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Episode 2559 of the Vietnam Veteran News Podcast will feature a story about the question of Agent Orange benefits for Maine National Guardsmen. The featured story comes from CBS and is titled Agent Orange continues to haunt lives of U.S. veterans trained in New Brunswick – Maine commission will study whether U.S. veterans were exposed to Agent Orange at CFB Gagetown.
The story was provided by Harry Forestell of CBS News. He is the host of CBC News New Brunswick at 6. He worked in London as journalist from 1995 to 2000 and from 2005 to 2008 as CBC’s European correspondent for Newsworld.
Forestell’s story describes the rising situation involving Maine National Guard troops who trained at the Canadian military support base in Gagetown, New Brunswick, Canada.
It seems, as reported by the Canadian Department of National Defence, back in 1966 and 1967 a test spraying of the U.S.-supplied herbicide was conducted at the New Brunswick base.
The Department maintains it only received two barrels of Agent Orange and Agent Purple, for testing during those two years. The Defence Department also admitted it sprayed for three days in 1966 and four days in 1967 over a limited and remote area.
After the spraying, Canadian military personnel who trained at the base began to come down with diseases on the U.S. list of medical conditions associated with exposure to Agent Orange.
In response to this situation, the Canadian government established a $95.6 million fund in 2007 to compensate Canadian military members who may have been exposed to Agent Orange.
As with the Canadians, members of the Maine National Guard are experiencing similar Agent Orange related medical conditions.
Maine governor Janet Mills established a commission to “study the impacts of exposure to harmful chemicals on veterans who served at the Canadian base at Gagetown.
Listen to episode 2559 and discover more about the question of Agent Orange benefits for Maine National Guardsmen.
