This is a reprint of the article in Vietnam News Agency’s announcement of the tragic death of one of VAORRC’s founders, Merle Ratner, February 5 in New York City:

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Vietnam’s US friend Merle Ratner dies in traffic accident aged 67

Merle Ratner, a close friend of Vietnam (Photo: VNA)

New York (VNA) – Merle Ratner, a renowned left-wing and anti-war activist in the US and a close friend of Vietnam, passed away February 5 evening in New York in a traffic accident.

Her husband Ngo Thanh Nhan, who is a professor at New York University, said that she was killed by a tow truck in the East Village while crossing the street near her house in Brooklyn.

Merle Evelyn Ratner, born in 1956 in New York City, has a special love for Vietnam. She took to the streets to protest against the Vietnam War when she was 13 years old and became famous for hanging anti-war slogans on the Statue of Liberty. She is a co-founder and coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign (VAORRC) in the New York area.

Ratner actively participated in protests against the US war in Vietnam since the late 1960s, the anti-imperialist movement in the 1970s and 1980s, and anti-racism campaigns in America today.

After 1975, with a deep love for Vietnam, Ratner campaigned for the normalisation of Vietnam-US relations, and supported Vietnam’s international activities. She visited Vietnam many times, and engaged in joint work with mass organisations, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, and the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics.

Ratner was awarded the “For the Development of Vietnamese Women” insignia in 2010 and the “For Vietnam Agent Orange Victims” insignia in 2013.

In an interview with Vietnam News Agency on February 1 in New York on the occasion of the 94th founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), Ratner once again emphasized the leadership role of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) as a decisive factor behind every achievement and success of Vietnam. She affirmed that the CPV is steadfast on the path to socialism, fighting for the values of socialism worldwide and that Vietnam will certainly succeed on its chosen path. — VNA

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Recalling ‘People’s Lawyer’ Leonard Weinglass

by Marjorie Cohn at Consortium News (January 30, 2017)

Legendary people’s lawyer Leonard Weinglass defended the poor and disenfranchised who struggled for social justice in the great tradition of Clarence Darrow, Charles Garry, Ernest Goodman, William Kunstler, Carol Weiss King, Arthur Kinoy, Constance Baker Motley and Michael Ratner.

Weinglass is now immortalized in Len: A Lawyer in History, a valuable graphic historical work by cartoonist/writer Seth Tobocman. The book features some of Weinglass’ most significant cases, analyzing them in the historical context of the political movements in which they took place.

“I want to spend my time defending people who have committed their time to progressive change. That’s the criteria,” Weinglass said. “Now, that could be people in armed struggle, people in protest politics, people in confrontational politics, people in mass organizations, people in labor.” Weinglass’s calling, editor Michael Steven Smith noted in the book’s introduction, was defending people against “the machinery of the state.”

Weinglass, a longtime member of the National Lawyers Guild, was a brilliant attorney who empowered his clients. Unlike many lawyers, he understood that the case belongs to the client who must live with the consequences of the result. His clients had the final say about what strategy and tactics to employ. Weinglass took cases other lawyers would not, sometimes for no fee.

“[Weinglass] wasn’t drawn to making money. He was drawn to defending justice,” said Daniel Ellsberg, whose leak of the Pentagon Papers helped end the Vietnam War. “He felt in many cases he was representing one person standing against the state. He was on the side of the underdog. He was also very shrewd in his judgment of juries,” Ellsberg added.

A former military analyst and Marine who served in Vietnam, Ellsberg worked at the Rand Corp. and the Pentagon. He risked decades in prison to release 7,000 top-secret documents to The New York Times and other newspapers in 1971. The Pentagon Papers demonstrated how five presidents consistently lied to the American people about the Vietnam War that was killing thousands of Americans and millions of Indochinese.

Ellsberg’s courageous acts led directly to the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser, called Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America” who “had to be stopped at all costs.” But Ellsberg wasn’t stopped. Facing 115 years in prison on espionage and conspiracy charges, he fought back.

