What are Operation Ranch Hand and Agent Orange?
Operation Ranch Hand is the name of a U.S. military campaign undertaken during the Vietnam War (1961-75). The campaign involved spraying herbicides, from aircraft, on South Vietnam. Herbicides are chemicals that kill vegetation and defoliate trees (strip them of leaves). In all, approximately 19 million gallons (72 million liters) of herbicides were sprayed over 4 million acres (1.6 million hectares). The specific herbicides used in Operation Ranch Hand were 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T, collectively known as Agent Orange. (The names 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T refer to the chemical configurations of the molecules.) The name Agent Orange comes from the color-coded drums in which the herbicides were stored. Operation Ranch Hand officially began in 1962 (although the spraying of Agent Orange, in limited amounts, started in 1961) and continued throughout most of the war. It…
