Volume 18 - Issue 4 In Honor of Michael “Bat” Masterson Fall 2015

The presentation was taped, not for the show, but for their social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Pat Sajak was very humble about receiving the medal; he im-mediately put it around his neck and thanked me numerous times. Vanna White, also, thanked me for presenting the medal to Pat.

Pat Sajak joined the U.S. Army in 1968. He was a DJ for the

Armed Forces Radio in Siagon, Vietnam in 1969. Pat is a proud Vietnam Veteran and is sincere in letting people

know how he feels about Veterans. The following statement from Pat Sajak was taken from the American Veterans Center web page:

“Dear Friend,You might not know this about me, but long before I became

the host of Wheel of Fortune, I served in the Army as the morning

theForwardObserver

VVA Chapter 47 PO Box 4277, Riverside CA 92514-4277 http://www.vva47.com

President’s MessageOn August 21, 2015 I had the privilege of representing Viet-

nam Veterans of America while attending the taping of the televi-sion game show Wheel of Fortune at the Sony studios in Culver City, CA. The shows that were taped will air in November 2015 over Veterans Day week. All the contestants on the show for that

week are veterans. In between the taping of the shows the show honored all their co-workers who are veterans by taking their pic-tures in front of the game board.

At the request of National VVA I was honored to present the show’s host, Pat Sajak, the VVA Achievement Medal. Six shows were taped that day. During a break I was called to the studio set and present Pat the medal.

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disc jockey at Armed Forces Radio in Saigon.Each morning, I roused my fellow soldiers out of bed with

shouts of “Gooooood Morning, Vietnam!”I am proud to count myself among the 2.7 million veterans

of the Vietnam War. Like every war in our nation’s history, the Vietnam War is filled with thousands of stories of bravery, hero-ism and valor.

Unfortunately, many of these stories remain untold and un-known. When our troops returned home from war, many were greeted with insults, not cheers, and all too often were portrayed in the media and in Hollywood films as drug addicts, misfits, per-petrators of atrocities and losers. The reality is that the Vietnam Veterans compiled an outstanding record of courage, service, and patriotism. They should be proud of their record and we should be proud of them.

That’s why I’m excited to tell you about the National Vietnam Veterans Committee (NVVC). The NVVC is working hard to en-sure that every Vietnam veteran is proud of their service and that the American people recognize and appreciate their service.

I’m enclosing a letter from the Chairman of the National Viet-nam Veterans Committee, Brigadier General Steve Ritchie. Please take a minute or two to read about what this organization is doing to protect the honor and legacy of our nation’s Vietnam vets.

It’s time we set the record straight regarding America’s Viet-nam veterans. So when you are done reading the enclosed letter, won’t you please join with me in supporting this worthy institu-tion?

The Vietnam War began over a half century ago. It’s long overdue that we give the veterans of this war the respect and honor they deserve.

Yours Truly,Pat Sajak”

Thank you and “Welcome Home” Pat SajakSteve Mackey

POW/Mia recOgnitiOn day

Observances of National POW/MIA Recognition Day are held across the coun-try on military ins ta l la t ions , ships at sea, state capitols, schools and vet-erans’ facilities. It is traditional-ly observed on the third Friday in September each year. This observance is one of six days t h r o u g h o u t the year that Congress has mandated the flying of the Na-tional League of Families’

POW/MIA flag. The others are Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day and Veterans Day.

The flag is to be flown at major military installations, national cemeteries, all post of-fices, VA medical facilities, the World War II Memorial, Ko-rean War Veterans Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memo-rial, the official offices of the secretaries of state, defense and veterans affairs, the director of the selective service system and the White House.

A Pentagon ceremony for National POW/MIA Recogni-tion Day will be held Friday, Sept. 18, 2015. This ceremony featured troops from each of the military services.

Chapter 47 will do its tradi-tional ceremony at the Military Museum in San Bernardino on September 26 due to the muse-um’s unavilability closer to the obeserved date.

