Vietnam by Russell Freedman

Author:Russell Freedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2016-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

U.S. troops looking for concealed Vietcong guerrillas peer into a South Vietnamese house during a “search and destroy” operation.

To help locate enemy hideouts, American aircraft dropped millions of gallons of Agent Orange and other chemical defoliants on Vietnam’s vast jungle canopy, stripping the vegetation bare and exposing concealed Vietcong and North Vietnamese encampments. Once the enemy was spotted, helicopters rushed troops to the battle zone while aircraft and artillery pummeled the area. Powerful defoliants and herbicides were sprayed around roads, rivers and canals, and on crops that might be used to supply enemy troops. Agent Orange was later found to cause cancer, birth defects and other serious illnesses among returning U.S. servicemen and their families, as well as among hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.

U.S. planes also dropped napalm, a jelly-like substance that burned whatever it touched—trees, buildings, people—turning human flesh to ash. “The napalm hit me and I must have gone crazy,” one villager recalled. “I felt as if I were burning all over, like charcoal, and I lost consciousness. Comrades took me to the hospital, and my wounds didn’t begin to heal until six months later.”

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