A LEGISLATIVE COMMEMORATION, Honoring the victims of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.

WHEREAS, more than eight million citizens of this country honorably served during the Vietnam War when Agent Orange was widely used in Vietnam by the United States Armed Forces as a part of the herbicidal warfare program Operation Ranch Hand from 1961 until 1971; and

WHEREAS, nearly twenty million gallons of the orange powder were sprayed over the land from helicopters or low-flying aircraft, destroying vegetation and crops in order to deprive enemy guerillas of food and cover for their activities and exposing two million six hundred thousand American soldiers to the chemical; and

WHEREAS, Agent Orange contains dioxina carcinogen that enters the body through physical contact or ingestion and moves into the cell nucleus, attacking the genes and causing a number of serious illnesses including leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, ischemic heart disease, soft tissue sarcoma, amyloidosis, diabetes, and cancers of the throat, prostate, lung, and colon; and

WHEREAS, Agent Orange causes genetic damage, and in some cases, the children and grandchildren of veterans exposed to Agent Orange have been born with spina bifida and other genetic defects; and

WHEREAS, veterans who are victims of Agent Orange are not recognized as fatalities of the Vietnam War and are excluded from being memorialized on the wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT COMMEMORATED, by the Ninety-Ninth Legislature of the State of South Dakota, that victims of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War took up arms against the enemies of this great nation, risked their lives to safeguard the freedoms and liberties guaranteed to all Americans, and were injured in the line of duty.