WLOX-TV - The News for South Mississippi: West Gulfport Residents Get Update on Dioxin Clean UP

WLOX-TV - The News for South Mississippi: West Gulfport Residents Get Update on Dioxin Clean UP: "'We're not so much concerned about the clean up, as we are past exposure of what was actually in the air here for all the years the barrels were sitting here leaking from 1968 to 1977,' Hansen said."

The above article is an archive dated 8-24-05, five days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. As you know Agent Orange was used prolifically during the Vietnam War. Perhaps you didn't know that 15,480 drums were stockpiled at the SeeBee Base in Gulfport, Mississippi from 1968 to 1977. In that period of time the drums were leaking and dioxin was contaminating the soil not only at the base but also surrounding neighborhoods.

If you didn't know that's okay because you were further away but, you see, we didn't know and we were only one block away. The office where my husband worked was built in late 1968, he became owner in 1974. I worked there as did all of our children at one time or the other. He became seriously ill in late 1990 and diagnosed with Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. In 1995, MDA in Texas pronounced a probable cure as he was in complete remission.

In 1996, I established a website at GeoCities and maintained a page on his particular illness. Many lymphoma patients would get in touch with me telling me about themselves. Most were Vietnam veterans and they had the same illness. They were in search of hope that they may possibly survive the disease.

I suppose that sometimes ignorance can be bliss. If we had known what was happening we wouldn't have lived the life we did. The drums were transferred to the Dutch owned ship, Vulcanus, and destroyed between 15-24 of July 1977. The soil in the area is still contaminated as the above article verifies and I wonder, since the terrible disaster befell us, is the clean up continuing.