Children Of Vietnam Veterans Health Alliance

08/30/2022

Hi everyone. I would like to inform you we are closing the business end of COVVHA during the beginning of 2023. We are working with our lawyer to suspend our 501c3 status.

This is due in part to our own declining health, overall lack of interest and bleak prospects for making wider change in the current environment since the overturning of the Agent Orange act of 1991.

COVVHA’s first mission was to educate and our overarching mission was to create change for the good of kids of Vietnam Veterans. We have done both of those things, just not in the way we expected. I cannot tell you how fulfilling it is to watch COVVs connect with each other. Yes we may have not won in DC but I have so many wonderful people in my life who understand AO, I never have to feel alone again.

We will move forward with our annual holiday give away for covvs in need in December. Any remaining money will be donated to The Vietnam Wall Memorial Fund earmarked for their AO exhibit.

Our FB groups will remain. We will no longer be collecting any funds. More updates will follow at a later date.

We thank you each for your participation.

Warmly,

Tanya Mack, Valerie A G Ouillette
And Heather Morris Bowser

05/31/2022

VVMF needs our help, folks.

The Wall of Faces search continues...

As we continue to find photos of the American service members who lost their lives in the Vietnam War we ask your help in finding photos of the following servicemen:

Roger Brown
Private First Class
LOG SPT ACT DA LAY, 21ST S&S CO, 54TH GS GROUP, ARMY SPT CMD CAM RANH BAY, 1ST LOG CMD. ARMY.
New York, New York
June 13, 1949 to April 09, 1969

Steven Brian Calhoun
Sergeant
HHT, 1ST SQDN, 10TH CAVALRY, 4TH INF DIV. ARMY.
New York, New York
February 12, 1947 to May 18, 1969

Hector David Oyola
Private First Class
B CO, 3RD BN, 1ST INFANTRY, 11TH INFANTRY BDE, AMERICAL DIV. ARMY
New York, New York
April 13, 1949 to August 14, 1970

Please share with your friends and Facebook groups.

If you have photos of any of these service members, or any service member listed on The Wall, submit them at: vvmf.org/wall-of-faces

To learn more about how to submit a photo, go to: vvmf.org/how-to-submit

05/26/2022

Tara Mullins-Cosme:

Dad felt his participation in Smile Lines Project was one of the most important pieces of his legacy. Smile Lines Project is a traveling portrait exhibition that highlights the unique survival skill sets of service members, with the hopes that sharing their vulnerable stories of resilience will save even one veteran from death by su***de. As someone who was drafted, came home to little support, and suffered the devastating effects of Agent Orange exposure, supporting young veterans was a passion. It mattered to Dad that his portrait and words continued to mentor, even in his death. It also mattered to him that the existence of the project was shared with as many people as possible.

"A lot of people are running from experience. Use that experience of yours. Work from it, through it, and use that experience for good." -Bobby D. Mullins

Shared with permission

(Portrait by Artist Suzanne Gallagher, founder of Smile Lines Project)

05/23/2022

"This poem was written by me, Fredda Durando, for my late husband before he passed from Agent Orange caused disease.

I created watching his reflections on the wall written about his friend he was searching for on the Vietnam Memorial Wall."

#

05/23/2022

*Please email your submissions to [email protected]* We are looking for submissions that honor our Vietnam Veterans. This can be short stories (please limit to a couple of hundred words), poems, collages, family portraits with captions, or anything else that honors your veteran this Memorial Day.

03/29/2022

03/03/2022

“More than 50 years had passed since my father enlisted to serve in Vietnam as a U.S. Army nurse. At that point, three out of five members of my immediate family had died prematurely in middle age, each at the cusp of their next decade. I needed to know why.”

For years, I tried to forget what happened to my family in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Now all I want to do is remember. The first to die was my father in 2003 at the age of 59. He was overweight and living in an assisted living center in Houston. Ever since his service in Vietnam, he’d stru...

01/25/2022

A 2009 Chicago Tribune article cited a 1990 report prepared for the Department of Veterans Affairs stating the military knew Agent Orange was harmful to armed forces personnel but took few precautions to limit their exposure to this chemical compound. The report quoted a 1988 letter from James Clary, a former scientist with the Chemical Weapons Branch of the Air Force Armament Development Laboratory. The letter was sent to then-Senator Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) who was spearheading legislation to help veterans sickened with herbicide defoliants.

The use of “rainbow herbicides” led to a 1984 class action suit by Vietnam veterans and their families against chemical companies that produced these defoli

08/06/2021

James R. Scott served in the army during the Vietnam War and was consequently exposed to the Agent Orange. He was later diagnosed with bladder cancer, which was recently recognized by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs as a potential effect of being exposed to the chemical.

In this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast, Scott shares his story and reacts to the VA’s update.

In this episode of the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast, a cancer survivor who served in the Vietnam War shares the story of his Agent Orange exposure and bladder cancer.

07/15/2021

The draft defines ecocide as "unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts."

A panel of lawyers from around the world proposes to make ecocide a crime that can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court just like genocide and war crimes.

06/28/2021

Check out the interview Monday June 28 on WAMU's 1A show at 10:10 am with Alan Adelson director/producer/writer of The People VS Agent Orange and Carol Van Strum one of the women profiled in the film who has been fighting for her "Right not to be Poisoned". Then do not not forget to check out the film premiering on Independence Lens on your local PBS station tonight June 28th. The film will be streaming on the PBS website until July 11th if you miss the broadcast times. WAMU can be found on line to stream the interview just search for WAMU.

06/27/2021

The documentary premieres on PBS Monday June 28.

'The People Vs. Agent Orange,' airing June 28 on PBS and the PBS Video App, focuses on two women, both leading the charge against the poisoning of the people, the land and the wildlife.