image
Agent Orange For more than a decade, U.S. planes like these sprayed herbicides in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, destroying 5.5 million acres of forest and farmland to eliminate sources of food and enemy hiding places. The most common chemical used, Agent Orange, contained dioxin, which left land contaminated for decades and ruined the health of civilian Vietnamese and American soldiers.
Dick Swanson/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images.