To the Editor:
On Wednesday last, Bowling Green lost one of its finest citizens. Dave Brott was master of the trade he
took such pride in. He had many facets, all of them admirable: humorist, sportsman, biker, hunter; above
all he was a family man, loyal to his friends, a humanist and a patriot –  indeed a war hero.
Anyone can experience what Dave went through in Vietnam in a novel authored by an Ivy League graduate and
Rhodes Scholar who joined the Marines out of patriotism and went through the hell of Vietnam experienced
by his – and Dave Brott’s – generation. The novel, which took 30 years in the writing is
"Matterhorn" (2010). It tells it all just like it was. Inhuman heat and humidity. Foot rot and
chiggers from filthy, wet clothing worn way too long. Hand to hand combat in tunnels. Often mindless
command by careerist officers ordering attacks where they made no sense. Defoliation of jungles from the
air with deadly poison (2-4-D, "Agent Orange"), often blown off course by errant winds. It’s
all in "Matterhorn."
And here’s the point. Vietnam, the first of our wars to be waged on the basis of an untruth, killed a lot
of people on every side, among them many outstanding Americans. And one of those was Dave Brott. And
when, war over, his unit landed in Frisco to refuel on its way home Dave was booed. But – far worse –
Dave was also carrying the seeds of what one day would kill him, Agent Orange gone astray, 2-4-D, a
known carcinogen. When he was diagnosed in Ann Arbor the doctors there knew from the cancer cells’
signature that it was the effects of Agent Orange they were dealing with.
Think of it. The bemedalled patriot the victim of a senseless tactic by a military establishment
unwilling for years to admit that 2-4-D was the cause of clusters of deaths by cancer and gruesome birth
defects. Where’s the justice in that?
It’s still going on. Now the soldiers involved in the destruction of Iraqi war chemicals by fire are
turning up ill. Again there will be inquiry after inquiry before the new generation of Dave Brotts
fights for its rights and either gets its due or dies trying. This is not the American way, and in these
eyes it is shameful.
Alan Booth
Bowling Green