HAVE DU WILL TRAVEL: An Interview With Tim Hix

[Guest guest]

http://lonestaricon.com/2006/Archives/09/news14.htm

 

February 28, 2006 7:46 PM

HAVE DU WILL TRAVEL

 

`That reminds me of the ash with Mount St. Helens. It darkened the

skies in different continents.'

 

 

An Interview With Tim Hix

By Deborah Mathews

ICONOCLAST REPORTER

 

 

Tim Hix is a Vietnam veteran exposed to Agent Orange, dying of cancer.

 

 

 

ICONOCLAST: When were you in Vietnam?

 

HIX: '66, `67, and `68.

 

ICONOCLAST: Then, did you know that you were exposed to Agent Orange?

 

HIX: Not at that time.

 

ICONOCLAST: When did you find out?

 

HIX: Well, I suspected when my brother died from it nine years ago and

he and I had been stationed together.

 

ICONOCLAST: Where were you stationed?

 

HIX: All different places. We were on the rivers and in the different

harbors. Actually, we were up in the estuaries.

 

ICONOCLAST: You said your brother passed away nine years ago and up

until that time you didn't think of Agent Orange?

 

HIX: Not really. Here about four years ago I started thinking that he

died of it and I had heard them talking about the Agent Orange

registry. You have to sign up for it. I just went down and signed up

and they do all kinds of testing on you. They told me that everything

was fine. Well, that night, the Central Texas Agent Orange doctor,

this oriental lady called me and she said that there was an

abnormality in your blood, but it is nothing to worry about. So they

did more testing and stuff and then said that I had cancer. I was

diagnosed in June of 2002 with prostate cancer and in the lymph nodes

too. That's how it started. Now, not only do I have the cancer from

it, but I also have the type two diabetes, which is also caused from

Agent Orange.

 

ICONOCLAST: How long was your brother sick before he passed away?

 

HIX: About seven or eight month. They first thought he had pneumonia

and then they found that it was mesothelioma.

 

ICONOCLAST: Have you had any trouble getting any of your treatments?

 

HIX: No, I haven't had any trouble that way.

 

ICONOCLAST: Did they have to establish that you were sick from Agent

Orange.

 

HIX: No, I'm fighting that to this day. That's what my appeal is.

They're saying that I wasn't. These things are caused by Agent Orange

and that is presumed by the VA to be true, but because I was in the

Navy, they say if you didn't walk on the ground, which that wasn't my

primary function. Had I been in the infantry, there would be no

problem. You get it automatically. Air Force and Navy have a problem.

The thing of it is that Agent Orange was airborne. They sprayed it.

That is my contention.

 

One of the guys that I served side-by-side with has been drawing 100

percent compensation since 1996. They arbitrarily changed the rule,

the VA did. They didn't change the congressional law, but they changed

their manual.

 

ICONOCLAST: Why?

 

HIX: So they don't have to pay. It encompasses hundreds of thousands.

 

ICONOCLAST: So, now, you are getting all of your medical care through

the VA?

 

HIX: I still pay for it. I had to have a radical prostatectomy in

September of 2002 and I got the bill and consequently ended up filing

bankruptcy. This stuff is only paid for by the VA if it's service

connected and that is what I am fighting, to get the service connection.

 

ICONOCLAST: They say that your cancer was not a result of your time in

the service in Vietnam.

 

HIX: Yes, and I even have a letter from my radiation oncologist at the

Dallas VA Hospital. He is Vietnamese. He was in the very same places I

was and he wrote a letter that is now in my file in Washington D.C.,

that in his professional opinion it was caused from Agent Orange in my

military service.

 

ICONOCLAST: What do you know about DU?

 

HIX: Not a whole lot, but some. It's going to cause all kinds of

cancers and things like Agent Orange did.

 

ICONOCLAST: There is a study that has just come out about the DU

showing up in England.

 

HIX: That is another thing about Agent Orange exposure. For a long

time, they wanted you to prove where you were. I have a friend who had

a cotton crop that was killed by diaxon, which is the active

ingredient in Agent Orange. It had drifted over a hundred miles, right

here in the state of Texas, from one guy killing some brush with it.

It drifted over one hundred miles and killed their cotton crop and

they collected on it. What is the difference there from Vietnam. It

could drift a hundred miles there the same as here.

 

ICONOCLAST: Going back to Vietnam, you weren't given any information

to alert you to risks?

 

HIX: No. We were gung ho. They are now, too, and we just have another

Vietnam. I don't disagree that Sadaam should have been ousted, but we

should have done it differently.

 

ICONOCLAST: I had an interview with Daniel Ellsberg and one of the

first things he said to me is that he wished he had done what he had

earlier and it would have made more of a difference. He also compared

Iraq to Vietnam. If you could do something to get information out

there to others . . .

 

HIX: I already do, but I'd like to get through this legal stuff and

help other guys in my same situation. There are a lot of people who

need help and answers. I'd like to see something like that happen with

this depleted uranium.

 

I think DU is like Agent Orange. It kills every living thing. The

vegetation it kills quickly, the people, it takes years to manifest.

 

ICONOCLAST: With DU, studies show that it is traveling around the globe.

 

HIX: That reminds me of the ash with Mount St. Helens. That cloud of

ash traveled everywhere. It darkened the skies in different continents.