Bob Filner: “Mr. Speaker, you would think that we would have learned from the experience in Vietnam and Agent Orange, which the…”

“Mr. Speaker, you would think that we would have learned from the experience in Vietnam and Agent Orange, which the gentleman from Illinois (Marine Corporal Evans) taught us as he led the charge to uncover what happened with Agent Orange and to give our servicemen and women some protection later on. If we learned anything, it is that our veterans must be informed of the risks of exposure that they experience on the battlefield. We did not learn that in Persian Gulf War I, and we are left with the Persian Gulf War illness. I do not think we have learned it with Persian Gulf War II, and who knows what we are going to have after this war. Veterans must know about the agents to which they were exposed and whether these agents are likely to produce any health consequences, and they must be taken care of if they become ill due to the exposures during their service. That is what this bill does, based on this project that took place in the 1960s.”