AGENT ORANGE SCREENING UPDATE...

[rooter]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 7, 2011 No. 11-33

VVA Urges All Veterans Exposed to Agent Orange Be Screened for Prostate Cancer

( Washington , D.C. )



"Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are at least twice as likely to develop prostate cancer; their recurrence rates are higher; and recurring cancers are more aggressive," noted Dr. Thomas Berger, Executive Director of VVA’s Veterans Health Council, before today’s Congressional Men’s Health Caucus Prostate Cancer Task Force. Berger urged his fellow Vietnam veterans to get screened, noting "it’s worth the fight."

Said Berger, "Some three m illion veterans served in Southeast Asia , and no one knows for sure how m any of these veterans were exposed to Agent Orange."


In 1996 the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences concluded there is "limited evidence of a positive association between prostate cancer and exposure to herbicides used in Vietnam , including Agent Orange." As a result of IOM’s findings, Jesse Brown, then-Secretary of the Veterans Administration (VA), issued the final rule, recognizing prostate cancer as a service-connected, presumptive disease associated with exposure to Agent Orange and other phenoxy herbicides during military service, allowing such exposed veterans to become eligible for VA disability compensation and health care.

In 2008, University of California-Davis Cancer Center physicians released results of research showing Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange have greatly increased risks of prostate cancer and even greater risks of getting the most aggressive form of the disease as compared to those who were not exposed. The research was also the first to use a large population of men in their 60s and the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. More than 13,000 Vietnam veterans enrolled in the VA Northern California Health Care System were stratified into two groups, exposed or not exposed to Agent Orange between 1962 and 1971. Based on medical evaluations conducted between 1998 and 2006, the study revealed that:

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twice as many Agent Orange-exposed men were identified with prostate cancer than non-exposed;

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Agent Orange-exposed men were diagnosed two-and-a-half years younger than non-exposed; and

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Agent Orange-exposed men were nearly four times more likely to present with metastatic disease than non-exposed.

Further buttressing this link, in 2009, a study of 1,495 veterans in five cities who underwent radical prostatectomy to remove their cancerous prostates showed 206 exposed to Agent Orange had a near 50 percent increased risk of their cancer recurring, despite the cancer seeming nonaggressive at the time of surgery. And the cancer came back with a vengeance. The time it took the prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, level to double – an indicator of aggressiveness – was eight months versus more than 18 months in non-exposed veterans.

[Jay]

Conditions warranting presumptive service connection dating from around 1945 to the present, are available at this site.

http://www.myveteran.org/2011/05/pre...onnection.html

[rooter]

JAY, what a small world...along toward the end of VETS HELPING VETS was a name listed as the Veterans spokesperson....the name DAVID APPERSON. I was questioned by this person that if the character I wrote about in several of my stories, Jack Apperson, may have been his step father...Our Seabee base on the West Coast, Port Hueneme, was mentioned in the VETS HELPING VETS so I can but assume it is that person who I was questioned about...However, the Jack Apperson I wrote about was from Wisconsin and he had a twin brother who was a civilian contractor in DaNang in 1969, the period I wrote about...Yeah, I found that rather interesting, but hell, don't take much at my age...Merry Christmas to you and yours JAY..Chief

