Looking back on his days serving in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Air Force, Larry Kerr remembers the regular exposure to Agent Orange.
The chemical was stored in large drums where he helped handle munitions as a weapons specialist. It was used to defoliate vegetation on the periphery of the bases and other areas where U.S. forces operated during the war, thus making them easier to monitor. Particles of the substance seemed to float everywhere and contaminate everything.
“We breathed it in. We bathed in it. We brushed our teeth in it,” Kerr said, seated in the living room of his Syracuse home.
He had no inkling of its dangers at the time, but after he suffered a heart attack in 1980 at the age of just 32, he started suspecting something was up. He suffered more ailments over the years, sowing his intense qualms with Agent Orange, and a head and neck cancer diagnosis in 2023 really jumpstarted his activism.
Now 77 and cognizant he won’t live forever, he’s pushing hard for creation of a memorial in Utah to honor the many victims of Agent Orange through a nonprofit organization he created, Utah Agent Orange Veterans Foundation.
“When the cancer hit, that’s when the light bulb really turned on,” he said. “It just kicked everything into high gear.”
His organization has raised around $40,000 so far to create the large 8-foot by 10-foot memorial, and now, as those efforts continue, he’s focused on finding a home for it. His preference would be near the Vietnam Memorial Wall Replica at Layton Commons Park in Layton, a site his group touts in a Change.org petition on the topic.
There are perhaps 15 other memorials around the country to Agent Orange victims, Kerr said, all of them smaller than what he envisions. “The ones that I’ve seen online are the size of a headstone, and that doesn’t pay much honor to what we believe now is 750,000 — I’ll say that again — 750,000 of us that have passed away from the effects of these chemicals,” he said.
He and other supporters of the proposal made their case to Layton leaders at a Feb. 20 meeting of the Layton City Council but so far haven’t received any formal reaction from city leaders. Layton officials didn’t respond to KSL.com queries seeking comment.
“I did two tours back to back in Vietnam. I have four years of Agent Orange in me. I’ve survived cancer, I’ve survived a stroke, I’ve survived heart attack, but I still live with all of them,” Kerr told city officials at that February meeting.
‘A monument to history’
According to the National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine, the U.S. Air Force sprayed at least 11 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 as part of what the U.S. government dubbed Operation Ranch Hand. The aim as the war with Vietnam intensified was to defoliate trees and plants in Vietnam, thus reducing enemy cover, and to destroy enemy crops.
Whatever the case, Kerr said more and more veterans of the war started reporting an uptick in cancer and a range of other ailments in the late 1970s, which he and others connected to Agent Orange. Ultimately, U.S. officials recognized a link between exposure to the herbicide and a long list of diseases and health conditions, creating a means of compensation for those impacted by the chemical.
Nevertheless, Agent Orange exacted a heavy toll, and Kerr says those who have suffered at the hands of the chemical merit recognition and that the broader public needs to be informed about what happened. The chemical has also taken a heavy toll on many Vietnamese people exposed to it, according to the Vietnamese government.
“Along with honoring veterans that have been impacted by Agent Orange, this memorial will serve as a monument to history, a place for the public to learn about our nation’s past and as a place for people to reflect and mourn for loved ones lost,” reads the Utah Agent Orange Veterans Foundation website. “The devastation Agent Orange has left behind is far reaching and we aim to provide solace to those who have suffered.”
Kerr, for his part, points to personal friends he’s lost and the impact the deaths of those exposed to Agent Orange has had on surviving loved ones. “If you get five or 10 of these spouses or widows in a room and have them talk about it, you would come out of there crying,” he said.