Tactical herbicides
VA recognizes presumptive herbicide exposure for qualifying units that served in or near the Korean DMZ from September 1, 1967, through August 31, 1971.
1950s–1970s
Korean War & DMZ Exposures
Korea claims can involve tactical herbicides near the DMZ, radiation, fuels, pesticides, asbestos, and industrial chemicals. Qualifying DMZ service has a defined presumptive window; service outside it may still support direct, facts-found exposure.
All wartime eras
Hazards and evidence questions
Industrial and vehicle work
Maintenance, supply, transport, communications, and field duties may involve solvents, fuels, exhaust, coatings, and contaminated equipment.
Radiation pathways
A radiation claim requires the correct pathway: a defined radiation-risk activity, § 3.311 radiogenic-disease development, or direct service connection.
Watch this first
What is Agent Orange, and how is it toxic?
VA explains the herbicide itself and why it damages health decades after contact. This is the same chemical sprayed along the Korean DMZ corridor, so the science here is the science behind a Korea herbicide claim. What the video does not settle is whether your unit and your dates fall inside the DMZ presumption — that is a records question, and it is the one that decides the claim.
Source: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, official channel
Accuracy safeguard: A Korea-era designation alone does not prove herbicide exposure. Dates, unit, worksite, and actual duties still matter.
Unique and shared
What this generation is up against
The Korean War file is really two files, and both of them start at a disadvantage. The men who fought between 1950 and 1953 carry a records problem: the July 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis destroyed roughly 80 percent of Army personnel records for service members discharged between November 1, 1912 and January 1, 1960 — precisely this population. The morning reports, rosters, and unit journals that would prove where a company actually stood no longer exist. The men who served later, along the Korean demilitarized zone, carry a different problem: the herbicide presumption for Korea is the narrowest one in the law. VA presumes exposure only for service in or near the DMZ between September 1, 1967 and August 31, 1971, and only for units VA has accepted as having operated there. A veteran who walked the same fence line in 1966, or in 1972, gets nothing automatic at all.
The second obstacle is age. Every condition this era produces — type 2 diabetes, ischemic heart disease, peripheral neuropathy, parkinsonism, bladder cancer — is also a condition of being eighty years old, and examiners write exactly that. The answer is not to argue that aging is irrelevant. The answer is to get the exposure into the record before the medical argument starts: the unit designation and its documented location, temporary duty orders, the camp or depot and what was stored, sprayed, or burned there, the job actually performed rather than the code printed on the DD-214, and a clinician willing to write that the exposure at least as likely as not contributed. Once exposure is established, age becomes one opinion against another instead of the only opinion in the file.
Two veterans of the same conflict rarely carry the same claim, and veterans of different conflicts often carry the same one. The first panel is what belongs to this era alone. The second is the layer this era shares with the rest of the site — and it is the layer that reopens old denials.
Only this era
Unique to Korean War and DMZ service
These hazards belong to this era. A decision-maker will not think of them unless your file names them.
- Tactical herbicides along the demilitarized zone. Spraying cleared fields of fire between September 1967 and August 1971. The men who patrolled, dug, and slept in that ground were issued no protective equipment and were never told what had been sprayed.
- Unvented kerosene and diesel space heaters. Korean winters were fought indoors as well as out. Badly vented heaters in tents, Quonset huts, and bunkers put carbon monoxide and combustion particulate into the air men slept in for months at a stretch.
- Post-armistice ordnance and ammunition duty. Ammunition supply points, demolition areas, and depot yards were drummed, repacked, and burned in place. That work meant bare-handed contact with explosive residues and solvents, and open smoke with no respirator.
- DDT and pesticide fogging of living areas. Insect control was done by soldiers with hand and truck-mounted foggers, inside billets, latrines, and mess facilities, without protective equipment.
- Constant cold-weather fuel handling. Fuel was decanted, moved, and burned around the clock in freezing conditions. Skin contact with leaded gasoline, kerosene, and diesel was routine rather than exceptional.
Crosses eras
Shared with veterans of other eras
This is the part most Korean War veterans are never told. Several exposures in your file are governed by the same regulations that decide Vietnam, Gulf War, and post-9/11 claims.
- One herbicide list, not a Korea list. There is no separate Korean disease list. DMZ service inside the window runs on the identical list at 38 CFR § 3.309(e) that a Vietnam veteran uses — including hypertension and MGUS, which the PACT Act added in 2022.
- Asbestos. Barracks, boiler rooms, pipe lagging, gaskets, brake and clutch work, and every ship afloat. Asbestos disease is decided on the facts of the job you held, and that pathway is open to veterans of all five eras.
- Industrial solvents. Trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, carbon tetrachloride, and Stoddard solvent were the standard degreasers in motor pools and shops from the 1950s into the 1990s. The same chemicals appear in Vietnam, Cold War, and Gulf War files.