This will also be our mon-thy General Meeting day. The museum parking lot will open at 9 a.m. and the ceremony will start right at 10 a.m. The AF-JROTC Color Guard will pres-ent the colors and do the raising of the flags at the pole dursing the ceremony. Various chapter members will participate in the ceremony - Jim Valdez, Master of Ceremonies; Gary Lemos will do Taps on the flute, Al-ice Gomez will release a white dove followed by the resto f the doves’ release, Ed Ryan will do the invocation, Pat Pa-gel, POW/MIA prayer; Tom Hohmann, will read the POW historical information. Inside the POW/MIA table will be de-scribed by Alice Gomez.

christMas Party!Chapter 47 has set its 2015 Christmas Party date for Decem-

ber 19. The Sizzler restaurant at Clay and Van Buren Boulevard in Riverside (Jurupa Valley) - 6631 Clay St, Riverside, CA 92509 - map located online (https://www.google.com/maps/place/6631+Clay+St,+Riverside,+CA+92509/@33.9677258,-117.4662706,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x80dcb6a88db60739:0x1794d32c8

CHAPTER OFFICERS FOR 2013 - 2015

President Steve Mackey

Vice President Mike Kennedy

secretary/treasurer Tom Hohmann

directors

Zack Earp Alex Candelaria

Jess Gomez Dave Hooper

Gary Kuderman Walter Mendoza

Ed Ryan Jim Valdez

Product sales Steve Mackey

Dave Hooper

state council reP. Ken Porizek

newsletter editor Tom Hohmann

Publisher Steve Mackey

web site Tom Hohmann

aVVa liaison Alice Gomez

IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS

Chapter 47 meets on the 3rd Saturday of each

month at the VFW 10267 in Jurupa Valley. The

meetings begin at 10 a.m. Board meetings are on

the second Wednesday of each month, also at the

VFW at 10 a.m. Check our web site for further

information directions/maps/etc. Meetings dates/

times do change throughout the year, notices will

be sent. Check our chapter web site often.

Membership is open to all Vietnam Era veter-

ans, regardless of the country where you were sta-

tioned (Feb 28, ‘61 to May 7, ‘75), race, religion,

gender, ethnicity. AVVA membership is open to

anyone with an interest in supporting the goals of

VVA.

The opinions expressed in this newsletter are

not necessarily those of the Chapter, its Board of

Directors, its membership, or VVA Inc.

Chapter 47 951-781-6137

Household Goods

Donation Pick Up

909-888-7786

vvadonations.org

Vet Centers:

Colton

Corona

909-801-5762

951-734-0525

County Department of Veteran Services

Riverside 951-955-6050

San Bernardino 909-387-5516

Pettis VA Hospital 909-825-7084

800-741-8387

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6a8659f) - link is also on the chapter web site.We will have rafles too - and we could use some help with

items to raffle. If you would like to donate a item for raffle, please let Elayne Mackey know (mmm4evr1@aol.com); also if you’d like to help set up, decorate, etc., let her know. We need a lot of “elve help” - if you know what we mean.

There will possibly be musical group, still being worked on.Meals will be from the salad barThe chapter will pay for the

meals for members & their spouses/significant others.Many more things willl more than likely change or be added

but that’s what we know now. Check our chapter Web site (http://www.vva47.com) for updates.

We have not had a Christmas celebration in a while, so let’s all come out and enjoy each other’s company, break some bread, and buy some raffle tickets! All proceeds go into the General Fund and will be used for many of our chapter projects.

Thank you in advance!

Veteran highWay cleanuP

“Veterans Serving Veterans” is an organization of volunteers who have adopted a 3.0 mile stretch of the “Veterans Memorial Highway,” also know as Van Buren Boulevard, between Barton Street and the frontage of Highway 215, located in the Orangecrest

area of Riverside. The goal is to honor our military branches by en-suring community pride to this dedicated portion of the roadway.

In cooperation with the Riverside County Transportation De-partment and the City of Riverside Beautification Program, vol-unteers will assist in removing litter, trash and discarded items for pick-up once every 60 to 90 days (based upon demand) under the supervision of the volunteer coordinator. Specific dates will be an-nounced requesting a minimum of 2.0 hours, or less, of your time in helping. Youths are encouraged with adult or guardian partici-pation.

You need not be a veteran to volunteer, only love and respect our military heritage, our city and county, by instilling community pride in the management of this dedicated roadway honoring our military.

NEXT CLEAN-UP DATE:

SATURDAYOCTOBER 3, 2015

STARTING AT 08:00 A.M.(GATHER AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF VAN BUREN BLVD. & VILLAGE WEST DR.)

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:Glenn Waggoner Jr.(Chapter 47 Member)Volunteer Coordinator1buffalolvr@gmail.com (951) 990-1873

Veterans Waiting FOr careig rePOrt: 300,000 Veterans died While Waiting FOr health care at Va

WASHINGTON -- More than 300,000 American military veterans likely died while waiting for health care -- and nearly twice as many are still waiting -- according to a new Department of Veterans Affairs inspector general report.

