my parents really truly honestly believe that what had happened was as a result of my father's exposure to agent orange i was born with multiple problems . i was missing my leg and my fingers and my big toe on my right foot i use my hands a lot in my artwork i find myself drawing my hands quite a bit to me for my hands you know just as if anyone would. but they do tell a story they tell a story of. oxen. you

know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew. i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. download the official application to the sofa choose your language stream quality and enjoy your favorites from alzheimer's t.v. is not required to watch on t.v.

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dow chemical company in midland michigan. seventy two million liters of defoliants sprayed by the us military over south vietnam beginning in one nine hundred sixty one one manufactured and sold by american chemical companies including dow monsanto and diamond shamrock. at that time vietnam was divided into north and south the us supported the government of south vietnam and military intervention intensified after nine hundred sixty five. but the us made strong resistance from guerrilla forces who used dense jungle as their base of operations. defoliant spraying was begun in an effort to deny cover to the guerrillas by eliminating the jungle falling which. as

the war escalated the spraying of deval and increased dramatically and much of the land in south vietnam was contaminated and left barren. the defoliant known as agent orange was made from the same chemical substances as herbicides used in the us but it was twenty five times more potent. agent orange also contained dioxin the most toxic chemical ever produced. dioxin remains in the environment for many decades and causes a variety of health problems. several million vietnamese and american soldiers who fought in vietnam were affected by agent orange. their children and grandchildren continue to suffer the affects. dioxin remains in the soil of vietnam today and the land has yet to recover.

by my i mean that i train one nine hundred sixty six and sixty eight a lot of chemical was sprayed into aung sun mountains and along the border with laos all. that they did i get it for them the hills were covered with large trees that yeah i did thank. all those. that want it here after the chemicals were sprayed all the trees died from truong song to quelling tree now for one thing i've been going out on not me not me we used to have many precious animals in this area we have a little bit you know if you actually go out. you know oh my

god there were elephants and tigers and bears and lions i want to bet that if they didn't make it about on my back i but that got the idea to go they were precious birds including peacocks in order to lay out. the much how i want to be they were all destroyed by the war not only by bombs but by chemicals. in vietnam agent orange was only sprayed in the south but there are many think tim's in the north as well as they were exposed in the jungles of the south while fighting in the north vietnamese army. after serving in the war these veterans began to develop cancer diabetes and other illnesses many of their children were born with health problems and the effects have carried over into the third

generation. it's a myth that. i have six sons and a daughter right here my daughter has trouble with her eyes. she has six fingers if i. know. this is the youngest son he is mentally disabled. right the one of the grandsons has problems with nerves and breathing down the other grandson has skin disease. all the way why when i fought in the south i saw chemicals being sprayed from airplanes overhead. i became blind when i was two.

since then my life has been very hard. i am now twenty eight and life is dark and difficult i hope that this aside will take care of me and that i will be able to see again. the midwestern town of can feel how high i. remember heather belzer the daughter of a vietnam veteran who lives in this small town with her husband aaron and two sons . my father bill morris was in vietnam in one nine hundred sixty eight through one nine hundred sixty nine he was in long binh. and he would also go

out on convoy i was born in one nine hundred seventy two. my mother actually had two miscarriages prior to me my birth experience was pretty traumatic for her because i was born with multiple problems. and i was missing my leg and my fingers and my big toe on my right foot and my mother said that there was a gasp everyone was shocked and all she saw was the. oxygen mask or whatever to kind of knock her out my parents really truly honestly believe that what had happened was as a result of my father's exposure to agent orange in vietnam and so that's when my parents started pushing and trying to get the word out so i was interviewed for

local newspapers and. i would be photographed and our story would be told in newspapers primarily once when i was a teen in the band because it was big news i mean you her a girl with one leg marching in a high school competitive band in a very small town i mean it was news i was born without my my fingers on my left hand and on my right hand. my hands really honestly never really stood in the way for me except for an outward sign to other people that i wasn't the same i use my hands a lot in my artwork i find myself drawing my hands quite a bit because to me they're my hands you know just as if anyone would. but they do tell a story they tell a story. in

october two thousand and ten heather and aaron visited vietnam for the first time. their first stop was with the family of gwen van landing in kwan maine province l r one i don't want to tell you. how. they're going to come back from cleaning up garments up a doctor who. only know. your eyes are red they are always like this is the fifty fifth room in the world you know nothing i said was the way he said normally let. a

little rain you know i don't know what are you. going to. write down. the dining room and i began i don't. know how yeah i do you know how you know if you don't work you can't get i think that i doubt they get what you think of it just like you know the daughter is twenty seven and the son is twenty five. you walked past she's in great pain when she has her period. back bad night sometimes the pain is so bad she can't eat three days the night how michael a her brother cannot see and needs to be fed. may feel. that young to be their only outlet i entered the military in my nine hundred seventy three and was stationed in denying all mouth was. going on i was building roads to get

cameron you know can you ask him what he thought when the problems with children where did you first understand that there were any car without what you get when i came home from the war and the children were born i was shocked you get and i know . ever imagined it was because of agent orange. that got you we thought an ancestor might have had a serious disease but again you go you know we checked the family histories and found nothing in your goodnight i'll get that done why don't you and i got. a gun ok i don't know as a mother it is painful to have children like this and i think. that but they are so unfortunate compared to other children you talk. you would call me don't you know no one is willing to accept our children. which we.

