Southern Nevada veterans will parade Agent Orange float

WASHINGTON -- In a dusty garage a few miles outside the capital, five men on Friday wielded drills and screwed wood panels into a trailer that would ultimately become a parade float to be featured in an event today marking the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

The men were from Southern Nevada, members of Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 17. The float was to represent a message to comrades who made it home from Southeast Asia 30 to 40 years ago.

The message is for veterans to get educated and to seek treatment for Agent Orange exposure. Several of the men took part in missions that sprayed the defoliant containing cancer-causing dioxin into Vietnamese jungles.

"Most 20-year-olds have a car, I had an aircraft," Robert Kotchskowski reminisced.

As an Air Force pilot and crew chief, Kotchskowski's job was to shower Agent Orange and other defoliants to strip leaves off plants that could be used for cover by enemy fighters.

He said soldiers did not know of dioxin, an ingredient in the spray that was found to be the cause of a number of serious health problems in veterans, including cancer.

"I did my job too well, I think now," Kotchskowski said. "Every time it took off, (the plane) was spraying orange."

John Kinder, who served in the Army, attributes his diabetes and a bout with cancer to Agent Orange. Kinder said the float and the ceremonies at the wall this weekend were part of a healing process.

"You see 58,000 names on that wall, guys who have had worse problems than me," he said. "Guys who were in my unit, in my company -- you do it for them."

The float will feature five large model planes "spraying" artificial plants with the help of a few fog machines. The trailer was towed from Las Vegas, and was being dressed by the veterans in a U-Haul center garage in Hyattsville, Md.

"We drove 2,400 miles in four days," Kinder said.

In ceremonies that began on Wednesday and were to end tonight, names of fallen soldiers were being read aloud at the black granite wall, which has become the most visited monument in Washington.

"This parade is the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial Wall, but it is also our welcome home in Washington, D.C.," Kotchskowski said.

Though soldiers from World War II and the Gulf War of the early 1990s were given large-scale celebrations, Kotchskowski recalled Vietnam veterans were often denounced in the 1970s.

Since then, many cities, including Las Vegas, have come around to salute service in Vietnam.

Treatment of Vietnam veterans "is getting a hell of a lot better," Michael Giancola said.

"We are getting a lot more recognition, a lot more hand-shakes since 9/11," he said.

George Haussmann, who served in the Air Force, stopped by the memorial Thursday night.

"I was shocked to see the amount of young people going to the wall and hopefully being educated on where we are coming from," he said.

"I think because of Vietnam veterans, the veterans that are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan -- even though they are coming back from an unpopular war -- they won't be ostracized like we were," Haussmann said.

Kotchskowski said the parade and memorial anniversary were important but should be kept in perspective.

"The anniversary is just a time. I feel so privileged to be here at this event," he said. "But the number is just like a birthday, it means we survived this long."