April 15, 1970, application of Agent Orange and most other defoliants was suspended indefinitely.
Years later, a sad and fitting epitaph for the Agent Orange
saga would come from James Clary, an Air Force scientist and
author of the official history of Operation Ranch Hand, in a statement to Senator Tom Daschle: “When we initiated the herbicide
program in the 1960s we were well aware of the potential for
damage due to dioxin contamination in the herbicide. We were
even aware that the military formulation had
a higher dioxin concentration than the civilian
version, due to the lower cost and the speed of
manufacture. However, because the material
was to be used on the enemy, none of us were
overly concerned.”
was a particular red cotton shirt a friend had loaned to me that I
must have worn three times a week. I wore it in the water when
we swam in the moonlight at the abandoned rock quarry; I wore
it during sex on the gravelly shore; I wore it when to do so must
have been agonizing. I thought the sleeves would hide my hand.
And the long-sleeved t-shirt was not the only mechanism
employed for hiding the truth of who I was. I took to wearing thick
goalkeeper’s gloves that kept the shape of their fingers against
gravity when I shook hands with players from
opposing teams after soccer games (in retrospect, I wonder if the gloves weren’t part of
the appeal of the position). I would bury both
hands deep in the pockets of my letterman’s
jacket as I flirted with girls from other schools
at track meets or wrestling matches. I became
skilled at striking a variety of postures to keep
my dreaded deformity out of sight, turning this
way or that, sitting down just so. I learned to
live in a state of contortion.
It would be comforting to look back and to
sense some kind of turning point, some theatrical beginning of a healing process, a link
between the discord of those years and the relative stillness of the present. The truth is this:
like most authentic change, most real letting
go, mine has happened gradually, and beneath the surface of
things. A decade and a half of life—of marriage and divorce, of
fatherhood and graduate school, of love affairs and rafting swift
rivers, of university teaching and Buddhist meditation—have
swept away much of the hidden shyness and dread. But still, at the
age of thirty-three, I’m finding that old habits die hard. If I’ve lost
myself momentarily while driving, reading a book, or engaging in
some other task that requires a chunk of my brain, I sometimes
find that, without intending to, I have tucked my left hand gently
behind my right elbow. Lying in bed at night before sleep takes
hold, I’ll notice my left hand resting underneath the ruffles of the
blanket while my right hand sits bare and comfortable on top. Or
I’ll think about a class I’ve taught on a particular morning, coming
to a sudden realization that all the gesturing and hand-waving was
done with one arm. I will pause for a moment and make a mental
note. Sometimes, I will curse.
Studies would
eventually show
that the spray
BY THE TIME I reached adolescence, there
was no longer any doubt as to whether I was
like other young men. I was different, less
than, not quite whole. Instead of attempting to
come to terms with what I have now come to
realize is a minor glitch in DNA, instead of facing up to my own uniqueness, the shape of my
particular handprint, I tried hard to deny it, to
prove to myself that I was in no way distinct
from the two hundred boys and girls I entered
Dixon High School with in 1988. On the surface, I succeeded. I
joined sports teams and—I’m sure this was a conscious act of
rebellion—put myself in positions that required the use of both
hands in order to succeed. I wrestled and won matches as a freshman, earned four varsity letters as a soccer goalkeeper, brought
home trophies and plaques. What’s more, I had awkward sex with
teenage girls, drank beer and smoked pot, grew my hair long,
hung out with the right crowd, took a cheerleader to the prom.
Inside, I was a wreck. I recall the summer between my junior
and senior year and a girl named Krista, younger than I, brown
hair, green eyes, slender, carrying always the smell of Elizabeth
Taylor Passion. Krista was the first girl I spent more than one or
two nights with, and I fell for her hard. Along with my friend Josh
and his girlfriend Billy, we spent the better part of the summer
together. It was a hot summer, hot in the manner that all midwestern summers are, so thick with vapor that even the loosest
clothing sticks to skin, and sunglasses slide down noses. That
whole summer, when I was in the company of Krista—which was
most of the time—I wore long sleeves. I would rush into my bedroom to change clothes each time she came to my house. There
missions of Ranch
Hand had little or
no effect on the
path of the war.
TERRY PUMPS THE BRAKES to keep from skidding, drags
the gearshift into park, and points out the driver’s-side window.
From behind a chain-link fence, I stare at a fleet of seventeen
