Excerpt: Waiting on an Army to Die - The Tragedy of Agent Orange

Excerpt: Waiting on an Army to Die - The Tragedy of Agent Orange by Fred Wilcox

Every step along the way we've had to file a Freedom of Information Act claim to get information. It's been like pulling teeth since day one to get any information out of the Veterans Administration.

But why do they behave this way?

I still don't quite understand it. I've met with them, and it seems rather obvious to me that the heavy lobbying of Dow, Monsanto, Diamond Shamrock, and Uniroyal have an influence on the government's decisions.

As an individual, and as a Vietnam veteran, I can only think that when they all get together in the friendly back room or by the poolside and they dip their well-manicured fingers into the caviar jar, the conversation is 'How are we going to keep these young guys who have in fact been poisoned by dioxin from collecting what's justly theirs?'

And the way they decided to do this is through the bureaucracy:

Just keep putting up the barrier of no cause and effect, no correlation, and never do the tests that might prove we're right.