- Leaded fuel and engine exhaust. Leaded gasoline, diesel exhaust in enclosed maintenance bays, and generator fumes inside living areas cross every era on this site.
- The radiation regulations. Occupation duty at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, imprisonment as a prisoner of war in Japan, or participation in atmospheric nuclear testing puts your claim under 38 CFR § 3.309(d) and § 3.311 — the same two regulations a Cold War test participant uses.
Conditions
What these exposures can cause
Exposure is only half of a claim. The other half is a diagnosis the law will connect to it. Here is what these exposures are known to cause, sorted by the regulation that actually decides it — because a presumptive condition and a facts-found condition are argued in completely different ways, and filing one as the other is how good claims die.
Presumptive
Diseases VA presumes from herbicide exposure
If your service falls inside the DMZ window and you carry any diagnosis on this list, VA presumes the herbicide exposure caused it. No medical opinion linking it to service is required. The list at 38 CFR § 3.309(e) holds eighteen entries:
- Type 2 diabetes mellitus
- Ischemic heart disease
- Hypertension (added by the PACT Act in 2022)
- Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, or MGUS (added by the PACT Act in 2022)
- Parkinson disease and parkinsonism
- Early-onset peripheral neuropathy
- Prostate cancer
- Respiratory cancers — lung, bronchus, larynx, trachea
- Bladder cancer
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Hodgkin disease
- Multiple myeloma
- Chronic B-cell leukemias, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia and hairy cell leukemia
- Soft-tissue sarcoma (other than osteosarcoma, chondrosarcoma, Kaposi sarcoma, or mesothelioma)
- AL amyloidosis
- Chloracne or other acneform disease consistent with chloracne
- Porphyria cutanea tarda
- Hypothyroidism
Facts-found
Conditions built on the facts of Korean-era duty
Nothing here is presumed. Each of these is granted when the file establishes the exposure, the diagnosis, and a medical opinion connecting the two. This is where the majority of Korean War claims actually live, and where they need help.
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic bronchitis after years of indoor combustion smoke, waste burning, and fuel fumes
- Asbestos-related pleural disease, asbestosis, and mesothelioma — mesothelioma can appear forty years or more after the exposure
- Bladder, kidney, and liver disease following heavy solvent and degreaser work
- Peripheral neuropathy and cognitive complaints after repeated organophosphate pesticide and DDT application
- Hearing loss and tinnitus from artillery, armor, and flight-line noise — frequently the anchor claim that finally gets an old file opened and read
- Cold injury residuals from the Korean winter: numbness, cold sensitivity, nail and skin changes, and joint pain in the feet and hands
Three doors
Radiation pathways stay separate
Radiation is one word to a veteran and three different regulations to VA. Naming the wrong one gets a claim denied on procedure instead of merit.
- 38 CFR § 3.309(d) — a radiation-exposed veteran with a disease on the presumptive list. Occupation duty at Hiroshima or Nagasaki between August 6, 1945 and July 1, 1946, and prisoner-of-war status in Japan, are themselves qualifying radiation-risk activities.
- 38 CFR § 3.311 — a radiogenic disease. VA develops a dose estimate and obtains an opinion. This is a development pathway, not an automatic grant.
- 38 CFR § 3.303(d) — direct service connection, which sits underneath both of the above. There is no dose threshold here and no list; there is evidence, a diagnosis, and an opinion.
Early-onset peripheral neuropathy is the one item on the herbicide list with a time limit built into it: it must have become manifest to a degree of 10 percent within one year of the last exposure. Neuropathy that appeared decades later is not excluded from compensation — it is simply argued on the facts, or as a complication of presumptive diabetes, instead of under the presumption.
Rating criteria
Possible ratings, spelled out
A percentage is not a judgment about how sick you are. It is a description of documented function measured against fixed criteria. Below are the actual criteria for the conditions this era produces most often, quoted from the rating schedule, so you can see exactly what your records need to say.
DC 7913Presumptive inside the DMZ window
Type 2 diabetes mellitus
38 CFR § 4.119
100%
Requires more than one daily injection of insulin, a restricted diet, and regulation of activities, with episodes of ketoacidosis or hypoglycemic reactions requiring at least three hospitalizations per year or weekly visits to a diabetic care provider, plus either progressive loss of weight and strength or complications that would be compensable if separately evaluated.
60%
Requires one or more daily injections of insulin, a restricted diet, and regulation of activities, with episodes of ketoacidosis or hypoglycemic reactions requiring one or two hospitalizations per year or twice a month visits to a diabetic care provider, plus complications that would not be compensable if separately evaluated.
40%
Requires one or more daily injections of insulin, a restricted diet, and regulation of activities.
