Reliving Agent Orange: What The Children of Vietnam Vets Have To Say
Channel: ProPublica
Date: 2016-06-17

For the past year, ProPublica and The Virginian-Pilot have examined how Agent Orange has impacted the health of Vietnam vets.

We’ve also asked vets and their family members to tell us how their lives have been affected by exposure to the toxic herbicide, receiving more than 5,000 responses. 

We are now delving into a more-thorny component of the story: Whether Agent Orange has adversely affected the health of vets’ children. Earlier this month, we asked those children to share their stories. We were flooded with responses.

Here's one of those stories:

Amber Clifford-Napoleone’s father, James Clifford, served two tours in Vietnam in a construction battalion from 1966 to 1968. He left Vietnam after suffering a severe back injury, Clifford-Napoleon, who is 41, told us.

She said her dad remembered being exposed to Agent Orange over and over. “He moved barrels of it. I mean, it was a construction unit, right? He is clearing land that the possibility of spraying that foliage was damn near 100 percent,” she said.

In 1977, her brother, James Austin Clifford, was born with spina bifida.
“Agent Orange related,” she said. “At that point, Agent Orange became a topic of conversation in my house and a pretty regular topic of conversation, too.”

Her brother received benefits from the Department of Veteran Affairs, she told us. As of last year, about 1,200 children with spina bifida have received those benefits, along with 14 children of female veterans with other covered birth defects, according the VA.

“When that Agent Orange benefit program was approved, my brother got a letter in the mail that said, ‘Congratulations, you have been approved for Agent Orange benefits.’ The congratulations part didn't go over real well,” she said.

Her brother endured 60 surgeries in his lifetime and died when he was 34.

“[My father] felt deeply guilty about something that was not his fault,” she said. “He didn't want to talk about it and certainly not with my brother and I. He felt responsible.”

Clifford-Napoleone also listed a litany of health issues she’s facing, including a wrist disorder called Kienbock’s disease, type 2 diabetes, and chronic anemia. She said she had a softball-sized tumor removed from her lung in November. “It was not cancerous as it turned out, but it was extremely rare.”

“My family doctor has noted Agent Orange exposure in my medical records,” she told us.

To see more from our investigation, go here: https://www.propublica.org/series/reliving-agent-orange