Blue Water Navy & Agent Orange Exposure Research Tool
The Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019 did not draw a circle around Vietnam — it defined the offshore zone by eleven specific coordinates written into 38 U.S.C. § 1116A(d), and extended the presumption 12 nautical miles seaward of the line connecting them. Plot a position straight from a deck log below and this tool measures the actual distance to that statutory line, then screens the service, the diagnosis and the effective date.
1 Plot a position from the deck log
Click anywhere on the map to plot a position, or type coordinates from the log →
The eleven points that define the line — 38 U.S.C. § 1116A(d)
“…not more than 12 nautical miles seaward of a line commencing on the southwestern demarcation line of the waters of Vietnam and Cambodia and intersecting the following points”
The statute fixes no coordinate for the commencement point on the Vietnam–Cambodia demarcation, so positions off the southwestern end of Hon Nhan are flagged for manual verification rather than decided by this tool.
2 Ship lookup
Enter a ship name or hull number. Note that this answers a different question from the map above — see the note below the result.
Two different questions — don’t let them blur
38 U.S.C. § 1116A, the Blue Water Navy Act. Answered by position — deck-log coordinates against the statutory line, section 1 above. VA’s ships list does not answer this, and a ship’s absence from that list says nothing about where it steamed.
38 C.F.R. § 3.307(a)(6)(iii), the original presumption. Answered by ship activity — what VA’s ships list is actually for. Still worth establishing: it can carry a claim where the vessel stayed outside 12 NM.
3 Track worked up from the logs
Add every fix you can document. One qualifying position on one qualifying date is enough to trigger the presumption — but a track with dates and page cites is what actually persuades a rating board.
4 Other routes to the herbicide presumption
A position outside the 12 NM line is not the end of the analysis. These are the other presumptive routes, including the locations added by the PACT Act in 2022.
5 Diagnosed conditions
The current presumptive list under 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e). Five of these — bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, Parkinsonism, hypertension and MGUS — were added between 2021 and 2022 and are still missing from many published lists, which is exactly why old denials are worth pulling.
6 Effective date — the provision most often missed
7 Research summary
This is an educational research tool built on 38 U.S.C. §§ 1116, 1116A and 38 C.F.R. §§ 3.307, 3.309. The distance calculation applies the eleven coordinate points written into § 1116A(d) and is intended for research and claim development; it is not a survey-grade or navigational computation, and the coastline drawn on the map is schematic. Whether a vessel actually occupied a given position on a given date is a question of evidence — deck logs, ship histories and unit records — and whether a diagnosis meets a presumptive definition is a medical and legal question decided on the record in each case. This is not legal advice and does not create an agent–client relationship.
Primary sources: 38 U.S.C. § 1116A (Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019, Pub. L. 116‑23) · 38 C.F.R. § 3.307(a)(6) · 38 C.F.R. § 3.309(e) · Procopio v. Wilkie, 913 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (en banc) · Honoring our PACT Act of 2022, Pub. L. 117‑168 · deck logs via the National Archives.