The IG report says “serious” problems with enrollment data are making it impossible to determine exactly how many veterans are actively seeking health care from the VA, and how many were. For example, “data limitations” prevent investigators from deter-mining how many now-deceased veterans applied for health care benefits or when.

But the findings would appear to confirm reports that first sur-faced last year that many veterans died while awaiting care, as their applications got stuck in a system that the VA has struggled to overhaul. Some applications, the IG report says, go back nearly two decades.

The report addresses serious issues with the record-keeping itself.

More than half the applications listed as pending as of last year do not have application dates, and investigators “could not reliably determine how many records were associated with actual applications for enrollment” in VA health care, the report said.

The report also says VA workers incorrectly marked thou-sands of unprocessed health-care applications as completed and may have deleted 10,000 or more electronic “transactions” over the past five years.

Linda Halliday, the VA’s acting inspector general, said the agency’s Health Eligibility Center “has not effectively managed its business processes to ensure the consistent creation and main-tenance of essential data” and recommended a multi-year plan to improve accuracy and usefulness of agency records.

Halliday’s report came in response to a whistleblower who said more than 200,000 veterans with pending applications for VA health care were likely deceased.

The inspector general’s report substantiated that claim and others, but said there was no way to tell for sure when or why the person died. Similarly, deficiencies in the VA’s information secu-rity -- including a lack of audit trails and system backups -- limited investigators’ ability to review some issues fully and rule out data manipulation, Halliday said.

The VA has said it has no way to purge the list of dead appli-cants, and said many of those listed in the report are likely to have used another type of insurance before they died.

VA spokeswoman Walinda West said Wednesday the agency has publicly acknowledged that its enrollment process is confusing

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and that the enrollment system, data integrity and quality “are in need of significant improvement.”

Sens. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., chairman and senior Democrat of the Senate Veterans Af-fairs Committee, said in a joint statement that the inspector gen-eral’s report pointed to “both a significant failure” by leaders at the Health Eligibility Center and “deficient oversight by the VA central office” in Washington.

The lawmakers urged VA to implement the report’s recom-mendations quickly to improve record keeping at the VA and “ensure that this level of blatant mismanagement does not happen again.”

As of June 30, VA has contacted 302,045 veterans by mail, asking them to submit required documents to establish eligibility, West said. To date, the VA has received 36,749 responses and enrolled 34,517 veterans, she said.

“As we continue our work to contact veterans, our focus re-mains on improving the enrollment system to better serve veter-ans,” West said.

The Health Eligibility Center has removed a “purge-and-de-lete functionality” from a computer system used to track agency workloads, West said. VA will provide six months of data to dem-onstrate that any changed or deleted data on VA workloads has undergone appropriate management review, with approvals and audit trails visible, she said.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.© Copyright 2015 Fox News.

cOrOna Va clinic

The clinic operates just like a local doctor’s office where pa-tients are seen by scheduled appointment. The clinic is not an emergency center. To enroll call the clinic to schedule an inter-view and begin your care.Features*Primary care services for Veterans in the Corona area.

*Behavioral Health services including individual, group and fam-ily counseling, and other programs.*Handicapped Accessible: full and easy access for all Veterans.*Specialty care referrals to the Loma Linda VA Medical Center.*Blood drawing services available.*Routine prescriptions processed through the mail or My Heal-

theVet.Clinic HoursMonday - Thursday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.Friday 8 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

driVing directiOnsFrom the I-15, take Magnolia Ave. Exit (West) on Magnolia

Ave. for .7 of a mile. At Kellogg Avenue make a U-Turn. Clinic will be on your right.

nOte:Beginning September 28, 2015 the CORONA VA MEDICAL

CLINIC will be in a new facility located at: 2045 Compton Ave, Suite 101, Building 7, Corona, Ca. 92881. The phone number is: 951-817-8820.

chaPter 47 Plaque

Chapter 47 is finally getting their plaque at Riverside National Cemetery! Belive it or not, this project started back in 1992! After many broken prsomises by the cemetery’s former directors, Vice President Mike Kennedy and President Steve Mackey pushed this

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project to completion. Although not yet installed, the manufaturer who is producing it has promised that it will be finished before Veterans Day. We will then plan a dedication ceremony. You will agree on the wonderful artwork of Mike.

It will be installed on the walls behind the Amphitheater at Riverside National Cemetery.

