Spray and Wipe '65

Harry arrives for his 9:40 appointment. Veterans Affairs provide this seventy-three year old and other ex-military personnel like him with help with taxis and jobs like lawnmowing, window-washing and healthcare. 

We make our introductions and he removes his shoes and socks and sits on the chair ready for his treatment.   He is one of the lucky ones, one of the surviving few who have returned from participating in armed conflicts in the likes of Malaya, Guadalcanal, or in the Pacific, seemingly unscathed.  It is hard to imagine this now-elderly man crawling under a jungle canopy as I play the theme to The Rolling Stone’s ‘Paint it Black’ in my head while gripping his toes and feeling guilty that my limited knowledge of this conflict is in part gained from that 80’s series ‘Tour of Duty.’    

“We loved it when an American Iroquois flew overhead and dropped Agent Orange.  It was so bloody hot in the jungle and the spray was cooling; I rubbed it all over my arms and neck and the relief was immediate.  I would regularly take drinks from rivers that the spray would be dropping in.”

A window cleaner prepares his equipment outside and the mist from the hose creates a vibrant rainbow like fuel splashed in water.  I wonder if the sky was a cascade of swirling rainbows as the turbulence from the helicopter spun the toxic payload. 

“Weren’t you in the slightest bit worried about it?” I ask as I am reminded of other soldiers who were shipped in to the Pacific to witness atomic bomb testing and being told you might see your bones in your hand despite having your eyes shut firmly.

I detect bitterness in his reply towards a government that was the slowest to recognise the damage from the chemical.  Next week Harry is off to the dentist, also provided free.

“We couldn’t use toothpaste; the enemy would smell it even from three or four hundred metres away.  For all that though, I never had any effects from Agent Orange and I’ve smoked all my life.  Some of my mates though, cancer got ‘em, and I’m not sure about my grandkids…”

The twenty minutes is up and I rebook him.   Outside the dry leaves skitter in the autumn air and I consider if bare trees might take him back to that place.   Even in the surrendering April midday sun I can envisage this small man sitting in the park under the very darkest part of the biggest and broadest-leafed tree.  He is scattering his sandwich crumbs to the birds and about to light another cigarette while other park visitors might have suspicions about the elderly man sitting in the dark shade.  He has everything he needs.

Andrew Hawkey