Weinglass represented Ellsberg and Tony Russo, who helped Ellsberg copy the Pentagon Papers. The case was ultimately dismissed due to egregious misconduct by the Nixon administration. Ellsberg’s story was portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film, “The Most Dangerous Man in America.” Edward Snowden told Ellsberg that the film strengthened his resolve to release the National Security Agency documents.

The Chicago Eight

Another of Weinglass’ cases highlighted in Tobocman’s book is the Chicago Eight trial. Tens of thousands of people protested the Vietnam War outside the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. In the face of widespread police brutality captured on television, Nixon charged eight people with the federal offense of crossing state lines to incite a riot.

A poster about the Chicago Eight case.

Weinglass and Kuntsler represented seven of the defendants. Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale, denied the right to represent himself when his attorney, Charles Garry, was unable to appear, was bound and gagged by the ruthless judge Julius Hoffman.

The seven were Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Lee Weiner and John Froines. “Judge Hoffman was not impartial, but an activist seeking combat. He took things personally and turned the court into an armed camp,” Tobocman wrote. The judge refused to allow the defense to call police experts to testify about police overreaction or ask potential jurors whether pretrial publicity would affect them.

Froines and Weiner were acquitted, but the jury convicted Hayden, Hoffman, Rubin, Davis and Dellinger. Weinglass succeeded in getting the appellate court to reverse their convictions. Seale, who was hit with a four-year sentence for contempt of court, was eventually released early, too.

Weinglass’s final case was the appeal of the convictions of the Cuban Five. For more than 40 years, anti-Cuba terrorist organizations based in Miami had engaged in countless terrorist activities against Cuba and anyone who advocated the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Terrorist groups, including Alpha 66, Omega 7, Comandos F4, Cuban American National Foundation, Independent and Democratic Cuba, and Brothers to the Rescue, operated with impunity in the United States.

Five Cuban men — Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labanino, René González and Fernando González—traveled from Cuba to the United States in the 1990s to gather information about terrorist plots against Cuba. The Cuban Five peacefully infiltrated these organizations. They then turned over the results of their investigation to the FBI.

But instead of working to combat terrorist plots in the United States against Cuba, the U.S. government arrested the Five and charged them with conspiracy to commit espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. They were convicted in a Miami court in 2000. Hernandez, Guerrero and Labanino received life sentences, with Fernando Gonzalez sentenced to 19 years in prison and Rene Gonzalez 15 years.

“Conspiracy has always been the charge used by the prosecution in political cases,” Weinglass said. “In the case of the Five, the Miami jury was asked to find that there was an agreement to commit espionage. The government never had to prove that espionage actually happened. It could not have proven that espionage occurred. None of the Five sought or possessed any top secret information or U.S. national defense secrets,” Weinglass added.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously overturned their convictions in 2005, ruling that the Five could not get a fair trial in Miami due to pervasive anti-Cuba sentiment there. Nevertheless, the 11th Circuit, sitting en banc, upheld the convictions.

But, Weinglass stated, “It is inexplicable that the longest trial in the United States at the time it occurred, hearing scores of witnesses, including three retired generals and a retired admiral, as well as the president’s adviser on Cuban affairs (all called by the defense) and a leading military expert from Cuba, all the while considering the dramatic and explosive 40-year history of U.S.-Cuba relations, did not qualify for any media attention outside of Miami.”

A Battle with Cancer

Weinglass was in Cuba, working on the case, when he was diagnosed with cancer. He continued to work for the freedom of the Five until his death in March 2011. Two of the Five were released after long prison sentences. The remaining three were freed as part of the historic agreement between Cuban President Raul Castro and President Barack Obama in December 2014.

On a visit to Cuba in 2015, Guerrero told me he was overwhelmed with sadness at Weinglass’s death. “He was my brother,” Guerrero said.

Weinglass’s close friend Susan Schnall said, “His personal, political and professional life combined to be an inspiration to all who knew him.” She described Weinglass as “meticulous, tireless, dedicated and brilliant when defending his clients. Even as he got older,” she added, “he got reinvigorated and refreshed after spending 16-hour days pouring through boxes and boxes of trial files on behalf of his clients.”

