Agent Orange made Doug's life a misery

By Carly Udy
One year of service in Vietnam has left Doug Moore battling a lifetime of misery because of exposure to Agent Orange.
Vietnam war veterans were told last week a study confirmed that those exposed to Agent Orange have suffered genetic damage - and found that their children and grandchildren may experience the same fate.
Mr Moore, of Tauranga, this week spoke about his battle and having to give up working fulltime last year due to bad health, including having difficulty breathing.
He's also battled eight or nine skin cancers in 10-15 years.
"I'm only 59 and I'm on full Super because I can't work and I'm on over 100 per cent disability pension," he said.
The Massey University study, released on the weekend, found that the sample of 24 veterans tested had damage to their DNA following exposure to the herbicide, which was sprayed by US forces to remove jungle cover and food supplies from the enemy during the Vietnam war.
Mr Moore, a past president of Tauranga RSA, was an assault pioneer in the war, detecting mines and booby traps.
He said while he couldn't say with certainty his medical problems were associated with Agent Orange, they seemed too uncanny not to be.
"You've got to be honest, you don't know. Who's to say at 58 my health wasn't going to go but it shouldn't have. I've had skin cancers cut off, I've had eight or nine ... You've always got that fear of cancer but there's not much you can do about it, so you keep them [your fingers] crossed."
And the impact of Agent Orange on his family?
His three daughters have not suffered any problems - so far.
"I've been lucky," he replied.
"I did speak to my girls about it and their comment was 'what have you done to us dad?' It hurt," he said drawing a breath.
"It was actually when one of them was pregnant that I spoke to them about it. They'd probably heard about it at school. I mean I never talk about it.
"I worry what's going to happen in the future for sure.
"Being a parent you do worry about what you've done to your kids or what could happen ... that would really hurt, it would be quite devastating," he said.
Several of Mr Moore's Vietnam war veteran friends have died of cancer, all the same age or younger than himself.
"I believe the cancer comes around your Agent Orange because DDT [a poison spray] was always known as a cancer thing, and a part of Agent Orange is DDT."
"It's quite surprising how many of the boys have passed away since they came home and that's in what, 30-35 years."
Mr Moore said some of his war veteran friends hadn't been so lucky in producing healthy children, several had been born with handicaps.
An Agent Orange Joint Working Group report has recommended that the Government apologise and pay veterans poisoned by Agent Orange $50,000 each.
When asked whether $50,000 was even enough, Mr Moore said you couldn't put a value on health.
He said an apology was top of his list in priorities.
"We'd be grateful for anything."
"I believe the National Party should be apologising to us, they're the ones that did it to us but I'll accept an apology from the Labour Party.
"It took a long time for the Government to admit that we were sprayed with it. I found it on my company website, my [Whiskey 3] company commander telling us three times to watch out because they were spraying for insects ... and being hot over there the stuff was fairly cool so we always went out into it."
Defence Minister Phil Goff and Veterans' Affairs Minister Rick Barker said they had not yet officially received the Massey report.