Air Force Reserve Command Confirms C-123 Agent Orange History

I should have read more carefully the letter from the AFRC historian, Ms. Betty Kennedy, in which she states that the C-123s assigned to the 731st Tactical Airlift Squadron of the 439th Tactical Airlift Wing (later, 439th Airlift Wing) were indeed military herbicide spray airplanes and used as such in Vietnam! (4 Feb note - FOIAs submitted this date for Rickenbacker and Pittsburgh C-123 information).

The end of her first paragraph proves the point for every wing veteran assigned to aircrew, AME, aerial port or maintenance duties on the C-123, saying "The C-123 aircraft in the 731 TAS fleet had been used to disperse chemical defoliants over Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

If the Joint Services Records Research Center requires proof to tell the VA we flew contaminated aircraft, here it is! If VA opposes our claim that these were Agent Orange airplanes, they are doing so only because of policies against us, and certainly not for truth, justice...and the American way! Golly, this gets to be fun sometimes, finding out the various proofs only so that the VA can pretend with some Beltway twist of the facts that we weren't exposed. I have to give them their due: they are persistent, bold and creative.

They have to be, in order to twist history, science, law, justice and common sense as they keep insisting we were not exposed to military herbicides aboard a contaminated airplane!