Skip to content
  • Sponsors
  • Sponsorship Opportunities
  • The Connecticut Health I-Team
  • Contact
Donate Now
  • Donate Now
  • C-HIT
  • C-HIT
  • Veterans’ Health
  • Environmental Health
  • Women’s Health
  • Disparities
  • Fines & Sanctions
  • Donate Now
  • Global Navigation
    • Sponsors
    • Sponsorship Opportunities
    • The Connecticut Health I-Team
    • Contact

Connecticut Health Investigative Team - In-depth Journalism on Issues of Health and Safety

Connecticut Health Investigative Team (https://c-hit.org/tag/vet-benefits/)

  • Veterans’ Health
  • Environmental Health
  • Women’s Health
  • Disparities
  • Fines & Sanctions
  • I-Team In-Depth
  • News Ticker
  • Data Mine
  • Students’ Work
  • Podcast
  • Health Q&A
Subscribe

vet benefits

Agent Orange
Pilot

Westover Vets Fight For Agent Orange Benefits

By Lisa Chedekel | September 12, 2011

{media_1}In the years since they flew together out of Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts in the post-Vietnam War era, Wes Carter and Paul Bailey have stayed in close touch, swapping information about families, jobs, and their former crewmates in the 74th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron.This year, the conversation took a strange turn: Bailey, who lives in New Hampshire, was diagnosed with prostate cancer in February. Two months later, Carter, a former Massachusetts resident who now lives in Oregon, got the same diagnosis.Curious about the coincidence, the two men began checking around with members of their Air Force Reserve squadron – particularly those who had flown the C-123 Provider, a plane that was used to spray Agent Orange during the Vietnam War and then was reassigned to domestic missions at Westover and two other U.S. bases.Carter was stunned: the first five crewmen he called had prostate cancer or heart disease.The sixth man he tried had died.

  • Connecticut Health I-Team
  • The Connecticut Health I-Team
  • Sponsors
  • Contributors
  • Contact

In Case You Missed It

  • ‘One Way or Another, COVID Will Get You:’ Uninfected Yet Greatly Affected

    On a bustling Friday morning, the aroma of rice and beans wafts through a cloud of hairspray in Romy’s Beauty Salon in Meriden.

  • Dancing Again: COVID-19 Battle Gives Survivor A New Appreciation For Life

    Michael Kelly is still fighting.

Follow Us

Like Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on InstagramSubscribe via RSS

© Copyright 2025, Connecticut Health I-Team

  • Site Policies

Built with the Largo WordPress Theme from the Institute for Nonprofit News.

Back to top ↑