I already shared my last surviving uncle’s Agent Orange story on the suicide thread but felt it should be repeated here. It would be better if I could have him telling this instead.
Uncle spoke of the brutal things he saw up close during the Vietnam War and lived to tell. He piloted a landing craft and would help stack bodies in body bags on the landing craft and take them to the ship. He always had a resupply of unused body bags when he’d return to shore. While ashore he was drenched in Agent Orange. To this day his crotch area still has the signs of a bad chemical burn. Yeah he wanted me to see the burns earlier this year while I was staying at the hospital with him before and after surgery. After the war he was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors then said it started in his testicles and spread from there. Miraculously, my uncle is alive today after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. At a later date I may share a theory on Agent Orange that I came up with after much thought and research.
It’s only right that I include how his refusal to obey orders ended up keeping him alive. His superiors wanted him to pilot a boat up a river and to take men with unloaded rifles. He asked for a mounted and loaded machine gun. His superiors denied the request. Uncle had some not so nice things to say about those orders and told them that they were completely nuts. Apparently, this thing about the men having unloaded rifles came from LBJ’s orders. Why, I don’t know. Uncle was escorted below to the belly of the ship for disobeying orders and probably more. It was extremely hot down there he said. The men who did carry out those orders in the boat came back shot up. Vietcong snipers were waiting along the river for our men and ambushed them. I’ll have to do some research to see if the exact details can be found.
Uncle spoke of the brutal things he saw up close during the Vietnam War and lived to tell. He piloted a landing craft and would help stack bodies in body bags on the landing craft and take them to the ship. He always had a resupply of unused body bags when he’d return to shore. While ashore he was drenched in Agent Orange. To this day his crotch area still has the signs of a bad chemical burn. Yeah he wanted me to see the burns earlier this year while I was staying at the hospital with him before and after surgery. After the war he was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors then said it started in his testicles and spread from there. Miraculously, my uncle is alive today after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. At a later date I may share a theory on Agent Orange that I came up with after much thought and research.
It’s only right that I include how his refusal to obey orders ended up keeping him alive. His superiors wanted him to pilot a boat up a river and to take men with unloaded rifles. He asked for a mounted and loaded machine gun. His superiors denied the request. Uncle had some not so nice things to say about those orders and told them that they were completely nuts. Apparently, this thing about the men having unloaded rifles came from LBJ’s orders. Why, I don’t know. Uncle was escorted below to the belly of the ship for disobeying orders and probably more. It was extremely hot down there he said. The men who did carry out those orders in the boat came back shot up. Vietcong snipers were waiting along the river for our men and ambushed them. I’ll have to do some research to see if the exact details can be found.
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