David Thompson

I served in Vietnam with the 1st Infantry Division in 1965-66. I was stationed at Di An, in the III Corp Zone, the region that received the heaviest spraying of Agent Orange in all of Vietnam. Needless to say, I have a variety of issues related to my exposure to AO, and I am compensated for nearly all of them. In 2003, my oldest son was in school, studying to be a nurse anesthetist. He was having a great deal of trouble with his eyes, and his side was causing significant pain. On a particular Saturday night I had my siblings at my house for a get-together. My son dropped by for a while. After much laughter, my son whispered to my wife that he was having a lot of pain on his side. The next morning around 2:00 a.m., our daughter-in-law called from the hospital, crying. She told my wife that she had our son in the ER, and the doctor was saying he had either lymphoma or leukemia. On Monday, spinal fluid was drawn and tested, and it was confirmed that he had chronic myeloid leukemia or (cml). Right away, his oncologist began to treat him h with a relatively new drug called Gleevec. Our son responded well to treatment, but we fear that the drug will, one day, stop working. Several years ago I ran across an article on the internet where 23 soldiers from New Zealand had been tested, and it was found that all of them had had their DNA altered. In addition, the ones who did the study said it would be passed from from generation to generation. I spend most of my time wondering when either of my two sons or grandsons will come down with some disease that can be traced back to AO. My guilt feelings are forever there.