In the spring of 2010, Weinglass wrote to her, “Having accomplished something is really all I need to work past exhaustion.”

Tobocman’s unique book is required reading for all who seek to learn about the remarkable legal career of Leonard Weinglass. It also provides a valuable history lesson of people’s struggles that may inspire a new generation of political activists as they resist Donald Trump’s mean-spirited agenda.

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The experience that he shared on the Arlington West film, and his selfless efforts of speaking in schools, have made many students conscious of the emotional and physical effects of wars. We honor him for his efforts for peace.

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by Yale News

Arthur Galston, a noted plant physiologist and bioethicist who was also known for helping bring a halt to the use of the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam, died on June 15 in Hamden, Connecticut, where he lived with his wife, Dale. He was 88 years old.

Galston’s research focused on plant photobiology, hormones, protoplasts and polyamines. His major research contribution, he believed, was to suggest and obtain evidence, in 1950, that riboflavin – rather than carotene as previously believed – was the photoreceptor for phototropism. He also discovered the kind of pigment that causes plants to bend in the light. His work led to more than 320 papers in refereed journals, as well as more than 50 articles on public affairs. He also authored textbooks on plant physiology and edited anthologies of papers in bioethics.

A graduate of Cornell University, Galston earned his doctorate in botany from the University of Illinois in 1943. He was an associate professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he worked closely with Nobel Prize winner George Beadle on defense-related research until he joined the Navy. Stationed at Okinawa, he served as a natural resources officer. He taught at Yale for a year before returning to Caltech, moving back to Yale in 1955.

In his early research, Galston experimented with a plant growth regulator, triiodobenzoic acid, and found that it could induce soybeans to flower and grow more rapidly. However, he also noted that if applied in excess, the compound would cause the plant to shed its leaves.

Others used Galston’s findings in the development of the powerful defoliant Agent Orange, named for the orange stripe painted around steel drums that contained it. The chemical is now known to have contained dioxins, which have proven to be associated with cancers, birth defects and learning disabilities. From 1962 to 1970, American troops released an estimated 20 million gallons of the chemical defoliant to destroy crops and expose Viet Cong positions and routes of movement during the Vietnam War.

In letters, academic papers, broadcasts and seminars, Galston described the environmental damage wrought by Agent Orange, noting that the spraying on riverbank mangroves in Vietnam was eliminating “one of the most important ecological niches for the completion of the life cycle of certain shellfish and migratory fish.” Galston traveled to Vietnam to monitor the impact of the chemical. In 1970, with Matthew S. Meselson of Harvard University and other scientists, Galston charged that Agent Orange also presented a potential risk to humans. The scientists lobbied the Department of Defense to conduct toxicological studies, which found that compounds in Agent Orange could be linked to birth defects in laboratory rats. The revelation led President Richard M. Nixon to order a halt to the spraying of Agent Orange.

“It was toxic at levels [in rats], which when scaled up to human level meant that the Vietnamese people who were exposed to the sprays probably were ingesting toxic quantities,” Galston was quoted as saying in a 2003 Yale Scientific article.

In the same article, he decried the use of his early research in the development of the toxic herbicide.

“I thought it was a misuse of science,” he said. “Science is meant to improve the lot of mankind, not diminish it – and its use as a military weapon I thought was ill-advised.”

In 1971, while on a visit to Vietnam to investigate the consequences of Agent Orange, Galston was invited to the People’s Republic of China, becoming one of the first two American scientists to receive such an honor. In China, he met three heads of state, including Premier Chou En-lai. Through the leader’s intervention, Galston was able to work for a summer on a Chinese agricultural commune, and wrote about the experience in a book.