More information on the details of the dedication of the plaque to come.

agent Orange: a cheMical attackChildren Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance: Agent Orange: A Chemical AttackPosted By Lily Bui on Jul 20, 2015

a cheMical attack that killed a cOuntry-side & scarred a PeOPle

Mangroves are sturdy trees. Recognizable by their extensive root systems, these trees can thrive in muddy soil, sand, peat, even coral. They tolerate water much saltier than most other plants and survive flooding during severe storms. It is perhaps their sturdiness that led mangroves to be one of the most significant targets in the Vietnam War.

During the war, communist guerrilla fighters would often take refuge in Vietnam’s thick jungles. Mangroves, among other types of flora, provided shelter from eyes in the sky seeking to deliver air strikes in strategic locations. So the U.S. military exposed guer-rillas by bombarding the trees themselves with huge amounts of defoliants, chemical herbicides that cause the leaves to fall off of plants. The most infamous defoliant was Agent Orange, named for the orange stripes marking the drums it was shipped in.

The defoliant is an equal mix of two herbicides, 2,4-diclo-rophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T). When sprayed on foliage during the war, it quickly stripped off the leaves, revealing anyone and anything below the canopy, destroying crops, and clearing vegetation near U.S. bases. By the end of the campaign, U.S. military forces had sprayed mil-lions of gallons of Agent Orange on over 5 million acres of upland and mangrove forests and about 500,000 acres of crops—an area the size of Massachusetts, and about 24 percent of South Viet-nam. Some areas of Laos and Cambodia along the Vietnam border were also sprayed. This massive effort, known as Operation Ranch Hand, lasted from 1962 to 1971.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t end there. Although the main goal of Operation Ranch Hand was aimed at destroying trees rath-er than killing or causing harm to humans, the impacts of Agent Orange on both environmental and human health are manifold, and the scientific community has yet to develop a robust under-standing of them.

To start with what we do know, the herbicides by themselves prove toxic to foliage and are associated with risks to human health in high doses. Furthermore, the 2,4,5-T in Agent Orange was contaminated by dioxins, a family of chemicals that form during manufacturing processes and can be extremely toxic to humans. The primary and most toxic dioxin in Agent Orange is 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, better known as TCDD.

People who live in areas that were heavily exposed to Agent Orange can end up consuming small but biologically significant amounts of dioxin through the food chain. The other major route of exposure is through direct skin absorption, which was more com-

mon when Agent Orange was being sprayed in the 1970s.“Oil and water don’t mix,” explains Peter Kahn, Professor of

Biochemistry at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, who has devoted much of his research on the effects of Agent Orange exposure to U.S. Vietnam veterans. “Dioxin is oil soluble, and oil is a hydrocarbon. Anything that is soluble in one hydrocarbon is soluble in others.” That means that dioxins are just as soluble in cooking oils as they are in adipose tissue or other fats in the human body.

Once in the body, dioxin stays there awhile. The half-life of dioxin in the body is seven years, meaning that after that long, the concentration will fall to half its original level. If you’ve done your math, you may have noticed that also means someone who had a large exposure to dioxin during the war would have nearly rid it from their body by now. However, lingering dioxin traces in the environment can still find their way into people’s bodies, either from contact with or through food grown in contaminated soil.

Obstetrician Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong with a group of dis-abled children, most victims of Agent Orange

Kahn began his research on Agent Orange as a postgraduate student in New York City. Enraged by the use of chemical warfare by the U.S. military, he recognized a gap in research and went on to become one of a few scholars dedicated to understanding Agent Orange’s effects on human health. His collaborative work with another dioxin chemist in Sweden, Christoffer Rappe, eventually led to a 13-year stint on a New Jersey State commission research-ing Agent Orange’s effects on U.S. veterans. Kahn’s research is part of a body of work that has found dioxin poisoning linked to soft-tissue sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (two forms of cancer), various physiological birth defects like spina bifida, skin rashes, among other varied health problems.

In Vietnamese, illnesses related to Agent Orange are some-times called da cam or, “orange skin,” for the lesions that appear after exposure to high doses. Medical treatment comes in the form of pain relief—anything from modern pain medicine to traditional medicine to holistic approaches like massage. There is no cure. Just triage.

Pinning down the extent of this chemical plague is difficult. As current research stands, scientists have a good understanding of what happens in “sudden, single-issue exposure” to dioxin, such as in industrial accidents. For example, exposure in high doses can lead to skin ailments like chloracne, which looks like adolescent acne but can be severe and persist throughout one’s lifetime. High doses can also increase risk of digestive problems, cancers, and birth defects.