ONLY THE SHADOWS---
The hushed passing of the figure seemed like a temperate gust of wind--felt like a draft for a
micro-second and then gone. Even the ambient insects, sounding their ‘hard-wired’ calls
into the night, or the night birds hunting for them, did not cease their foraging activity as the
ghostlike personage glided by. Off in the southerly distance--off over the South China Sea,
heavy cumulus clouds seemed to be fixed and hanging on the horizon. Winking flashes of
light, not unlike distant, reflected lightening strikes, bounced off the clouds--it was the flashes
from naval guns firing what was called H & I (harrassing and interdiction)fire. There were no
sounds from the five inch thirty eights naval batteries reaching the shore--it was too
distant--only the reflected and flickering flashes when the destroyers fired their salvos. The
explosions of the detonating projectiles was faintly detectable however, impacting as they
were, in and around areas of the HO-CHI-MINH TRAIL. There was absolutely no firing pattern
or rythmn for the naval guns--strictly random rounds--tonight probably the navy ‘tin can’ USS
TURNER JOY--random rounds--thus the H & I fire.
Navy Petty Officer Second Class Jack Apperson seemed completely at ease with his
surroundings--here in this war torn wrinkle of hell on the earths surface--claimed by few and
really desired by none. He had made good time since the tiny and secretive hovercraft
had set him down on this pre-determined insertion point. The code-crafted message he had
recieved earlier in the afternoon by way of the Embassy courier pouch, had loosely ordered
the ‘whats’ for the fire mission, never the ‘whys’. The skillfully worded orders had even given
such data as the dusk-light and dawn-light times---area overcast, wind
projections--temperature gradients. ‘How to do and what needed to be done’ was left up
to Apperson. Apperson was as competent as any man that could be called on for so
clandestine of a mission. Most would ‘peg’ Apperson as a loner, but he didn’t consider
himself to be any such thing---he was as gregarious as the next man when conditions lent
themselves. His twin brother John back in DaNang--the one who worked for the civilian
contractors--he and John were planning a trip to Kuala Lampour, Malasyia at their next
meet--a time for some R & R --have some fun. Apperson had such an active mind--it was like
the fast fowards on recording machines--always thinking--planning. This phantom like man,
who to most that didn’t know him, referred to him as THE SPOOK. His tumultous mind, ever
ebbing and flowing--recalling childhood memories with present day happenings--he
recalled reading so many adventure stories when he was young--alone when he was
reading, his active imiagination could conger up anyone--probaly to cast the character he
was being this day. In his mind he was the silent tracker--the infalliable Indian scout--the
blazer of new frontiers--with eyes of the eagle and the nose of a hunting wolf--every sense in
his young body honed to a fine, expectant edge--to go where no man had dared go--no
man ever knowing he had been there--like a ghost. Apperson coveted those traits so
dearly that he was flattered when old J.C. down in Quantico at the FBI academy had told
very openly “you are like a gawd-damned ghost Apperson”!! Apperson’s mother had been
an Army Nurse during WWII--she had met his shell-shocked father in a Army convelesant
hospital near their Wisconsin home. They had married and raised their twin sons. Now his
mother worked as a school nurse--his father helped the school janitor when he was able--so
many of the school children who knew his father, Mr. William Apperson, called him CRAZY
BILL. This kind of behaviour from the other children had made Jack stay away from
them--couldn’t fight them all. He never did see anything bad about his father --is dad used
to yell and scream sometimes in the night--bad dreams about his Army days his mother
would explain--Jack just come to think that probably a lot of fathers did that--screamed in
their sleep.
When Apperson was in Navy boot camp and was firing rifles on the gunnery range, a
sharped-eyed old Gunnery Sergeant spotted his ability with weapons--his unique
marksmanship abilities. Apperson was approached by a Navy Seal representive and on his
graduation from recruit training, had new doors opened or him to a different world. Here
and now, six years later, on a covert mission for his country few men alive would even
covet, let alone want to do if they were able. His black smeared face turned upwards to
check his bearing--sensing things--the smells--the sounds--like an animal of prey. He glanced
at the glowing dial of his oversized diving watch--making good time Jack mused--in a few
hours --a date with destiny. The human target named in the orders, had been the cause of
untold misery in this war torn area of the world--perhaps someone more evil than this person
would replace him afterwards--who knows--that was not for Apperson to reason why--he
craddled the big M-21 sniper rifle in the crook of his arm and glided off into the darkness---his
was but to do or die.
Wilborn

[Jay]

Merry Christmas to you and yours, Chief....

[carver]

The thing about agent Orange is that half the folks exposed to it will never get a dime for their suffering, and deaths.

[Jay]

The Agent Orange Registry has been active since the 1980's. It is a comprehensive, and FREE service provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The registry has been widely publicized, and many thousands of Veterans have taken advantage of the program. Many thousands of Veterans have also been compensated by the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical conditions associated with not only Agent Orange, but other herbicides, and chemicals, as noted in the second post of this thread. If any Veteran has received care at any Department of Veterans Affairs medical facility, Agent Orange related information was made available to them. As I've found out in several threads, the availability of ACCURATE information, does not mean that everyone will avail themselves of that information.

