A Photo Speaks

Veterans around the country are being judged in creative arts competitions. I am among the contenders from the State of Iowa that have advanced to the nationwide finals. Here is my entry, in the category of creative writing-veteran's experiences.

A 53 year old photograph of a U.S. Marine on a rocky mountain island in South Vietnam haunts me more than ever. The photo is of me standing among dead roadside trees and shrubbery that had been sprayed with toxic defoliants. Collectively, these chemicals are commonly known as Agent Orange.

Early in 1970, I was a TV newscaster for the American Forces Vietnam Network at one of AFVN’s remote outposts on Hon Tre Island. The small radio and TV detachment served a large military audience at Nha Trang and Cam Ranh Bay.

The Photo

Herbicides were not controversial then; they were a weapon that killed trees and underbrush to deny the enemy hiding places. It may have prevented an ambush on Americans driving up this winding road to AFVN and other units.

Fifty years after I arrived in Saigon, my doctor at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Des Moines, Iowa sent me to a neurologist after I complained about a tremor in my left hand. I’d already been living with insomnia and had difficulty maintaining a comfortable body temperature. 

A battery of tests, and a visit with a movement disorders specialist, confirmed the diagnosis: Parkinson’s disease. I had become a postwar casualty. Immediately, my life changed, but not always in negative ways. I have become closer to the veterans community, including a fellow Marine broadcaster whom I worked with on Hon Tre Island and who is also living with Parkinson’s.

I continue to educate myself about this complex brain syndrome and my evolving symptoms. I join online seminars and stay active to slow the disease’s progression. I walk, bike, golf, meditate and have learned tai chi. Thanks to the VA’s Recreation Therapy staff, pickle ball has become my favorite work out. A three-wheeled recumbent bike provides better balance and I enjoy hitting the trails with a proud biker group, appropriately named “Vets Riding to Live.” I competed in the VA’s Golden Age Games for the first time and won a medal. 

Participating in a one year research project through the VA and University of Iowa Hospitals to study the importance of aerobic exercise for Parkinson’s patients was especially satisfying. We had to walk a minimum 50 minutes, three times a week, at a swift pace. The research is ongoing, but I’m convinced that my exercise regimen is keeping me a step ahead of this menacing rival.

Many years before my diagnosis, as the Bangkok Bureau Chief for CBS News in Thailand, 60 Minutes sent me back to Vietnam to investigate a possible TV magazine feature on the tragic legacy of Agent Orange among Vietnamese. It was a shocking journey into hospitals, village homes and the remote countryside, in search of victims and experts who we might interview.

What I discovered there still unsettles me today: helpless parents and their children with heartbreaking deformities; a hospital wing for women with problem pregnancies; jars of aborted Siamese twins and triplets; and villagers who told me they could hear trees falling at night in areas that had been sprayed. Vietnamese officials linked much of this to Agent Orange, but supporting medical evidence didn’t exist—only a frightened population that lived on the poisoned land. 

According to the Veterans Benefits Administration, every veteran who stepped foot in Vietnam is considered potentially exposed to Agent Orange. Many of these vets now fear the ghastly consequences have become generational. At a public hearing in my hometown of Des Moines, I watched as veterans shared their worries about learning disorders, spina bifida and other maladies in their off-spring and grand kids.

I’ve been told the central Iowa VA’s neurology department sees new Vietnam veterans every week as Parkinson symptoms slowly emerge and old vets are given the dreaded diagnosis. Nationwide, more than 100,000 veterans are being treated for Parkinson’s.

The Agent Orange caseload is growing at an alarming rate, with veterans sick from Parkinson’s, cancers, nerve and other serious diseases presumed to be linked to herbicide exposure. Parkinson’s-like conditions became eligible for VA disability compensation last year, and coverage was further expanded by the PACT Act.

Many Vietnam veterans are familiar with AFVN, the military broadcasting unit where I worked and where I was exposed to Agent Orange. The armed forces network was depicted in the 1987 blockbuster movie Good Morning, Vietnam. Ironically, both comedian Robin Williams and the Air Force broadcaster he portrayed, Adrian Cronauer, both died with dire neurological diseases.  

Rick Fredericksen is a writer and journalist who lives in Norwalk, Iowa. He served in South Vietnam in 1969-70 and worked for CBS News, based in Thailand, from 1985 to 1995. He is the author of  Broadcasters: Unknown Chaos and Hot Mics and TV Lights: The American Forces Vietnam Network