What About Kerry's Battles To Get Health Care For Agent Orange Suffering?

[DrFunkenstein]

Kerry's record on veteran's benefits is phenomenal, and yet you hardly hear a peep about it in this whole bullsh$t discussion.

As a U.S. senator, Kerry has fought for years to help fellow veterans suffering from cancer, nerve and skin disorders and other diseases linked by medical science to chemical dioxins contained in Agent Orange. He was a chief sponsor of the 1991 legislation that now affords some 10,000 exposed veterans up to $2,300 a month for various disabilities.

Some who have spent time with Kerry believe that he is haunted by the subject of Agent Orange. Historian Douglas Brinkley remembers getting a phone call from Kerry last December after the senator had just finished reading the galleys of Brinkley's new book, "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War." One of Kerry's only criticisms, recalls Brinkley, was that "I didn't write enough about Agent Orange ... He was obsessed with Agent Orange."

Brinkley speculates that Kerry has been affected by the tales of woe from delta vets who are just starting to feel the sometimes delayed impact of Agent Orange. He was particularly moved by the recent death of his buddy Giles Whitcomb, a Harvard grad whom Kerry befriended in training and stayed close to all the way through the war (they even double-dated). "The devastating effects of Agent Orange are just coming to fruition. When John talks about these veterans, I think it's visceral," says Brinkley. "There's something going on there, and it may underneath it all be personal—like, 'I may have been doused, too'."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4410098

[Hippo_Tron]

1. BUT BUT, his purple heart wound was so small, it was pitiful

:eyes:

[olddem43]

2. And there was no gunfire the day that

he introduced the Agent Orange legislation in the Senate.

[Doohickie]

3. The Agent Orange thing is all well and good, but

It's too late for many. My uncle died twenty-three years ago of that rare form of leukemia that is far more common among people who were exposed to AO. I suspect the majority of people who were affected by AO are long gone.