During the Vietnam War, nonlethal chemical weapons were frequently employed to protect the survivor from capture of to prevent the rescue helicopter from being shot down while it was in the extremely vulnerable position of hovering over the survivor to hoist him on board. These chemical weapons were tear gas type chemicals.
If anyone still has any doubts as to if these chemical munitions were fatal, we dropped them intentionally on or near the survivor. This insured that any enemy soldiers who was near the survivor would be incapacitated. Of course, this also incapacitated the survivor. A PJ would go down the hoist to get the incapacitated survivor. After we got the survivor back into the rescue helicopter he quickly recovered from the effects of the gas and was allowed to return to flying duties after he was debriefed at home base. The rescue crews were exposed to these chemicals while rescuing the survivor. The only protective equipment worn was a gas mask. After the Vietnam War, rumors persisted that the chemical weapons were the nerve gas sarin. Had we used sarin, all of the rescue aircrews would have had to have worn full chemical warfare protective suits. The fact that we only wore flight suits and fatigues in the chemical environment proves that it was not sarin. Any USAF aircrew member who had been exposed to nerve gas would have been permanently removed from flying status (assuming he survived the exposure).
So the CNN claim that the USAF used nerve agent chemical weapons in Vietnam was not only false, it was ridiculous to suggest that the USAF would have intentionally exposed friendly troops to this lethal chemical weapon (sarin). One fortunate byproduct of the allegation was the declassification of the information about the nonlethal chemical weapons that were used in SEA. So thanks to CNN the documents below can now be read by all of us.
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