Date published: Tuesday, August 24, 2004
By Scott Beveridge, Staff writer

DANANG, Vietnam – The frail boy can barely crawl or play with toys because of his lack of coordination.

His skin is pale and slightly gray from birth defects, similar to that of his older brother.

Vo Tan Hau, 4, and his 13-year-old sibling, Tri, are among many disabled children in impoverished farm villages in Danang, a former U.S. military base on the coast of Central Vietnam.

Their deformities are unofficially attributed to Agent Orange, the herbicide that was sprayed over the country during the Vietnam War. More than 20 million gallons of herbicides that contained toxic dioxin and other acidic chemicals were used by U.S. troops to defoliate forests and root the enemy out of their hiding places between 1961 and 1970, the Vietnamese government claims.

"Many of these children have brain damage," said Kenneth J. Herrmann Jr., a social sciences professor at State University of New York-Brockport, who founded a college for Americans in Danang in 2000. His students are required to perform community service to suspected Agent Orange victims, as well as attend lectures by Danang University professors.

"Many of these children are wasting away. Many of them are emaciated," said Herrmann, who served as a U.S. Army sergeant in the war.

Vietnam War veterans from Washington County also are reaching out to deformed children in the Danang area. Members of the Friends of Danang of McMurray have set a goal to raise $192,600 to provide the children with surgery to relax their twisted and tight tendons so they might be able to walk.

Anthony W. Accamando Jr., a founder of the Friends of Danang, said his group is only chipping away at the many problems facing these children.

"We are not miracle workers," said Accamando, 60, of Eighty Four.

A $150 donation from his group eased the suffering of Dang Ngo Tien Dung, 15, whose deformed legs prevented him from sitting upright until his surgery in April 2003.

Despite his progress, Dung spends endless hours on a straw mat spread across his wood-slat bed. His bedroom has a dirt floor lined with walls that are barely covered with recycled boards and sheet metal. He has a view through his door of a television in the next room, a gift from Accamando.

Friends of Danang also underwrites the cost of counseling for mothers of children like Dung to make it easier for them to care for their children. These women can barely afford rice and nuoc mam (fermented fish sauce), the cheapest staples in Vietnam. Some have been abandoned by their husbands because of their unhealthy children, relief workers said.

They sometimes resort to wishing death upon their children as their only hope to relieve the suffering, said Nguyen Thi Lan of World Vision International. The Christian nonprofit organization administers the Friends of Danang's Let Them Walk Again project.

"I used to cry. I decided it was fate. I had to quit crying to care for my children," said To Thi Phuong, 29, of Danang's Hoa Vang village.

Two of her three children were born with birth defects. Her 9-month-old daughter has leukemia and a tumor on her left cheek, while her 6-year-old son has brain damage and deformed arms and legs.

Hoa Vang was sprayed with Agent Orange during Marine and Army patrols, Herrmann said. Today, 70 of the village's 110 children have disabilities that could be associated with the herbicide, according to him.

It is difficult to prove the cause of these birth defects, he said, because genetic testing costs as much as $1,500.

"They don't have that kind of money," Herrmann said. "Most of these kids have no access to a doctor."

Thirty of the 2,400 children under age 16 in Hoa Lien have similar birth defects, said Dr. Le Van Hy, the district physician. He has indentified 13 other deformed children here who need surgery, and countless others who should be evaluated by a physician.

"We don't have enough money," Hy said. "We are trying our best."

A poster promoting condom use hangs from a porch column at his clinic, a modest stucco building with donated American medical supplies and stainless steel furnishings. Birth control is a difficult concept to sell in a culture that places a high moral responsibility on children to be devoted to their parents. Parents with many children are thus ensured they will be properly cared for when they are old and worshiped in the afterlife.

The culture and the plight of the children in Danang have left lasting impressions on Herrmann's students.

"How lucky we are to have been born in the right place," said Joseph Lapaix, 21, a history student at SUNY-Brockport, after delivering noodles and money to suspected Agent Orange victims in Hoa Vang in July.

"We need to see these things to be affected," said his classmate, Ashley Dahl, 22, an English student at the University of Denver.

"We see it. We feel it – so we do something about it," she said.

On the Net:

www.danangquangnamfund.org