There's also this... http://www.publichealth.va.gov/expos...istry.asp#exam

[rooter]

DEATH LINGERS.
The smell of death started to fill the cool, night air. It began as insidiously as one would
begin smelling grass being mown--or bread being baked--toast beginning to brown. The
purtid, rotting, gutt wrenching odor of decomposing human flesh. As the intensity of the foul
smell increased, there began to be discerned, heavy grunting and snorting sounds. Then
the scratching and scraping sounds of something or someone picking it’s way through the
brush and tangled heaps of the discarded junk pile of war wrecks.
A human figure that was in a prone firing position nearby, sensed the rancid smell--then the
gutteral sounds of something alive, and finally the movements and the noise. Navy Seal
Jack Apperson made no movement--no sound. Up to the time that the smells started,
anyone capable of peering in from the darkness, would have observed the covert sniper in
an almost sensual, ‘holding-onto-the-Earth’ firing position. The young marksman was laying
on his special deodorized ground cover, face foward to the target, body at a comfortable
angle, ankles and feet flat down on the rubberized cover. A soft jungle hat covered his
head and down on the forehead to his eyebrows. He had been sighting through a special,
light amplified spotters scope at the bonfire burning down in the distant valley. The big
sniper rifle was was propped up on pliable items that seemed to be almost like bicycle inner
tubes. The weapon seemed to be overly long at a quick glance--then one would notice
the sound suppressor attached to the muzzle--then the eye would catch the overly large
scope--My God, the eyepiece looked as big as a dinner plate.
Apperson still had not moved. Through his specially provided (top secret) spotter scope, his
right eye held onto the sight pattern around the bonfire down below his concealed position.
Movements around the fire were not sheltered. It was as if those in attendance had no
worry of attack or discovery. Every once in a while, the flames would leap high into the
night sky, accompanied by firey sparks when someone would throw more combustible fuel
on the fire. Apperson had already spotted his prey--his assigned target--all of the photos
and details that had come in the CIA’s courier pouch had listed features and identifiable
things about this vicious killer. Claiming to be a North Vietnamese general, he was nohing
but a sadistic killer of village elders, women, and the clergy--even children were
slaughtered on his orders, when it suited his whims. Apperson had the strongest inkling that
this man was the Devil reincarnated--he surmised that this evil man looked like the old
oriental actor in the Charlie Chan movies. Most of the gear Apperson wore or carried on
these covert missions, was not availble to line troops. The big M-21 rifle was so designated
by The Agency--the monstor scope--military jargon, LL-2 --the little light amplified spotter
scope was a marvel of ingenuity--not the green, garish muddle that one would see through
regular issue night vision lenses, but daylight clear--that’s how Apperson could spot old
Charlie Chan so easily. Old J.C. back at the F.B.I. training facility in Quantico, had a large
part in devising these magic buttons-- Spook Gear he called it. He was the one staff
instructor Apperson remembered so fondly by his name--every expression by the old
instructor, and for it’s added emphasis it seemed, was preceeded by a Jesus Aich Christ, thus
his nickname for years was J.C. Apperson remembered the time when old J.C. praised him
for his stealth and cunning in a field exercise--that was when he had forcibly stated, “Jesus
Aich Christ Apperson---you are like a Gawd-damned ghost--I have never, in my forty years of
teaching you young whelps, seen the likes of you --- I bet you can walk right through this
Gawd-damed wall”--.
The grunting and snorting sounds now had come closer--significantly so--and the stench of
decaying flesh had become overpowering. The occasional silence as if the thing
approaching was stopping--listening--then it would begin again--the breaking of the grass
and brush--the snorts and the----yes, it was a raspy, uneven intake of breath. The heavy
breathing--sounds as if a patient with terminal emphysema. Apperson still had the small
spotter scope up to his right eye, with that locked onto the flame flickering target far
below--the left eye closed tight shut---. The sounds now were almost on top of his
concealed position--the rank smell, terrible as it was, had got no worse, but the young
sniper now could sense hot blowing breath--the heat of a laboring body-now the sounds of
slobbering and chewing mixed with the blowing of breath. Iron-nerved as the young Navy
Seal professed to be, his left eye popped open--at the same exact micro-second,
Apperson’s bare eyeball must have reflected the flames shooting skyward from fresh fuel
being added to the already towering flames. That other set of eyes--the eyes of the
