JUSTICE decades in the making Blue Water Navy Vietnam veteran exposed to Agent Orange turns to DAV for help accessing VA benefits By Matt Saintsing I t’s impossible to understand the American experience of Vietnam veterans without considering the noxious chemical Agent Orange. Many of those who returned from war bearing the physical, emotional and mental scars of war—and even those who returned seemingly unscathed—were unaware that the harmful defoliant used to clear dense jungles would stealthily wage war on their bodies in the decades to follow. One distinct group of veterans who served in the war—Blue Water Navy veterans—has been fighting for years for the same recognition and benefits the Department of Veterans Affairs extends to U.S. service members who were exposed to Agent Orange with boots on the ground. Daniel McGrath, a DAV life member of Chapter 18 in Manchester, N.H., is one of the roughly 90,000 Blue Water Navy Vietnam veterans who stood to achieve justice because of recent DAV-championed legislation that unlocked VA health care and other benefits. McGrath enlisted in the Navy in 1964 as a way to help pay for college. “I had a scholarship to the University of New Hampshire, but it was only good for six months,” he said. “I figured I could go into the service, and after I got out, DAV MAGAZINE | JULY/AUGUST 2020 I could go back to school by using the GI Bill.” As a fire control technician assigned to the USS Floyd B. Parks, a Gearing-class destroyer, McGrath served three six-month tours off the coast of Vietnam. The ship’s Top: Blue Water Navy guns fired a few times, veteran Daniel McGrath according to McGrath, but stands next to the USS their primary mission was Floyd B. Parks (DD-884) in to recover Air Force and dry dock at the Long Beach Navy pilots shot down by Naval Shipyard, Calif., in 1967. He served three tours the enemy. aboard the Parks off the “They’d go in and drop their bombs, and if surface-coast of Vietnam. Bottom: McGrath and his to-air missiles hit them, wife, Ann, pose for a picture they’d ditch in the ocean, at the Currier Museum of and we’d try to extract Art in Manchester, N.H. them,” said McGrath. McGrath—far from the reaches of ground combat— was oblivious to the fact that he was regularly exposed to Agent Orange, likely through the ship’s drinking water. DAV advocated strongly for these veterans, resulting in last year’s passage of the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act (P.L. 116–23). The legislation corrected 18
Issue Articles
Justice decades in the making
Matt Saintsing
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