However, trying to figure out the health effects of chronic exposure to low doses is more difficult. The main reason is that effects of dioxin are not always immediate. They can be delayed a decade or two, even longer. Effects can also be subtle. Even so, the Red Cross estimates that close to three million Vietnamese people have been affected by Agent Orange since the war, includ-ing 150,000 children.

Getting a better handle on the effects of Agent Orange and the prevalence of those effects could potentially take decades. In com-parison, our understanding of tobacco’s effects on human health is based on decades-long studies of enormous populations starting in the 1950s. “Vietnam’s entire population would make up only a fraction of the number of people involved in medical studies about tobacco,” Kahn offers, for perspective.

Though much needed, care is not available to many people

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suffering from dioxin exposure. Many patients can’t afford to stay in hospitals or “peace villages,” special organizations that have formed in Vietnam and other affected areas to provide care for patients suffering from Agent Orange-related ailments.

Foreign aid from the U.S. toward alleviating the effects of Agent Orange has been focused on environmental remediation rather than health care. In 2010, the U.S. announced a $44 mil-lion initiative called the Đà Nẵng Airport Remediation Project to remove dioxin residue around the former U.S. airbase in Đà Nẵng, one of the identified “hot spots” for dioxin contamination. The highest level recorded in a person was 1,000 parts per trillion, found in someone fishing in the lake on the Đà Nẵng airbase, com-pared to a baseline of around 2–7 parts per trillion for people living in nations that haven’t been heavily exposed.

The the need for aid to alleviate patients’ suffering is para-mount and, in some ways, is more immediate than the need for research to find out how dioxins affect us. Under these circum-stances, it may do more damage to wait for science to catch up to what is happening to Agent Orange patients. Dr. Kahn suggests,“If you have sick people, take care of them. Worry about the science afterwards. If it takes 40 years, so be it.”

Special thanks to Dr. Peter Kahn, Dr. Mai Thanh Truyết, Pe-ter and Mary Lidgard, and Pham Ngoc Mai.

Lily Bui is a graduate researcher in MIT’s Comparative Me-dia Studies program. She is the daughter of two Vietnamese im-migrants. Tweets @dangerbui.

This article has been reprinted with the permission of Lily BuiOriginal Article Posted At http://nautil.us/blog/a-chemical-

attack-that-killed-a-countryside–scarred-a-peopleThe post Agent Orange: A Chemical Attack appeared first on

Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance.© 2014 (COVVHA) Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health

Alliance INC

agent Orange tOWn hall

I have been working on hosting an Agent Orange Town Hall Meeting. I have found a date to host an Agent Orange Town Hall Meeting in Riverside, October 17, 2015. I would like to work with you on notifying the various veterans groups in the county and especially the one in the Riverside city limits. Also, I would like to meet with you sometime in the next week or two to discuss where we could hold the event and review the details of what is needed to hold this event. I will also be working with VVA Chapter 47, Alice Gomez - AVVA - VVA 47 Chapter Representative and planning to meet with local civic groups, local Chamber of Commerce /lo-cal city/county/state and federal legislators.

Respectfully, Zack Earp(951) 352-1278 Home(951) 522-5091 Cellwyatt48@att.net

Note: due to the date of this event, Chapter 47 is mofing its General Meeting from Octdober 17 to t he 31st. Zack will be pro-ducting a flyer soon that will be distributed via our e-mail system and on our Chapter 47 Web site. Also, there will be another news-letter out before October 17. FYI - that is a new goal for us, a

newsletter every month. If you have something to put in it get it to Tom Hohmann via tomh47@aol.com.

agent Orange helicOPter sPray MissiOns

Unclassified information that most if not all of us have ever

seen before, from a former chopper pilot. This provides data on just where, what, when and how much herbicides were sprayed in Vietnam by helicopter. This PDF file provides much information on the topic and the link is at the bottom of this email.

It is rather difficult to follow this file so the best thing to do is print pp 3-7 and get familiar with the coding; then scroll down to pages 9-138 to see where the missions were carried out and other identifying information that you will need from the coding pages.

The time frame for helicopter herbicide missions was 1962-1971. There is still no information on how much was disbursed via backpack spraying and truck spraying but the information on helicopter spray missions is very specific.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a160563.pdf

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VVA Chapter 47PO Box 4277Riverside, CA 92514-4277http://www.vva47.com

NOTE Important Meeting/Event Information InsideSeptember General Meeting - moved to 26 at the Military Museum for our POW/MIA Recognition CeremonyOctober General Meeting - moved to the 31stDecember 19, Chapter 47 Chiristmas Party, 12 Noon to 4 p.m. at Sizzler on Clay & Van Buren, Riverside