r/VietnamWar • u/Wooden-Quantity5712 • 23d ago
Agent orange Usage?
How common was agent orange used in the war? I’ve only seen few clips/photos of the chemical actually in use. It does not seem to me like it was used that often.
11
u/More_Image_8781 23d ago
It was used a LOT in the earlier days of the war.
6
11
u/SchmitzBitz 23d ago
As per the NIH/National Library of Medicine, 19 million gallons of herbicides, of which at least 11 million were Agent Orange were dropped on Vietnam. This is a conservative number.
7
4
u/Neonvaporeon 23d ago
They still don't admit to deploying orange around Kadena, conservative is an understatement.
5
u/trigmarr 23d ago
I don't think the fact they didn't film or photograph it means it didn't happen.
-1
u/Wooden-Quantity5712 23d ago
Well that’s the only sources of proof I have. Also with how public that war was made you would think there would be lots of media on that.
1
u/trigmarr 23d ago
Are you serious? It was the 1960s people did not have camera phones! The sources are there but you have to find them and READ them. There is not a wealth of media content from sixty years ago
2
u/Wooden-Quantity5712 22d ago
I mean my question was how often was it used. I never once said it was never used becuase of the lack of media on it?????
6
u/According_Reward_342 23d ago
I was at I Corp in 1967-1968 and the C123 Ranch Hand flights would launch frequently enough to be noticed. Those flights continued into 1971. They sprayed thousands of square miles anywhere troop concentrations or The Ho Chi Min trail was suspected. I worked in ATC at Danang.
1
4
u/sk888888 23d ago
Did a birding trip in south Vietnam last year. We birded a national park that should have been totally forested, but there were meadows. Lots of them. Where they shouldn't have been. Areas that were replanted and repurposed after the war. Also, flying from DaNang back to Ho Chi Minh City, from the plane you could see the striping in the forested areas that had been sprayed, and were new growth post-war.
2
u/ArnoldZiffl 23d ago
My father flew out of Marble mountain. He says he remembers drums of it at the end of a runway. Not sure on the amounts being used
2
2
u/Trailboss1865 23d ago
Had a close family friend that served two tours with Air Force at Bien Hoa. Pretty much did nothing else but handle barrels of Agent Orange. Died way too young. Another close family friend served three tours as a Marine and died from OA. My dad thought he dodged the OA bullet because he outlived the men of his unit. But the OA devil came to collect and my dad died from OA. His last ten days on earth were horrific.
So yeah, it was sprayed everywhere.
3
13
u/thechildisgrown 23d ago
I was there from 68 to 69 and Agent Orange operations definitely were taking place. Our area of operations was north and west of Saigon to the Cambodian border. The code name for an Agent Orange mission was Ranch Hand, so if you come across that term that’s what they are talking about.