Paralysed Australian Vietnam Soldier Speaks Out
NZ Vietnam Servicemen Should Get Veterans Compensation and Benefits
Oct 25, 2009
He spoke to the author in 2004 on the day before the New Zealand government was due to acknowledge for the first time that its Vietnam servicemen, some 30 years earlier, had been deployed in chemical defoliant drop zones.
Mr Searle, whose own involvement with chemical defoliants in the war made him a paraplegic, said the acknowledgement was long overdue. New Zealand's attitude to its Vietnam servicemen had been "deliquent". While other countries had been issuing their servicemen with veterans compensation and benefits, a succession of New Zealand Government's had refused to even admit there was an issue.
Mr Searle is in a position to comment. He's been in a wheelchair for 20 years now. His tour of duty in Vietnam had seen him sloshing "thousands and thousands" of litres of Agent Orange from 44 gallon drums into spray planes....just over a decade later the dioxin in the chemical so decimated the bone marrow and tissue in his legs that he was left paralysed.
But he counted himself lucky. The Australian government had been quick to acknowledge the plight of its Vietnam servicemen. Mr Searle had received about $A60,000 in veterans compensation and benefits. Of that about $A22,000 was for medical expenses. Had he been a New Zealand Vietnam serviceman, he would have received nothing.
"Delinquent" was the only word to describe New Zealand’s attitude towards its Vietnam servicemen, Mr Searle said. New Zealand servicemen had to have been some of the worst affected by chemical defoliants in Vietnam.
“Most of the Kiwi contingents in Vietnam were foot soldiers and would have been regularly subjected to overhead spraying,” Mr Searle said.
Vietnamese villagers were also likely to have been severely affected, he said.
"I have often wondered what happened to all those empty 44-gallon drums . . . . I imagine some of them could quite well have been taken by the locals and used to store rice or to wash their clothes in," Mr Searle said.
New Zealand Manufactured Chemical Defoliants Sprayed on its Own Vietnam Servicemen
He believed the New Zealand government's refusal to acknowledge the ill health of its Vietnam servicemen, was because a New Plymouth company was directly involved. Ivon Watkins Dow had manufactured some of the chemical defoliants, especially Agent Orange, used in Vietnam, Mr Searle said.
"If the New Zealand government apologises to its servicemen then it means it also has to admit a responsibility to those people who are suffering the effects of dioxin in New Plymouth. It may also have to contribute to compensation for the Vietnamese."
"I'm picking there will soon be a big action from there (Vietnam) too but I don't know which governments will be held responsible — whether it will be the New Zealand government for having manufactured the chemical or the US government who most likely commissioned it.
"I'd like to see the New Zealand government sued. For 35 years they've mucked around with this.
"They've got people in the suburb where it was made (in New Plymouth) with deformed kids but what do they do about it? — they commission another report. That's just delinquency, nothing else.
"The Government should officially apologise and then pay out $100,000 to every Vietnam veteran or to the families that have survived them," he said.
"As for the select committee's chairwoman Steve Chadwick saying that the information wasn't forthcoming until last year — that's rubbish. I, myself drew the findings of a report to the attention of the New Zealand government in 1994," Mr Searle said.
Speaking about his own illness, Mr Searle said it was 10–12 years after Vietnam that he began to feel unwell.
"It slows you down completely. It came on gradually and then killed the bone marrow and tissue, mainly in my legs. Other guys I worked with suffered the same side effects but their paralysis affected their spines and lungs.
"We were constantly spilling the stuff. Back in those days there were no occupational safety and health type warnings about what to do after a spillage."
Dioxin Effects from Chemical Defoliants Well Known Before Vietnam Servicemen were Doused
"I think governments were well aware of the repercussions of dioxin even before Vietnam. A similar product had been used during WW2. That's why the Australian government was so willing to pay out compensation, " Mr Searle said.
"But the people with all the stripes wouldn't have been worried about those without them. It just shows man's inhumanity to man," he said.
Veterans Compensation and Benefits Finally Promised but New Zealand Vietnam Servicemen Still Waiting
Footnote: In December 2006, the New Zealand Government announced a $30 million package of services and benefits for veterans and their families as well as a formal apology and a welcome home parade for its Vietnam veterans. The apology and parade occurred but some veterans said they were still waiting for any sign of the promised compensation
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