In plain terms: This is the tier the most files belong in and the most files miss. All three elements have to appear in the records, including a provider writing that strenuous activity must be avoided. "Regulation of activities" is defined in the schedule as avoidance of strenuous occupational and recreational activities.
20%
Requires insulin and a restricted diet, or an oral hypoglycemic agent and a restricted diet.
10%
Manageable by a restricted diet only.
Compensable complications of diabetes are rated separately unless they are used to support a 100 percent evaluation. Peripheral neuropathy, retinopathy, kidney disease, and erectile dysfunction are the four that go unclaimed most often — a veteran sitting at 20 percent for diabetes alone is usually leaving several separate ratings on the table.
DC 7005Presumptive inside the DMZ window
Ischemic and arteriosclerotic heart disease
38 CFR § 4.104, General Rating Formula for Diseases of the Heart
100%
Chronic congestive heart failure; or a workload of 3.0 METs or less resulting in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope; or left ventricular dysfunction with an ejection fraction of less than 30 percent.
60%
More than one episode of acute congestive heart failure in the past year; or a workload greater than 3.0 but not greater than 5.0 METs resulting in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope; or an ejection fraction of 30 to 50 percent.
30%
A workload greater than 5.0 but not greater than 7.0 METs resulting in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope; or evidence of cardiac hypertrophy or dilatation on electrocardiogram, echocardiogram, or X-ray.
10%
A workload greater than 7.0 but not greater than 10.0 METs resulting in dyspnea, fatigue, angina, dizziness, or syncope; or continuous medication required.
One MET is the energy cost of standing quietly at rest, equal to 3.5 milliliters of oxygen consumed per kilogram of body weight per minute. When exercise testing cannot be performed for medical reasons, the examiner is required to provide an estimated METs level. An examination that comes back with no METs figure and no explanation is an inadequate examination, and that is worth saying out loud in a Higher-Level Review.
DC 7101Presumptive since the PACT Act, 2022
Hypertension
38 CFR § 4.104
60%
Diastolic pressure predominantly 130 or more.
40%
Diastolic pressure predominantly 120 or more.
20%
Diastolic pressure predominantly 110 or more, or systolic pressure predominantly 200 or more.
10%
Diastolic pressure predominantly 100 or more; or systolic pressure predominantly 160 or more; or a history of diastolic pressure predominantly 100 or more in a person who requires continuous medication for control.
In plain terms: Read the last clause twice. A veteran whose readings are now controlled by medication still meets the 10 percent criterion if the history shows diastolic pressure predominantly 100 or more. Controlled is not the same as unratable.
Hypertension only became a presumptive herbicide condition when the PACT Act was signed in August 2022. A Korean DMZ veteran who was denied hypertension before that date was denied under a law that no longer exists. That claim can be filed again.
DC 8004Presumptive inside the DMZ window
Parkinson disease and parkinsonism
38 CFR § 4.124a
30%
Minimum rating for paralysis agitans with ascertainable residuals.
The 30 percent is a floor, not a ceiling, and it is where far too many Parkinson files stop. Above the minimum, the evaluation is built from the residuals themselves — tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, speech and swallowing impairment, cognitive change, bowel and bladder impairment, and loss of function in each affected extremity — each rated under its own diagnostic code and then combined. A file that shows only "diagnosed with Parkinson disease" will be paid the minimum. A file that documents each residual separately is rated on what the disease actually took.
Nothing on this page is a promise about your claim. The point of quoting the criteria is that a percentage is a description of documented function — so the examination and the treatment records have to describe your function in the same language the schedule uses. When they do not, the problem is the examination, not the veteran.
Combine your ratingsEligibility
Who qualifies — and how to file
There are three ways into this era, and they are not interchangeable. Find the door your service actually fits before you write a word on a form.
Door 1 — The DMZ presumption
Service in or near the Korean demilitarized zone between September 1, 1967 and August 31, 1971, in a unit VA has accepted as operating there. Inside this door, exposure is conceded and a listed disease is presumed service-connected.
What the file needs
Unit designation, not just the branchDates of assignment inside the windowAny temporary duty that took you to the DMZThe diagnosis, named on the § 3.309(e) list
Door 2 — Facts-found exposure outside the window
Served in 1966, or 1972, or somewhere else entirely, or your disease is not on the list. Presumptions are a shortcut, never the only route. Direct service connection under 38 CFR § 3.303(d) has no list and no window — it needs proof.
What the file needs
Unit history and documented locationEvery location, including temporary dutyEvery duty actually performed, not the MOS code aloneBuddy statements that describe the work, not just the friendshipA clinician who addresses the exposure in writing
Door 3 — Secondary conditions and aggravation
The most common under-rating in this era is not a denial at all. It is a granted condition whose consequences were never claimed. Diabetes is granted at 20 percent, and the neuropathy, retinopathy, kidney disease, and heart disease it produced sit in the medical records unclaimed for years.
