what happens to vets
July 20th, 2008 by smidge
Wonder Boy and I did a job the other day for this old guy with a trailer full of stuff. The guy said he was having carpet installed, and you could tell that he had put the things that had been scattered on the floor up onto every possible countertop or surface in order to “clear” the area. It smelled, too, a smell I don’t think new carpet could have remedied. The man seemed slightly embarrassed about it, but in a strange way, as if he was too tired of being embarrassed to really care anymore.
At one point the man was standing there supervising my bundling of some things he had laying in a pile against a wall. Among the things were about fifteen back-of-door hanging mirrors, on which he noted there had been a “really good sale”. I thought he was just being funny, but then, as I grabbed a handful of things, he stated matter-of-factly: “Agent Orange.”
At first I thought he was referring to something in the pile, so I pointed to something or other and asked “You mean that?” No reply. I pointed out something else, and again no reply. Finally I said “What, you mean the whole pile?” And finally he explained:
“Yup, Agent Orange. Makes you crazy.”
Not knowing quite how to respond, and my hands now full with the bundle of mirrors or whatever I had been gathering, I headed over to load it into the truck. On my way I noticed some old camo fatigues in a closet and a calendar with an ‘X’ on every Thursday of the month. Next to each ‘X’ were the words “NO SHOT.”
I assumed this meant that he recieved a shot on every day not marked - meaning almost every single day.
According to Wikipedia’s Agent Orange entry, when some US veterans obtained a settlement from the US government for its use of this highly toxic herbicide and defoliant, most affected veterans received a one-time lump sum of $1200. Yep, $1200. Enough to buy a whole store full of mirrors.
As we were wrapping up the job, closing our truck doors and pushing in our ramp, the man called out from the deck of his trailer and echoed what veterans groups whose government “is just waiting for us all to die” have been saying for at least 25 years. He said:
“Now you know what happens to vets. They just sit at home making rat’s nests.”
and i am grateful every day that my dad managed to get out with the relatively minor damage that he has as a result of his time in the army during the vietnam “conflict.”