Ao In Okinawa

[john999]

A friend of a friend says he was exposed to AO in Okinawa when his commanding officer ordered him to bury drums containing AO. How would he go about proving this? I told him to get a sworn statement from the officer or a buddy who knows. Otherwise I guess he needs some documentation, but what? He has Parkinson's disease now and was in the Air Force during Vietnam Era.

John

[Berta]

"My Father died in Thailand May.30 1969 while serving on Schuyler Otis Bland I am trying to find any information on his death"

To Robert E Henry.your post was lost on page one of this thread-

Perhaps the member Alleta has an open email addy here- but she posted that info many years ago.

We need more info to help you.

I assume when a Navy serviceman dies on board a ship, the DOD gives their surviving spouse or next of kin ,information on their death. They should have sent a death certificate and perhaps even an autopsy was done.

My post here earlier got into the wrong page as well....?????

[Aletta]

I missed this the first look on Steve's site.. I opened the PDF and it says:

Herbicide Orange (HO) to Johnston Island that originated from Vietnam and was stored on Okinawa. page 4

Beginning in the 1970s, the Johnston Atoll military mission became the storage of chemical munitions. In 1971, the United States Army Technical Escort Unit escorted the transfer of two thousand tons of chemical munitions from Okinawa to Johnston Atoll under the code name “Operation Red Hat”. Phase I of “Operation Red Hat” involved the movement of chemical munitions from a depot storage site to Tengan Pier, eight miles away, by trailers. Phase II of “Operation Red Hat” moved the munitions to Johnston Atoll by ship. The US Army unit was renamed the United States Army Chemical Activity, Pacific (USACAP) in 1990, and chemical munitions were moved from West Germany to Johnston Atoll by ship, under the code name “Operation Steel Box”. A small stock of chemical artillery shells were transferred to Johnston Atoll from the Solomon Islands in 1991. page 5

http://38uscode.com/booklets/Issues/Agent%20Orange/JohnstonIslandAgentOrange/JohnstonIsland.pdf

It doesn't say AO.. but chemicals.. I will look for more when I have time..In a claim he should use the words chemical expouse and not AO. JMO

[Berta]

There have been some AO Okinawa awards. This is a link to an older post I put here:

John ,

Parkinson's is only presumptive to incountry Vietnam Veterans so he will definitely need to prove direct exposure to AO.

He needs a strong buddy statement, from his CO, and then he needs to prove that ,in fact, there was AO on Okinawa the same year ,same place this event happened.(and maybe even needs a good reason the barrels were buried)

. When the AO barrels were empty ,as you know John, they were valuable in Vietnam ,as barbeque pits,or for soaking clothes, and or even used as shitters that they could burn off so I am wondering why they didn't dump out the AO and then keep the empty barrels instead of burying the whole thing.

But Okinawa was vastly different then the Nam.

There might even be info on his unit's web site to help him.

But Nothing is impossible.

[Aletta]

I am in contact with a VSO who has the ship log for USS Schuyler Otis Bland When it is scanned and uploaded I will send link for it.

This ship log shows it carried chemical. Also, I have made contact with another person interested in buried AO in Okinawa.

May I send you a personal message with my contact? Also, to have your permission to CC you in any emails with the other Okinawa researcher?