What the file needs
The already service-connected conditionThe new diagnosis, separately namedAn opinion tying the second to the firstTreatment records showing the progression
The filing sequence, in order
Order matters more than speed. Every step below is free, and the first one protects money you have not been awarded yet.
- 1
File the Intent to File first, today
VA Form 21-0966An Intent to File locks your effective date for one year. Everything you are later awarded is paid back to the date VA received that form, not the date you finished gathering evidence. It takes minutes and costs nothing.
- 2
File the claim and name every diagnosis separately
VA Form 21-526EZOne form can carry many conditions, but each one has to be named. "Breathing problems" is not a claim; asthma, chronic sinusitis, and chronic rhinitis are three claims with three sets of criteria, and each is rated on its own before the ratings are combined.
- 3
Pull the exposure record VA already holds
The Individual Longitudinal Exposure Record compiles what the government already knows about where you served and what was there. For exposure that is not on a presumptive list, ask for a Toxic Exposure Risk Activity determination under 38 U.S.C. § 1168 — that determination is what turns an unlisted exposure into a developed one.
- 4
Decide whether you want representation
VA Form 21-22aForm 21-22a appoints an accredited agent or attorney; form 21-22 appoints a veterans service organization. Representation is never required. No one may lawfully charge you a fee to prepare or file an original claim.
- 5
If a decision is already wrong, choose the correct lane
VA Form 20-0995 / 20-0996 / 10182A Supplemental Claim (20-0995) is for new and relevant evidence. Higher-Level Review (20-0996) is for a decision that got the existing evidence wrong and allows no new evidence. A Board appeal (10182) is for the law itself. Choosing the wrong lane can cost a year and, in the worst case, an effective date.
Filing an original claim is free, and it is against the law for anyone to charge you a fee to prepare or file one. Fees are permitted only after a decision has been issued, under a written agreement with an accredited representative. If someone asks you for money to start a claim, walk away.
Sign up for the VA registry
The Agent Orange Registry health exam
This is a free VA health examination for veterans with possible herbicide exposure. It is not a claim, and it is not a compensation and pension examination — but it puts a documented exposure concern and a baseline of your health into the VA system, which is exactly what an old file usually lacks.
- Open to Korean DMZ service between September 1, 1967 and August 31, 1971; Vietnam service between January 9, 1962 and May 7, 1975, including brown-water and Blue Water Navy service within 12 nautical miles; Thailand base service between January 9, 1962 and June 30, 1976; Laos between December 1, 1965 and September 30, 1969; the Mimot and Krek areas of Cambodia between April 16 and April 30, 1969; Guam and American Samoa between January 9, 1962 and July 31, 1980; Johnston Atoll between January 1, 1972 and September 30, 1977; and C-123 flight, ground, and maintenance crews between 1969 and 1986.
- Also open to veterans who tested, transported, stored, or sprayed herbicides anywhere, including stateside sites.
- You do not have to be enrolled in VA health care to get the exam, and there is no copay for it.
- It includes an exposure history, a physical examination, and any laboratory tests the clinician orders. The results and your exposure concerns go into your VA medical record.
- No test can confirm or rule out herbicide exposure. Any clinic promising a test that proves it is selling something.
- Spouses and children are not eligible for this exam.
How to get on the registry
Ask the Environmental Health Coordinator at your VA medical center, or ask your VA primary care team to place the referral. If you do not know who your coordinator is, call MyVA411 at 800-698-2411 — available 24 hours a day, seven days a week — and ask to be connected to the Environmental Health Coordinator at your facility.
MyVA411, 24 hours a day800-698-2411
Signing up for a registry exam is not filing a claim, and being in a registry is not evidence that you were exposed. Do both: get the exam so your health is documented, and file the claim so the clock on your effective date starts running.
Need this looked at by a doctor?
Registry exams and exposure evaluations start with a clinician. Our doctor page has the words to use at the appointment, the direct phone number and VA email of the exposure coordinator at your own VA medical center, and every VA registry you can sign up for.
Who else this touched
The family this era reached
The exposure did not stop at the fence line. Children of veterans who served in or near the Korean DMZ during the recognized herbicide window can carry a birth-defect benefit, and a surviving spouse or child may qualify for tax-free monthly support if a service-connected condition eventually takes the veteran's life.
- Spina bifida monthly allowance, health care, and vocational training for biological children of qualifying Korea-DMZ herbicide veterans (38 U.S.C. Chapter 18; 38 C.F.R. § 3.814).
- Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) for survivors if a service-connected herbicide or radiation condition causes or contributes to death.
- CHAMPVA health coverage for a spouse and children once the veteran is rated permanently and totally disabled from a service-connected condition.