A goal of studying history is to learn from our mistakes, and as a race, to prevent them from happening again. An article by Thomas Fuller of The New York Times, published Aug. 9, explains how the U.S. government has decided 40 years later to begin the cleanup process of Agent Orange remaining in areas of Vietnam.

The article tells the story of just one family who is still being traumatized by Agent Orange. It tells of a man who moved to Da Nang in 1996 with his wife and baby girl. The father took home fish and eels he harvested from the waters on the base, which were found to still be infected with the dangerous dioxins. The family had a second child who was born in 2000 and died of a rare blood disease at age 7, and a third child born in 2008 with the same disease who has astounded doctors with his strive to survive.

These tragedies could have been prevented simply by weighing the risks and seeing how much damage could have been prevented. I realize future outcomes are nearly impossible to predict, but we still tested the damages and effects of the atomic bombs before they were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Why didn’t we test the effects of that concentration of Agent Orange and then modify the formula to be less harmful, if we had to use it at all? I have a very hard time believing the thought of potentially harming innocent people sat well with many in charge, especially when some of those innocent people were our own soldiers.

Using chemicals to control the enemy’s strategy is not an unusual tactic in past warfare; in fact, using chemicals as a strategy began in World War I. The use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War was intended as a defoliant to aid American troops.

However, it has been shown to have had lasting effects as a defoliant, as well as medically significant results such as cancer and birth defects. It also killed all the animals that were in immediate contact with it. These medical issues have not been limited to the innocents of Vietnam but also includes American veterans and descendants of those immediately affected in Vietnam.

The intent wasn’t to cause harm to any people or creatures, just to kill the foliage that was assumed to be the hiding place of the Viet Cong soldiers. When planning this plant-based assault, the risks had to be considered; was harming innocent lives worth it? By destroying the foliage, didn’t American troops lose cover too? Would this have effects that will cause problems in the future?

I find it hard to believe all these risks could have been equally taken into account; otherwise morals would have dictated it was a mistake to put innocent lives at stake.

A congressional act in 1991 gave monetary relief to soldiers who were at specific locations during the war. This has eliminated some from even being considered for any other form of assistance. The veterans included within this were any who were in Vietnam or Vietnamese waterways between Jan. 9, 1962, and May 7, 1975. So while many of those affected in Vietnam were left to fend for themselves, we chose which of our veterans could receive help.

For very obvious political reasons, there are conflicting opinions about the medical effects of Agent Orange, primarily in relation to veterans. As could be expected, the process for determining the exact cause of an illness is difficult, especially when an environment from 40 years ago is thought to be the primary culprit. Dow Chemical, the producer of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, said there is substantial evidence showing it is not the cause of these diseases, whereas military studies have found connections.

So this means those veterans who were so poorly treated when they came back from the war in the 1970s are still being mistreated decades later by pride and a refusal to admit fault.

The numbers mean the government is going to spend roughly $43 million in four years to clean up one of two dozen sites where Agent Orange was sprayed over the course of a decade, 40-some years later on top of it all.

This entire situation could have been prevented by not spraying Agent Orange at all, thus saving the United States millions of dollars that could be used for all sorts of other things, and more importantly saving the lives of both the soldiers and the innocent Vietnamese citizens who were simply bystanders for the violence.