Thanks very much folks will check it out-the web site. I already contacted the Vietnam Vet, helpline but the person wasn't much help. But will maybe give it another go :))

Thanks again.

I find it intriguing that people comment that we need to move on, and that health issues can be attributed to many things and perhaps not chemical warfare - and that we have a victim mentality.

I am a daughter of a Vietnam Vet. Both myself and my brother have health issues that may or may not be attributable to my dad being in Vietnam and being in Agent Orange areas - we don't know. But given that since the end of the war 14.8 out of 100000 people in the general population between the ages of 10 and 39 years committed suicide, and that figure is 46.6 out of 100000 for viet vets children - yeah I'd say there was a link somewhere.

I'm not overly concerned with my health issues, I can deal with them. What scares me out of my mind is what is going to be the impact on my children? Will they be okay? Will they have cancer, or spina bifida or cleft palate? This is not the voice of a victim saying we need this research to happen, this is the voice of a future mother who will fight tooth and nail to see that her children are looked after. Especially if it is related to something that her own father experienced because he thought at the time he was doing the right thing.

Please don't push us aside and try to invalidate our situations by classing us as victims.

Kate

Well said kateaj

G'day Kate

I fully understand your fears about your future children and nobody can be sure just what may transpire, I just want to tell you that I now have grandchildren to my son and my daughter is currently pregnant and so far so good there are no obvious problems.

You are so right with your statements on the suicide among our children the last study showed children of Vietnam Vets are suiciding at a rate that is 300% higher than the Australian national average and the Asutralian average is among the highest in the world.

Be positive Kate and stay strong.

Dobie

I'm the daughter of a VV I'm the eldest of five child and the mother of four.I'm 36yrs old. My little brother is 6yrs old.
Unless your the Wife or child of one of these Soldiers, I find it hard to understand how you could 'understand the trauma'.
Do you know what it's like to be held up against a wall,by your throat, with you feet off the ground and told that if he squeezed just a little harder you'd be dead.I was only a little girl.I put up with that sort of abuse until I was 16yrs old, then I ran away from home.
I've dealt with my childhood and various medical conditions (one of which also saw me go through menapause at 26)
I am not 'wallowing in my own self misery' nor do I believe that that others from similar situation are either....
PEOPLE SHOULDN"T PASS JUDGEMENT ON THINGS THEY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.......

I understand from the most recent inquiries, that the relevant “feasibility study” has now been completed, and resting in the hands of the “Repatriation Commission” for review, consent, or whatever they are suppose to do; and that this part of the protocol could take some time? "Hello, we have been waiting since the onset of our son's problems, from childhood, to puberty, to adulthood, and very familiar with the 'hurry up and wait' mentality?" not to mention the "find out for yourself routine?"
Could someone please enlighten me? I take far too many pills and things, and must be confused, because I keep hearing or reading different accounts of the proposed study's progress. I am still confused with the process, and lack of information in the public domain. Bureaucrats are experts at serving up misinformation, and half-truths, and by further protracting matters such as this into OBSCURITY. Please excuse me if I sound cynical, but I am just an old war horse beaten, insubordinate, loose lipped with anger! Nothing but a battered and bruised baby boomer, with the gnawing pain of my son’s mental torture (he is 28) still in my stomach pit.

I spoke to an assistant for the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, on Friday, who reiterated that the feasibility study had not been completed. Today I personally visited Jackie Kelly’s Parliamentary office, here in Penrith, who obligingly informed me that the matter (feasibility study) was as of this day, Monday the 20 February 2006, with Repat; awaiting further orders. A bitter crunchy, with a bad taste of dioxin infected semen, as of 1978.

Ted Colmer Vietnam 1968-69, 1ARU, 4RAR, D&E Platoon, Task Force.