During his Yale career, Galston served in several administrative positions. He chaired the former Departments of Botany and Biology and was director of the Division of Biological Sciences. He also chaired the University’s Course of Study Committee and the Committee on Teaching and Learning. He mentored 24 Ph.D. students and 67 postdoctoral fellows from 16 countries, and in 1994 received the William Clyde DeVane Medal for lifelong teaching and scholarship. At the time of his death, he was the Eaton Professor Emeritus in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and professor emeritus in the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

After his retirement, Galston was associated with the Institution for Social & Policy Studies (ISPS), serving on its Executive Committee for the Interdisciplinary Bioethics Project. He helped found Yale’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. He taught a new introductory course in Yale College in 2003-2004 that attracted more than 460 students, making it one of the largest courses in Yale College. For more than a decade, he taught college seminars in bioethics. He also organized a series on bioethics at the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale that brought to campus experts on a wide variety of ethical issues.

As the editor of two textbooks, “New Dimensions in Bioethics” and “Expanding Horizons in Bioethics,” Galston explored such topics as the risks and rewards of genetically modified plants and crops, pesticides, stem-cell research, cloning and other issues.

His Yale colleague, Mary Helen Goldsmith, professor emerita of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, lauded Galston for his “life-long interest in the ethical and social implications of scientific and medical research and technologies.”

“He was a leading voice on bioethics on this campus,” says Carol Pollard, associate director of bioethics at ISPS. “He was my friend, mentor, teacher. He will be sorely missed.”

Galston served as president of both the Botanical Society of America and the American Society of Plant Physiologists. He received numerous academic honors, including Guggenheim, Fulbright and Senior National Science Foundation Fellowships, and honorary degrees from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Iona College. In 2004 he received the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Illinois.This past spring, ISPS and the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology established an annual Arthur W. Galston Lecture in the scientist’s honor.

In addition to his wife, Galston is survived by his children, William of Bethesda, Maryland, and Beth of Carslisle, Massachusetts; and his grandson Ezra of New York.

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To the Family of Dang Vu Hiep
To the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin

On behalf of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign we send sincere and heartfelt condolences on the death of our comrade and brother, Dang Vu Hiep.

Our heartfelt condolences go to his wife and children. We share this pain also with the leadership, staff and members of the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin (VAVA) to whom Dang Vu Hiep devoted tireless dedication, hard work and his love, in the final period of his long life of revolutionary activism!

Dang Vu Hiep exemplified the highest ideals of a patriot and a fighter for justice! He participated in the uprising that overthrew Japanese occupation and fought against French colonialism. In taking part in the struggle against the U.S. war of aggression, Dang Vu Hiep was exposed to Agent Orange in the Central Highlands of Vietnam – the area hardest hit by this U.S. chemical weapon.

After devoting so much of his life to the liberation of Vietnam, Dang Vu Hiep continued to fight for justice, working to establish VAVA and serving as its President until his death. With boundless compassion, strategic vision and effective leadership, he presided over the development of VAVA into a mass organization with deep roots among
the people of Vietnam and broad support among all peace loving people in the world, including the United States. Dang Vu Hiep embodied great dignity, humanity and determination to achieve justice. And this is the legacy he left to VAVA and to us all!

Dang Vu Hiep’s death is a great loss to all of us. He was a champion of
internationalism and solidarity with all Agent Orange victims around the world and with all those who fight against war and oppression.

We miss Dang Vu Hiep as a friend and a comrade! We will always remember his example! And we will work to complete the tasks he shouldered by intensifying the struggle for justice and compensation for Vietnam’s Agent Orange victims and for all those suffering from the chemical warfare that ultimately caused his death.

Merle E. Ratner & Ngo Thanh Nhan
Co-Coordinators
Vietnam Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign

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RESOLUTION BY THE CITY OF JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY
Council as a whole, offered and moved adoption of the following:

WHEREAS, David Cline was born and raised in Buffalo, New York and was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1967 at the age of twenty. He served as a rifleman (11B20) with the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam. During his tour of duty, he was wounded three times and was awarded three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star for bravery, the Combat Infantryman Badge and other military medals. His was determined 100% disabled from his wounds; and

WHEREAS, shortly after his return to the U.S., David Cline joined the GI antiwar movement while still on active duty. He produced an underground paper, Fatigue Press, at Ford Hood, Texas for GIs about political, psychological and medical issues faced by veterans. He also helped establish Oleo Strut coffeehouse next to Fort Hood where veterans could freely question the war; and

