Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veteran?

Here is some additional information that most BWN vets are not even aware of. I sent this as a letter to my Senator asking for support on S.681.

Machinist Mate 3&2 page 178-179 Steam Operated Distilling Plants all you need to know about shipboard water distilling plants on surface ships.

Dear Senator,
I am writing to you today and asking for your support as cosponsor to the Senate Bill S.681 - Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2015.
On June 17, 2010 the Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus promulgated a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs for the Senate which prepared a list of 713 ships that served off the coast of Vietnam from 1962 – 1975.
President Johnson signed Executive Order 11216 providing the designation of Vietnam and waters adjacent thereto as a combat zone for the purposes of section 112 of the Internal Revenue Code.
All Hands magazine July 1967 shows USS Sacramento (AOE-1) delivering thousands of gallons of potable water to ships out at sea. Where’d the water come from?
MACV Monthly Summary for February 1967 Mobile Construction Battalion 133 begin construction on Camp Tien Sha Water Treatment Plant.
MACV Monthly Summary for March 1967 reveals Mobile Construction Battalion 133 installing an eight inch water line from a dam on Monkey Mountain to Camp Tien Sha water treatment plant.
MACV Monthly Summary for July 1967 indicates Da Nang was visited 85 times by Seventh Fleet ships, and provided over three million gallons of potable water.
MACV Monthly Summary for May 1968 shows a new dam on Monkey Mountain was completed and an effort was begun to store as much water as possible in this 1,900,000 gallon storage site.
YW-101 and YW-128 water barges capable of 200,000 gallons of potable water were permanently assigned to Naval Supply Activity Da Nang, both were involved in Vietnam War Campaigns 1967-1972. They were responsible for ships at anchorage.
The National Archives maintain CONGA naval gunfire support database indicating gunships that provided support along the coast from I Corps to IV Corps regions.
The Third Australian Vietnam Veterans Mortality Study 2005 presented by the National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology (NRCET) and the Queensland Health Scientific Services in Australia and Department of Veterans Affairs “the report concluded that in the process of evaporative distillation of potable water, organochlorine pesticides and dioxins, if present in sea and estuarine water, would have co-distilled and been concentrated. This study demonstrated that ingestion and personal use of the potable water could have led to exposure to these chemicals for Navy members.”
The Institute of Medicine in its Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans and Agent Orange Exposure (2011) concluded: “Equations 1–10 were solved using physical properties of TCDD in order to determine the percent of total TCDD in the feed water subject to codistillation. Thus, in the batch distillation process used in the NRCET study (Muller, 2002), a concentration of 40 ng TCDD/L in 1 L feed water would result in all 40 ng TCDD being distilled into the 0.1 L of product water, assuming 10% of the feed water is distilled. This demonstrates an enrichment of TCDD from the feed water into the product water with a product water concentration of 40 ng/0.1 L or 400 ng/L.”
NAVMED P-5010-6 July 2005 para 6-3. Shipboard Potable Water
b. Avoid making water while operating in harbors or from polluted seawater. Seawater shall be assumed polluted when ships are operated in close formation. While making potable water, care must be taken not to strip fuel waste tanks or empty bilges forward of the saltwater intakes. Source water in harbors or ship navigation lanes is likely to be contaminated by fuel/oil slicks or other pollutant sources.
Water onboard ships is a huge commodity, and it’s lifeblood. As you know water distillation plants shipboard converted salt water to fresh, used as feed water for boilers that created steam that drove the turbines for propulsion. Additionally water was used for bathing, laundry services, cooking, and fresh water wash down of ships prior to entering port.
Of great concern is our own government’s USAID providing remediation efforts in Da Nang today to cleanse the soil, water, and aquatic vegetation around the airport which are known to be the remnants of Operation Ranch Hand dioxin levels found by the Hatfield Group to be 365 times the global acceptable standards. Yet our Blue Water sailors continue to be deprived the medical services and compensation they have earned through their service to an otherwise grateful nation.
Help us restore the Department of Veterans Affairs motto: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan" by cosponsoring Senate Bill S. 681.

Wish you guys all luck. I was on the ground in the crap (AO) and I still can't get anything! God Bless you all.

Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Association is working hard to get our AO coverage from the VA reinstated. Watch this video with Neil Cavuto, VADM Straw and Montel Williams, http://goo.gl/O9hANx