Agent Orange continues to haunt lives of U.S. veterans trained in New Brunswick

Legislators in Maine are reopening a New Brunswick controversy many thought had already been consigned to the history books. 

They have established a commission to study whether U.S. military veterans may have been exposed to Agent Orange and other toxic defoliants while on training exercises in the province. 

The action, signed into law last week by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, mandates a commission to "study the impacts of exposure to harmful chemicals on veterans who served at the Canadian military support base in Gagetown, New Brunswick, Canada."

Maine Senate president Troy Jackson is the man behind the new law. He took up the cause on behalf of veterans in his Aroostook constituency who claimed they weren't getting a fair hearing from their own government.

Thousands of U.S. National Guard volunteers travelled to CFB Gagetown for training beginning in the early 1970s.

"The idea was that, at minimum, we should start a commission so that all these people get a chance to come and talk about it and bring light to what has been a seemingly very challenging issue for Maine servicemen and women," Jackson said.

"And that's why we went forward now."

The most notorious of the "harmful chemicals" was Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant sprayed from the air during the conflict in Vietnam and Cambodia to eliminate the jungle canopy that provided cover to Vietnamese fighters. 

The U.S. government has already acknowledged the harm caused to its servicemen and women who came into contact with the herbicide while serving in Southeast Asia. 

U.S. veterans claiming ill health effects, including a variety of cancers and even death, from exposure to Agent Orange have already been able to claim federal financial assistance if the exposure occurred while they served in that war. 

But members of the National Guard, a state-based military reserve force, are not able to do the same. 

They are excluded from federal compensation because they did not serve in Vietnam and because service in the National Guard does not confer veteran status. 

U.S. military veterans point to the acknowledgement of the Canadian government as compelling proof that they, too, deserve compensation. 

In 2007, the Canadian government established a $95.6 million fund to compensate Canadian military members who may have been exposed to Agent Orange during limited test spraying of the U.S.-supplied herbicide at the New Brunswick base in 1966 and 1967.