WHEREAS, David Cline dedicated his life to waging peace and opposing war. Over the past 40 years he was involved in many efforts for peace, justice and healing including: the continuing campaign for Agent Orange victims in the U.S. and Vietnam, working for an end to the US Navy’s bombing of Vieques, Puerto Rico, assisting homeless veterans through Stand Down operations, prompting reconciliation and friendship with the people of Vietnam, helping people recover from war trauma (PTSD) and substance abuse, educating young people about war and military service and opposing U.S. military interventions in Central America and the Middle East; and

WHEREAS, David Cline served as president of Veterans For Peace. His recognition of VFP’s role as a place for veterans of all eras to work for peace and the need for a blending of anti-war veterans and military families in the national debate has led to an unprecedented number of veterans and military families working together to oppose a war in U.S. history. Today this alliance is a cornerstone of domestic opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Cline was also a key figure in the creation and guidance of Iraq Veterans Against the War, named to honor and follow the tradition of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

WHEREAS, on Saturday, September 15, 2007, David Cline departed this life at the age of 60. He is survived by his life partner Gladys Simer and her daughter Sabrina, his daughter Ellen Gregory and her son Jacob, his son Daniel, his father and mother Donald and Ruth Cline, his brothers Steven and Bruce and his sister Linda.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Municipal Council of the City of New Jersey City deems it a fitting and proper tribute to commemorate the life and deeds of David Cline.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Municipal Council does hereby support the naming of the north wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Building at Pershing Field in the name of David Cline, a Veteran, Father, Fighter and Hero.

Attest:
Peter M. Brenan, Councilperson
Willie Flood, Councilperson
Michael Sottolano, Councilperson
Mary Spinello, Councilperson
Steve Lipski, Councilperson
William A. Gaughan, Councilperson
Steven Fulop, Councilperson
Viola Richardson, Councilperson

TOLONDA GRIFFIN-ROSS
Deputy City Clerk

MARIANO VEGA, JR.
President of the Municipal Council

David Cline

Gladys Simer

David’s life partner Gladys

Medal “For Peace and Friendship Among Nations”

Medal “For Peace and Friendship Among Nations” dave peace medal was awarded to David Cline by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Association, September 10, 2007.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Building at Pershing Field

Municipal Council does hereby support the naming of the north wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Building at Pershing Field in the name of David Cline, a Veteran, Father, Fighter and Hero.

Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Building at Pershing Field in Jersey City and the November 12 Commemoration of David Cline.

Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Building at Pershing Field in Jersey City and the November 12 Commemoration of David Cline.

Dave Cline at Vietnam Veterans Against the War’s 35th Anniversary in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 22, 2002.

Anti-War Cadence: A Tribute to VFP Brother David Cline, RIP by Jozef Hand-Boniakowski at metaphoria.org

The Dave Cline Memorial Guestbook at vvaw.org

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Gallery of photos of Bill David at vvaw.org

Bill Davis was against war because he had been part of the Vietnam War.

An inspirational moment at the Monument for the Haymarket Martyrs. Bill and Joan Davis hosted the Vietnamese Agent Orange victims delegation in Chicago, IL, June 21-25, 2007.

Obituary by Larry Finley, Chicago Sun-Times

A product of West Virginia farm fields, he joined the Air Force in 1966 in hopes of avoiding jungle battlefields. Instead he ended up a helicopter mechanic at Vung Tau Army Airfield, in Vietnam.

“Very early in his tour he had to unload the bodies from the helicopters,” said his wife, Joan. “That’s when it hit him. It wasn’t something he talked about.”

William Hugh Davis, 59, president of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, died of interstitial pneumonia Wednesday in the University of Chicago Hospitals.

Mr. Davis had been an anti-war activist for more than 30 years. He also was a United Parcel Service mechanic, a labor activist and president of Local #701 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

Joined the Air Force

Born in Baltimore on Feb. 24, 1948, Mr. Davis ended up living with grandparents in West Virginia after his parents separated and divorced, his wife said.

