Foreboding: Six-year-old Nguyen Van Hung plays in a mangrove forest devasted by defoliant in 1976... ... and Hung 19 years later. — Photos Nogo Nakamura

HA NOI — When Japanese photographer Nogo Nakamura zoomed his lens onto a six-year old boy playing in a mangrove forest devastated by defoliant in 1976, he could not have imagined the awful future that awaited that child.

The black-and-white photo captured a cute and healthy boy, wandering alone in a Ca Mau Province mangrove forest after Agent Orange had been sprayed.

Years later, screenwriter Van Le and film director Quang Minh saw his work, and took up the task of documenting Nakamura’s return journey to Viet Nam to find that boy.

The result is a documentary entitled Ranch Hand, echoing the name the US forces gave to their defoliant-spraying operation between 1961 and 1971.

A sixth sense told the Japanese photographer that something bad had happened to the little boy, and he wanted to go back to Ca Mau and see him.

When at last he returned to the southern province 17 years later, however, he did not recognise the boy.

It wasn’t age that had changed Nguyen Van Hung, but Agent Orange. He is mentally retarded and bedridden, and knows neither his own name nor those of his parents.

The sad encounter brought home to Nakamura the truth that a war does not end when the battles cease – the sorrows of war can linger for decades afterwards.

The documentary follows Nakamura as he seeks out Hung and other Agent Orange victims in the southern region, including the provinces of Ca Mau, Dong Nai, Tay Ninh and Binh Duong.

He also travels to Quang Tri Province, regarded as the fiercest battlefront, where he sees single mothers taking care of mentally-retarded children.

Time, hardship and loneliness are plainly etched in their faces, and in their resigned, slumped posture.

"My aim in this documentary was to depict and draw attention to the fate of women who have disabled children," said director Quang Minh.

"People have talked too much about the effect of Agent Orange and war crimes. I wanted to take a different tack: understanding Quang Tri Province’s people, whose sorrow and bravery cannot be described in words."

Operation Ranch Hand destroyed 40 per cent of the mangrove jungles in Viet Nam between 1961 and 1971.

But the story of this environmental tragedy does not end with the destruction of ecosystems. People exposed to Agent Orange during the war continue to suffer adverse affects from the dioxin tetrachloride in the defoliant.

Ranch Hand was produced by Giai Phong (Liberation) Film Studio. — VNS

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