marauding Messenger of Death--at that some precise instant, that purveyor of the odor of
the long dead, must have seen the terror reflected there in the coiled mans eyes. The
sound emitted by the creature was not unlike the death squeel of a hog being slaughted--.
The clandestinely secret spotter scope, was not good for close up vision. Apperson had to
get an eyeball on this thing that had suddenly startled him so badly, as he hurled the small,
pocket sized scope aside. The acuity of Apperson’s night vision was at the maximum. The
creature he was staring at was not more than four foot away. The quick, calculating mind of
of the young assassin determined that this horrible creature was indeed a cruel abortion of
nature. It appeared to be a cross between a Mid-American wolverine and perhaps an
oriental mongoose--he had seen a mongoose one time on the island of Okinawa--it was pit
fighting with a cobra snake--natural enemies Jack remembered--there had been no winner
that day--the mongoose killed the snake but in a few minutes had tettered off and died
itself. The animal, whatever species it was, uttered another squalling sound, whirled and
went crashing away in the darkenss--it seemed to be wallowing as it ran--from the rear it
looked like a fat hog or a hippopotamus. Apperson’s heart was pounding as if it was going
to explode--his mouth had dried--the crackers he had eaten hours before, choked in his
throat-- the burning stomach acid tore at his taste buds. Apperson realized unconsciously
that his intense sniper discipline had cut in--in his mind he was threshing and tearing at
things--but not so--he was as cool headed as any old western hangman. It was then he
surmised the whole event had only caused him to open that eye and lay the spotter scope
aside. He peered down into the valley again--from Hill 881 South the view was
magnificant--the flames on the bonfire were dying down a bit--not causing the reflected
figures to dance and move around so much--moving only his head, he peered into the big,
pre-set LL-2 rifle scope--the sight pattern was suddenly and greatly magnified--crystal bright
and he could see Charlie Chan as clear as if he were on the movie screen back home in
Wisconsin--wonder if they still have Charlie Chan movies, Apperson mused--he’s sure be an
old bastard now--a smart old Chineeman--solving all those complex murder mysteries--a
flicker of a smile tugged at the corner of the young Seal’s handsome mouth--. Time had
passed so evenly this mission--wish they all were like that --so smoothly since his insertion into
the field by the small, moth like, Bell chopper--as soon as Jack Apperson would ‘burn’ the
target, he was required to activate a small beeper device--that would commence
extraction procedures from the target site. “Jesus aich Christ you shooters--go for a head
shot--just like you been tought--you can never tell if they are wearing armor--even if they are
buck naked as the day they were hatched--still go for a head shot--you loose if you hit a
rib--or a button--just like you been tought--you’ll feel good when you squeeze off that round
if it looks like it was with those watermelons you practiced on--that red, hazy looking mist flies
and you can say without a doubt, I rung his bell for him”.
I bet that smell that come from that dumb, stinking, nasty animal--whatever kind of animal it
was--I kinda think that he’s been foraging on dead Vietnamese bodies that are buried here
in and around Khe Sanh--and Hill 881 South--the ones the ARC-LIGHTS nailed--or the
Jarheads and the Grunts killed when they were defending this ‘shit-hole’--they never did
come back to recover their dead, Apperson mused in his head. The sight picture through
the big #2 Leopold could not be better--he could even clearly see the blemishes on ugly
Old Charlie Chan’s face. The special cast and molded 7.62 round was already chambered
and waiting as Apperson snapped off the SAFE--. Crosshairs in the sight picture were like a
picture book. Rock steady--full face and head--”Jesus aich Christ, Apperson--I have never
seen a man with so much of a sense for timing--you should have been a Gawd-damned
ballerina dancer Apperson--and you have the Magic Touch in your trigger finger
Apperson--did you know that my fine young----”!
The big heavy weapon surged-- almost like an orgasmic shudder, as trigger and sear did
their mechanical functions. In the fraction of a second that it required the supremely
machined round to reach the Charlie Chan looking face in the scope, Apperson’s sight
picture never wavered. The seeming obsene, yet eloquent words of old J.C. speaking
about the red mist-- “like when you shoot a water melon”--there it was --as the florid looking
face of the Killer of Innocents drooped out of Appersons captive view--. He reached into
the pocket of his jacket and retrieved the homing device for calling the Bell and beginning
extraction. “Jesus Aich Christ”, Apperson muttered to himself--”I stink as bad as that ugly,
fat-ass little carrion cruncher--makes me wanna puke”.
WILBORN