Morwell Vietnam veteran Colin Bermingham remembers the moment he was drenched with ‘Agent Orange’ like it was yesterday.

Agent Orange was criminal.

I am writing to add a bit of information about our government’s decision to use Agent Orange and the subsequent cover-up. In his recent letter, Mr. Meinhold documents that our Department of Defense knew they were spraying dioxin, a very, very powerful carcinogen, citing specifics from Admiral Zumwalt’s 1990 report to the VA.

In the mid-1960s, I was a support member to a team, led by a company president and comprised of scientists and lawyers, whose sole purpose was to convince the Department of Defense that spraying Agent Orange in areas that might be inhabited by humans would be criminal, a crime against humanity. We believed that dioxin was among the most hazardous substances known to man and that if “they” understood, they would abandon this idea. After several presentations at the Pentagon detailing the hazards, the team failed to convince and, shockingly, the decision was made to spray in even higher, more toxic concentrations.