's live our lives

together. >> translator: i stayed awake all that night thinking about it. his body was weak, but he was fully trained. and life is about overcoming obstacles. if we work together, i felt we could make it. song and vu married. song left the peace village to live with his wife at his parents' home. one year after their wedding, they had their first child. they named their first-born son vu. when he learned his wife was pregnant, song says he became very anxious. >> translator: the emotions were more sadness than happiness. i was terribly worried. i didn't know what my child would be like. >> translator: i had repeated

ultrasounds done. we were worried our child would inherit the condition. the doctors kept reassuring us there was nothing wrong. >> vu was born a healthy baby. >> translator: when we go for walks, we get kidded about looking like brothers. he's almost my height now. what do you think? are we brothers? >> yeah. >> really? you think so? gosh. i was overjoyed to have a new member of the family. the future looked hopeful and bright. i was watching my son grow up and i decided to work harder. he gave me another goal to

strive for. >> six years later, they had a second child. they named their second son lik. lik was born with a severe liver defect. doctors diagnosed him with hepatitis b and c, the same diseases that afflicted his grandfather thiet. lik has been hospitalized repeatedly. >> translator: he spends more time in the hospital than he has at home. there were times when i thought it was hopeless. my grandson is not well. i'm worried sick. the doctors says something is wrong with my grandson. >> lik takes antibiotics twice a day to build up his immunity.

>> translator: take this water, okay? who's gonna take it? lik. that's right, lik is. >> the medications are working. for now, lik's condition is stable. but to stay healthy, he'll have to keep taking them. twice every month, song goes to the neighborhood pharmacy to buy lik's medicines. he is spending $15 a month. that's roughly 20% of song's monthly wage.

>> translator: i suspect lik's illness is due to agent orange. but we don't have the means to determine that ourselves. >> thus far, some 300,000 people have been acknowledged as victims of agent orange by the vietnamese government. a support group for these people says it's now receiving many reports of third generation cases. sufferers who are not currently recognized by the government. >> translator: 40 years have passed since the end of the war. today victims of agent orange include not only the first generation parents and their children but their grandchildren as well. so it is affecting the second and third generation. in addition to that, there are even reports of suspected

effects among the fourth generation. as for the third generation, no adequate studies have been done. but we estimate there could be 70 to 80,000 victims. >> from the beginning, the peace village has focused on the treatment and rehabilitation of second generation children. it began accepting third generation victims several years ago. at present, there are ten of these children living in the village. they have physical and mental disabilities. >> translator: years of research have proven that agent orange alters the genes which pass on effects from one generation to the next. third generation children are now showing the effects.

i want to make a plea to people of good conscience all around share the pain of these children who are suffering from the effects of agent orange. i urge all of you to help these children in any way you can. on this day, song is bringing his eldest son zoo along on a shopping errand. their destination, the bakery. today is vu's birthday. they've come to buy a cake. >> translator: this one with the do might be nice. you were born in the year of the

dog. pick a cake and we'll have them put a dog on top. >> translator: this one. >> translator: okay, we'll take this one. >> they have vu's name written on the cake. vu is not showing any signs of effects from agent orange, but for song, the worries never cease. >> translator: what if my eldest son began to show symptoms like mine? i've given a lot of thought to what i would do if this happens. as long as vu has no brain damage, i'll have him learn a trade. that way, he will be able to support himself. if that's not possible, i will work even harder to support him.

i will leave him all the money i can save. [ singing happy birthday ] >> it's vu's birthday party and he's surrounded by relatives. but lik seems to be having the most fun. grandfather thiet, father song, in their hearts, they share one hope. >> translator: our wish is that the two children will be happy

and healthy. the war has already ended. but for me and the other affected people, the war will be with us forever. i have one request i'd like to ask of everyone. please don't ever think that war is necessary. we had to live through much unhappiness. i don't wish what we experienced to happen to anyone else. >> it's been 40 years since the vietnam war ended, but not for this family. for them and the thousands of other victims of agent orange, the battles go on.

. welcome to newsline. it is thursday, january 28th chtd i'm catherine in tokyo have attended a state banquet in manila held in their honor. the philippines president spoke at the start of the dinner. >> translator: it is a great honor for our people to host the imagine esty indeed emphasizes the depth of the friendship between our two nations. >> akin na also said he had solidarity between the two countries, shared prosperity for generations to