RANCH HAND

1. Public Record

Operation Ranch Hand, 1962 to 1971. United States aerial spraying of herbicides over South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia on the official maps. Agent Orange is the name that stuck. Agents Purple, Pink, Green, Blue and White sit in the same rainbow. Official purpose: deny cover and crops to the other side. UC-123 Providers fly the same runs until the runs stop. Crews are told it is a defoliation job. Vietnamese ground and later American veterans carry the medical argument for the rest of their lives.

TCDD dioxin rides with the Orange mix. Courts and Congress spend decades on veteran compensation. Vietnamese counts of dead, ill and deformed never become a single agreed integer in Washington. The Air Force keeps the sortie records. Ranch Hand is not a rumour. It is a named operation with a start date, a stop date and a chemical.

A spray boom. A colour. A generation that did not end when the sorties did.

2. Date of Incident

1962-1971 for the named operation. Harm claims ongoing. Compensation fights decades after.

3. Location

South Vietnam and border areas. Approximate 10°45 N 106°40 E as a centre of gravity.

4. Official Narrative

A herbicidal warfare program. Official narrative later includes recognition of veteran harm without becoming a full accounting of Vietnamese dead and ill. The sorties themselves are not denied.

5. Witness Layer

Ranch Hand crews. Ground populations. US veterans. Courts. VA paper.

6. Recovery Logistics

Sortie records. Barrel stencils. Medical files. No un-spraying.

7. Assessment

A spray file. Keep the date range and the official purpose. Keep both veteran and Vietnamese harm in the same paragraph. Do not write a conspiracy that the program did not exist. It did. Do not write the courts as finished justice. TCDD is the quiet chemical name under the colour.

8. Materials & Remains

Sortie logs. Barrel stencils. Medical paper. Compensation dockets.

9. Key Personnel

Ranch Hand crews : The aircraft.

Ground populations / veterans : The after.

10. Aftermath

The colour outlives the operation name. Compensation is partial and late. The jungle grows back in some places and not in others.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: 1962-71 sorties. Official herbicide. Harm unfinished.

Confidence: High that the US flew herbicidal missions under that name in those years. High that harm followed. Low that any later page is a full ledger.

Filing note

A boom under a wing, a rainbow of drums, a purpose written as cover and crops, crews who did the runs, people under the runs, courts that arrived after the aircraft had already gone home.

The runs stop. The argument does not. That is the operation's real length.