think they are as oats now and they would like to work with them up here to talk the talk when you can is i think i. am going to know that no one will hire them. but. that coming up. that it is harder once parent to be a parent of children like the. economy like what. this you've been able to have any education so far is that you know. they probably don't need to go you don't know them well you never know what. good. can you ask her but you like to tell the children who've been affected by agent or in america what you would like to tell them and you don't want to i see value in that and to the way gone back and

said look i'm not really there when i. think the truth the reason. i feel sympathy no please be strong in the. movie and i'm also trying hard to be happy. for. you like you are you're not. really reading was a good question and. i was. like you're. not. good. you can. have her and run an antique store on weekends.

my father was alive when i got married and he really really he really loved to hate he was comfortable with their. i think that was the huge fear for him he was afraid that i wouldn't find anyone. and when he met aaron he knew he knew that aaron loved me he got to walk me down the aisle and. very very. good memory for me when i was born and had all these issues and he blamed himself and my mother didn't know and she was having miscarriages he dabbled in alcoholism for a while he was imprisoned by vietnam and he didn't live his life because of that what a tragedy i must have been about six or seven maybe eight years old maybe at the

most and i remember hearing my parents fight and. it was typically you know they would carry on and and then one of them would peel out the driveway in the car you know out of anger and i remember my dad got quiet and i was in my room and i heard him go into the bedroom i was little and i remember i was in my night clothes and i went to the door and i saw him standing by his upright dresser with his heels on the dresser. and i look and he had a pistol in his he and. i was little i didn't know i didn't know that he was probably very close to committing suicide at that point in time and i went to him and i remember just be a little like the daddy if it doesn't work go first try try again that

was my eight year old wisdom at the time you know you know. you turn around and he looked at me and screwed me up and said you try try again and he put the gun down father's death was really it was service connected they did connected his exposure to agent orange. he would always say i didn't realize i was taking my children or he said. floored me if i didn't know he said if i had known what would happen to you. i would have dodged the draft and for my father to say that that was huge and to hear that come out of his mouth was shocking to me it was shocking but it just spoke to the guilt that he carried from the moment my father went into the draft our life always centered around vietnam

always of course there's been times fits and i would call in fits and spurts in my life believe it that i would become so impassioned over power and i have to do something about this agent orange stuff and it's just still there and it's the unfair and i can't believe this one of the last times i found sharon perry on facebook believe it or not it was i had googled or something children of aging or injured children american veterans soldiers children you know and those kinds of things and legacy was there and i was. i cried you know i just cried and we were like there's other people because when you fight this first so long in our country is so large that you feel isolated thanks to

our thanks. when my husband died. everything that i based my life on my beliefs my value system. it was turned on its head he always told me from the time that i'm. met him

he died after. more or less an accident. got married long enough so that i would not be considered illegitimate so that i would

have my father's name by the time i was two i think i'd been to. four or five different doctors about it and it to a dermatologist diagnosed me with alopecia universality in my in my case which means i don't have anybody here really anywhere also when i was almost sixteen and not started my period yet so my mom took me to the doctor to just kind of you know see what was going on and the first doctor the we went to took a look and said i need to refer you to a specialist and she didn't really explain what she saw or anything to us she just wanted to go over here to the specialist so went to go see a doctor at the university of alabama in birmingham. not remembering his name just right now and he did a pelvic examination and then they did an ultrasound and some other tests i believe they even may have done a crime was on check to make sure it was really supposed to be a girl go at they found out was that i didn't have

a uterus and that my vagina was only about you know that big it wasn't normal everything looked normal from the outside but on the inside nothing was right and they said you're not going to have a normal sex life you're not going to have children. that was really hard you know in your early teens in your late teens early twenty's at college most of your peers are having sex so to not even be able to and to try to go on a date with someone and of course you date them long enough they're going to expect something to happen and nothing happens or you actually have to look at them and say i can't explain it i mean that's that's really hard. to have two such remotely small things happen to one person seems like statistically speaking there has to be a cause and maybe it's

a similar cause how you know why would two such unique things happen without having some. pot you know at least possibly same cause you know i don't know if i'm phrasing that right but how can that be how do i feel about not being able to have children at this point in my life at forty i'm probably as ok with it as i can be it was i've had two different men in my life who have chosen not to have a long term relationship with me because i can't have kids and that hurts. in fact the man i'm married to now at one point i told him that i would not marry him because i couldn't give him children and he was like oh you have a kid i don't even know i don't they are i've missed out on things i've had things taken away from me and i'm angry i've come to terms with it but it's not fair

what i've found over the last year or so becoming involved with agent orange is you know there's there's so much stigma associated with saying i have a probable reproductive system i think there are fewer people that are willing to talk about it now now that i've opened up and said this is what it is. it is hard to talk about it's embarrassing i'm not precisely the role that everyone will do this and get find out that i don't have a uterus but at the same time i think it's important for people to know and i don't think it's something to be ashamed of but that has taken me probably twenty years to get around to to say i have nothing to be ashamed of i mean all those years of the doing with p.t.s.d. and vietnam and agent orange vietnam age in order that's what it was like all those years you know america's moved on left us stuck in time how dare they we're going to come out and we're going to we're going to take over where the veterans voice has has been stopped has been discontinued they think

that that's all that was necessary to hide their law is but they're wrong because they forgot about the widow this is a piece they did after my daughter danielle and i had the diagnosis with her spine are we in the process of getting the diagnosis this is. agent orange is evil and. my has been bud is six very much like like he did and my youngest daughter lizbeth has she's in prison and my everything that's happened to us plus service asperger's and the alcohol and drug abuse as a result of his p.t.s.d. and other illnesses in this is all came about because of danielle so. problems you

access to that vertebrates putting a part. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. the war. in. iraq.

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