Between 1962 and 1971, the US military sprayed an estimated 80 million litres of Agent Orange and other herbicides on Vietnam, the journal Nature reported in 2003.
"I met one family of victims with four blinded children, no eyes - period," Dr Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, a Vietnamese researcher, said in a 2007 interview.
In a now declassified report for the US department of veterans affairs, Admiral ER Zumwalt Jr wrote that Dow Chemical and other manufacturers knew Agent Orange exposure could cause "general organ toxicity" and "other systematic problems" as early as 1964.
These and other studies show that the American military, and the chemical companies who serviced it, were well aware of the dangers posed by the chemicals on the general population.
On this front, Agent Orange elucidates an alarming trend in modern warfare, particularly counter-insurgency fighting: civilians and the environment tend to be main casualties.
TVNL Comment: Americans never to look back. Never hold themselves accountable. Never admit the horrors. Never regret. Never learn.