I-TEAM UPDATE: Was Agent Orange stored at Fort Eisenhower years longer than previously thought?

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Our I-TEAM has uncovered documents that could show Agent Orange was stored at Fort Eisenhower for years longer than the government its.

The VA routinely denies veterans benefits for Agent Orange exposure if they were stationed at Fort Eisenhower, previously named Fort Gordon after the spraying stopped. Proving the deadly toxin existed on post after it was supposedly long gone could mean life — changing benefits for far more veterans and their families.

The Vietnam War is colored in controversy, but no doubt the brightest shade is orange.

You might even call it a stain.

Soldiers sprayed Agent Orange to kill the canopy, exposing the enemy taking cover in the jungle.

It also killed their food supply.

EARLIER COVERAGE:

• Documents highlight those sprayed and betrayed at Fort Gordon
• Deny ‘til you die? Vets exposed to Agent Orange face struggles for coverage
• Agent Orange Offspring? Soldiers were exposed at Fort Gordon. Their kids and grandkids could be affected too.
• Agent Orange and the story of the CSRA’s involvement in Vietnam
• How much Agent Orange testing was done at Fort Gordon and for how long?
• ‘This is wrong’ Vietnam vet waits as VA stalls on adding several illnesses to Agent Orange list

Ever since Agent Orange has been slowly killing many of those who encountered it.

Almost five decades after the fall of Saigon, the war still rages on for those fighting for benefits after being exposed to Agent Orange.

“It ate me alive,” said James Cripps.

We first introduced you to Cripps in 2010 after the government approved his landmark claim for Agent Orange benefits.

He was the very first person to prove he was exposed to Agent Orange – not in Vietnam – but here, in the United States, at Fort Eisenhower.

Now, 14 years later, he’s put himself back on the frontlines of the fight.

Meredith Anderson: “Why do you want to come forward now with these documents?”

Cripps: “Once I realized what I had, there’s no way I could just sit on that documentation.”

Cripps believes it could help hundreds of veterans and their families get benefits.

We’ll get to the significance of that document in just a minute.

First, let’s talk about Camp Crockett.

It was a training site on a remote part of Camp Gordon. Camp Gordon then became Fort Gordon. Fort Gordon was renamed Fort Eisenhower in October of 2023.

Camp Crockett featured mock Vietnamese villages, complete with Quonset huts, to make training as real as possible.

Archive footage shows soldiers dressed as “villagers,” and you could clearly see “Saigon” on the side of a bus. All of this, of course, was pretend, but Cripps says the dangerous chemical he sprayed was very real, even though the government denied it for decades.

“Put their finger in my face, and they said, ‘Mr. Cripps, we have never ever sprayed Agent Orange in the continental United States,’” ed Cripps.

This map proves Agent Orange was sprayed here:

The map, obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request, first blew WRDW News 12′s investigation wide open more than a decade ago. It shows the U.S. Government tested Agents Blue, Orange and White in Augusta from January 1967 to December 1969, exposing soldiers to a rainbow of tactical toxins.

However, Cripps believes soldiers at Fort Eisenhower (formerly Fort Gordon) were likely exposed to Agent Orange up until the mid 80′s.

He says the proof has been in the paperwork he’s had all along. He’s just never put two-and-two together.

This could be life-changing for so many vets whose lives and health have been impacted.

That’s because included in the many pages Cripps submitted with his claim was a handwritten statement. In it, an installation forester recalls “a stash of old pesticides that could possibly be dated from the time Mr. Cripps (noted incorrectly as “Cribbs”) was stationed here was discovered.”

If you look closely at when he discovered it, you can see that happened during the mid-1980′s.

Cripps says there’s no doubt in his mind that stash was Agent Orange.

He told our I-TEAM about the conversation that led to the forester, Allen Braswell, writing that statement for Cripps back in 2006.

ANOTHER FORT EISENHOWER INVESTIGATIONS:

• Work begins on new housing at Fort Eisenhower
• Army secretary gets ‘pretty good sense’ of Fort Eisenhower housing challenges
• Ossoff returns to Fort Gordon to announce progress
• Families share stories on Fort Gordon housing problems
• Fort Gordon housing investigation could bring consequences
• Fort Gordon housing provider pleads guilty to fraud scheme
• How military families feel about housing settlement
• 10 years later, we hear from the private company that provides housing on Fort Gordon

“I said, ‘I still have a key to that lock.’ But he didn’t still have the lock. He said, ‘Mr. Cripps, can you describe to me what I saw when I opened that door?’” said Cripps.

Braswell doesn’t recount any of this in his statement, but Cripps says he described everything to him in detail.

“I started on the left side, and I said, “The first thing you would have seen would have been an Evinrude boat motor sitting on its top because if you stood it right side up, you couldn’t get started. Then, there would have been bales of alfalfa. There would have been salt blocks. There would have been Coleman line and fishing poles and lawn chairs that I had confiscated from the night, fishermen who were sneaking into the lakes,” he said.

In 2006, the building wasn’t there anymore, but Cripps says Braswell ed the details Cripps recounted.

“I don’t think I could have ever won that claim had it not been for that statement that Allen Braswell wrote for me,” Cripps told the I-TEAM.

He also believes that statement could now help other veterans because it could prove those dangerous chemicals remained on post much longer than previously thought.

“I’ve never seen an opportunity so great as this one where talking to you and getting this information out, could help maybe 300 or 400 veterans in one lick,” said Cripps.

Cripps maintains a website where he writes about his struggles and triumphs. Click here if you want to follow along. 

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