[Stick]

A few years ago I had to go to one of my brothers funeral in Florida. MSgt. Robert T. Romph died due to agent orange poisoning. Tommy never went any further than Hawaii during the "police action" but loaded many an airplane that was on it's way to South-East Asia and when those planes returned it was Tommy and his crews that cleaned those airplanes out.
Over twenty years ago the family and I went to the funeral of my third brother Teddy, aka Lt. Col. Mark T. Romph. Teddy jumped from airplanes and was Airborne Special Forces in Vietnam. He was at both Baldy and Skeleton Mountain while in-country as well as being the navigator of the plane that flew into North Vietnam to pick up the POW's from the Hanoi Hilton at the end of Americas involvement there.
I was based in Quinhon but while at the APU had to get onto a helicopter almost everyday. I flew past the Vo-tahn Mountain in order to go inland from the South China Sea. Every other day we flew through the An-khe pass or to Camp Evans in the north. Ho-chi-minh was that path through the woods north-west of Pleiku.
In late '67 flying through the An-khe was a crap shoot since the NVA hid in the woods of the pass and a helicopter was an easy target. I have no idea how many troops that were in 123's or 130's that went through that pass that needed to see med-evac as soon as their plane landed.
In December of '67 the An-khe was sprayed with Agent Orange and the gooks had nowhere left to hide. We flew safely through the pass after the bushes died out.
Why did we nickname the mountains "Baldy and Skeleton?" Agent Orange knocked the shrubs out of their skulls and the NVA couldn't hide out of sight.
The Red, White and Blue took the high ground and the percentage of KIA on those mountains almost disappeared.
Yes, Agent Orange took lives of those poisoned by it but I'm convinced that there were many more lives saved by its use than were lost to it. I'm also convinced that those who were lost to the effects of Agent Orange poisoning should have their names engraved on a Wall in Arlington.