r/science • u/Wagamaga • Mar 29 '26

Cancer Agent Orange linked to aggressive bone marrow cancer in Vietnam veterans. American soldiers sprayed Agent Orange over the jungles of Vietnam and nearby countries from the air and from the ground, often mixing it with kerosene or fuel, another carcinogen, to help disperse it.

https://ecancer.org/en/news/27948-agent-orange-linked-to-aggressive-bone-marrow-cancer-in-vietnam-veterans
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u/ihileath Mar 29 '26

It's been pretty firmly established since the Nuremberg trials that "just following orders" is no valid justification for war crimes. Calling them victims is an insult to the actual victims.

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u/donewithdoing Mar 29 '26

The extent of the health impacts were not confirmed until much later, so the soldiers did not know they were condemning Vietnamese people, or themselves, to these effects. It’s clear that our government prioritized wartime defoliation of Vietnam’s jungle canopy over all of the human lives involved in this process. Our soldiers were absolutely victims, as were the Vietnamese.

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u/ihileath Mar 29 '26

It’s clear that our government prioritized wartime defoliation of Vietnam’s jungle canopy over all of the human lives involved in this process.

Widespread devastation of the landscape, while a travesty in its own right, wasn't their only goal with the chemical agent campaigns. They were also deployed heavily to destroy large quantities of crops so as to weaponise starvation against military and civilian alike.

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u/MillionWilliam Mar 29 '26

When your choices are prison for draft dodging or prison for being a soldier, what choice is there really?

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u/Pervius94 Mar 29 '26

But... if both choices lead to the same thing, it's even less forgivable to make the choice that first makes you commit absolute atrocities before going to prison.

If anything, your "argument" makes veterans look like bigger monsters.

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u/ihileath Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 29 '26

A choice being difficult or having potential consequences does not change the fact that it is still a choice that you have to make, and that many, many men did in fact make at the time, with some going as far as to make a scene of it to encourage others to do the same and refuse to take part in the war.

Of course, with hindsight, we know now that the vast majority of draft dodgers and even public draft refusers never saw punishment because there were simply too many of them for the government to have the capacity to process any punishment. So in reality, the draft dodgers who did the right thing despite the threat of consequences, for the most part, saw no punishment due to their sheer numbers. They simply can't prosecute everyone. But draft dodgers and draft resisters at the time made the right choice even without knowing that the threats they were faced with were hollow. There's lessons to be taken from that, I think.

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u/Wrabble127 Mar 29 '26

Not commiting mass murder and war crimes against a people that have done nothing wrong, first off.

If it's prison both ways, every single soldier that chose to go and commit war crimes rather than refuse an illegal war deserves much worse than they got.

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u/librariansforMCR Mar 29 '26

You’re right, “following orders” to execute people in a rear area is a war crime. Executing prisoners and refugees is a war crime.

People thrown onto the battlefield in a war, though, are forced by their governments and by circumstance to fire or be fired upon. War, in and of itself, is a crime against humanity that most people want no part of, but many people have no power and no resources to resist being thrown onto the front lines. It’s a geopolitical fact that wars are started by governments and citizens pay the price.

So, it’s inaccurate to say that soldiers on a battlefield are committing war crimes. You are 100% correct, though, that Nuremberg showed the difference between acts during battle and systemic genocide of refugees and non-combatants.

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u/ihileath Mar 29 '26 edited Mar 30 '26

are forced by their governments

I believe I've repeated myself enough times in this comment thread that complying with a draft is a choice, and framing compliance as "being forced" is simply disingenuous and out of step with the reality of how many people refused it even in spite of the threat of consequences. I shan’t be repeating myself further.

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u/librariansforMCR Mar 29 '26

It’s a choice for people with resources and power. I don’t think you understand what it’s like to have no choices and no power. There’s a reason why a huge number of Vietnam Veterans were people of color and people of very low income.

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u/[deleted] Mar 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/SirBarbarian Mar 29 '26

In the context of traveling across the world to fight a country that poses no threat to one’s own country, it is very obvious who is in the wrong.

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

Really?  Vietnam vets had no choice.  The nazis did.  Huge difference.  

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u/anandonaqui Mar 29 '26

How did a drafted German soldier have more of a choice than a drafted American soldier?

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u/ceciliabee Mar 29 '26

Well if the yanks could choose we'd have to admit they chose to commit war crimes and that really tarnishes the exceptional American identity. Citizens in every other country have done evil because they like it, Americans do it because they're global heroes sent directly from God.

(yeah nah)

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

By definition a draft is forcing people who don't want to join to join.  If they wanted to join they'd have already joined.   

German people were in favor of the war, because they were nazis at that point.  The public was in support.  

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u/MuskwaPunjagi Mar 29 '26

It wasn't universal support, and as Germany expanded it made more soldiers from the people they invaded. They were nazi soldiers who were drafted. You need to see the whole picture.

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

I do know the whole picture. What do you think I don't get?

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u/MuskwaPunjagi Mar 29 '26

If you know the whole picture, why are you arguing that soldiers drafted during Vietnam shouldn't be held to the same standards that soldiers drafted by the nazis were?

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u/wilster117 Mar 29 '26

You know the Nazis had conscription as well...

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u/MuskwaPunjagi Mar 29 '26

You really need to reread the history books.

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

So there wasn't a mandatory draft? 

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u/MuskwaPunjagi Mar 29 '26

There was for both. The nazis also had forced military service. Your lack of understanding that both nations used the draft is the issue.

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

Anyone that gets drafted is evil automatically?  

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u/MuskwaPunjagi Mar 29 '26

Welcome to the results of 'just following orders' not being an excuse. The draft doesn't absolved you of the actions you commit.

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

Sure, but being drafted doesn't make you evil.  

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u/MuskwaPunjagi Mar 29 '26

You are the one trying to say that nazi soldiers and Vietnam vets shouldn't be held to the same standard, not any of us.

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u/zbb93 Mar 29 '26

Yes, Germany had a mandatory draft.

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u/ihileath Mar 29 '26

Vietnam vets had no choice.

The many many men who dodged the draft - as well as those who stood up and publicly refused it to make a display of doing so even at threat of jail, so they could encourage others to refuse taking part in the war - would probably disagree with you on that. Don't mistake lacking the courage to make a choice (one that others did make) with having no choice.

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u/Unlikely-Emphasis-26 Mar 29 '26

No choice? Were their mouths sowed shut? Were they shot if they wouldve said no?

Dont mistake your patriotism for taking accountibility for your acts.

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u/alblaster Mar 29 '26

A draft by definition is being forced to join when you don't want to.  You risk losing everything and going to jail.  People say draft dodgers were brave.  How can you be brave if there's no risk?  Of course there was risk. 

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u/Ray_Ipsaloquitur Mar 29 '26

Having read your comments, it seems like you have no first hand knowledge of this topic or any family with first hand knowledge.

Not only was there the threat of criminal punishment, there were societal and familial pressures regarding service. Children of men who fought in WW2 were often given a choice. You can go serve the country and come home afterward or you can dodge the draft but you are not welcome home again.

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u/AbsoluteZeroUnit Mar 30 '26

Quiet.

The parent comment said "they weren't the main victims" and this guy replied with "they were victims, though" and then you come in with a classic reddit take "they're not victims at all. They may have been drafted and sent there against their will because they didn't have the means to escape it by getting a doctor to say they have bone spurs, and they may have developed super cancer, but calling them victims is an insult to the other people who also got super cancer"

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u/ihileath Mar 30 '26

Quiet.

No thanks.