“When the war came, he was from a family that was always in the service,” she said. “In West Virginia that’s what you did. . . . He didn’t get a football scholarship that would hold him and he knew he would be drafted so he chose the Air Force and got assigned to an Army division. Very early on, he decided that the venture was wrong.”
His assignments during a year in Vietnam (1968-1969) included servicing aircraft and playing football on a military team, his wife said. He then served for a year in Thailand with the Automated Battlefield Project, an effort to use the latest electronic technology to gather information and to locate and eliminate the enemy.

“He saw what a big country and the electronic battlefield could do to a small country,” said Barry Romo, national coordinator for the VVAW. “He saw Vietnamese die. He saw Americans die. He came back determined to make the world a better place. He didn’t turn to violence . . . or cynicism, or self-destruction.”

After the war, he settled in Columbus, Ohio, near his mother, and attended Ohio State University. He joined the VVAW and moved to the headquarters in Chicago. Here he met his future wife, who was a political activist from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

“We met through political circles,” she said. “Some of our fondest moments were selling political newspapers at the steel mills in the wee hours of the day. If we sold two papers, we thought we were successful.”

Also opposed war in Iraq

Mr. Davis retired this year as a mechanic for UPS, where he was president of his local, as well as a former steward and chief steward. He was active in the Oak Park Democratic Party and had worked in numerous political campaigns, including that of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington.

He was a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, his wife said, and a founder of Labor Against the War. He worked with the Iraq Veterans Against the War and was a regular speaker at Veterans Day and Memorial Day rallies, as well as national and international events.

Mr. Davis was a big, burly, bear of a guy whose enthusiasm extended to food and drink, coaching and umpiring in the Oak Park Youth Baseball league, and supporting the Chicago Bears and the White Sox, his wife said.

“I hated football and Bill hadn’t missed a Bears game in 25 years, rain or shine,” his wife said. “He had season tickets up in the top rows with the spiders. . . . I went to one game. For Bill and me, having a belief that activism can make a better world is what bonded us and kept our marriage strong.”

During it all, he never neglected his daughter, Rebecca, or his son, Joshua, who died in 2001 at the age of 18, said his wife of 29 years.

“He always had hope,” his wife said. “Not that he wasn’t frustrated and angry at the slowness of things, but he always hoped for better.”

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Biography

In 1961, Mrs Hồng joined the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) and served in the Eastern Combat Zone of South Vietnam, also known as T1 or Combat Zone Ð, as a clerk tailor and medical care worker for the NLF Political Training School.

In 1964, while she was washing rice in the stream Agent Orange was sprayed on her. She tried to dive into the stream in the belief that water would wash away the chemicals that stuck to her body, but to no avail. She continued to consume contaminated food, wild grasses and water every day.

In 1968, Ms. Hồng was sent to work at the NLF’s provincial headquarters in Ba Ria, Long Khanh, as a medic. She got married and had her first miscarriage in 1969 about 4-5 months into her pregnancy. In 1970, her unit was ambushed and she lost her left hand. As a consequence, she had to work as an accountant. In 1976, 1979, and 1984, she gave birth prematurely to three under-weight children, one of whom had a cogenital heart defect. All of her children are very weak, hard to care for, and often sick.

In May 1975, Mrs. Hong moved to live in the City of Bien Hoa City and in 1990, she moved again to the Trung Dung area, close to Bien Hung Lake, where all the water came from the Agent Orange storage site of the former United States Air Force Base at Bien Hoa. Her health began to worsen and she became sicker, forcing her to retire early . After a medical checkup with ultrasound and blood tests, she was found to have cirrhosis, and needed long term treatment in the hospital.

In 1999, her health got worse. Her belly was swollen and hardened. She felt exhausted and fainted. The doctors in Cho Ray Hospital, Ho Chi Minh City, discovered that she had an enlarged spleen and hemopoesis disorder. Her treatment included several tests of her marrow and consequently she was found to have cancer of the left breast . In addition, she also has shortness of breath, high blood pressure, cerebral edema, breast cancer with bone metastasis, stomach aches, cirrhosis, gall-stones and bladder-stones, varicose limbs, limb-skin ulcer, weak legs and limited range of movement.

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