Scroll down to watch the “Orange Heart Medal” Video
Ken Gamble served in Vietnam from 1964-1966 with the Brown Water Navy.
After coming home and falling ill to complications due to Agent Orange, Ken set out to make a difference for others who have been affected by Agent Orange, and their families.
Ken’s first action was creating the Orange Heart Medal for those who are affected by AO. The Orange Heart Medal is now officially recognized by the state of Tennessee.
Ken built an Agent Orange Memorial in Tennessee, and runs other programs helping the victims of AO.
Watch the video below for more details on the Orange Heart Medal or click here to view the requirements and sign up now.
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TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors
uh can uh vietnam veterans that have
agent orange condition
get sent a medal that was designed by
ken
and they set the vets at no charge so
you got to get on board which is if you
had it
and if you still have it it’s really sad
tell us about your project
ken well it all started with the medal
uh i was in the va hospital
with internal bleeding after 46 sessions
of radiation
and two and a half years of shots in the
stomach
uh five years later i got internal
bleeding
went to the va hospital and i’m laying
there in bed and i’m wondering what in
the heck can we do
to help these guys get the recognition
that they deserve
and honor well
as i lay there i’m thinking you know
we’ll never get a purple heart
so i said why not an orange heart
so i had a painting a piece of paper
very good
very clean and i started sketching it
and i sketched out the metal
then when i got out of the hospital i
got a buddy of mine to help me
on the computer to perfect it
get it made well in the meantime
i was looking for somebody to make this
medal and it took me about six months to
get anybody to make it
people just would not touch it but i
finally found it
and then and so i was uh applying for a
501
c 3 uh charitable organization
i thought to myself well you know these
guys have paid for this with their lives
why would i charge them no i couldn’t do
it
so i send these medals out all they got
to go do is go to the website
click uh click on the application fill
it out
hit submit it comes to my computer i
pull it off
i’ll pack a medal in a uh envelope
shoot it out to him how many of you so
far ken
five grand five thousand that’s good
already out there very well that’s very
commendable
uh the other thing is they had a law
passed in the state of tennessee is
in tennessee is the only state that
recognizes the medal that they have
the goal is for nationwide medal
recognition this year
so talk to your congressman or your
senators or whoever you can
and tell them to get on board with this
orange heart
orange heart metal foundation
it’s gone to one of the best causes that
i could ever think of
uh since then you know i’ve got some
grants and things have helped me along
the way
and and we’re doing all right with the
foundation now
so uh we got the law passed i’ve got the
medals i still send the medals out
and if anybody out there is a vietnam
vet suffering from agent orange any of
the conditions on the
va list just go to my website
uh small letters orangeparkmetal.org
and just get the application
fill it out right there on the website
and just hit submit and i will
definitely send you
an orange heart map now this is the
biggest thing that up sort of
bothers me and kind of like really upset
me when i first heard it
that you had says you have had no
support
from the national vfw or the american
legion
none whatsoever or from the vba or the
dav
are you kidding no national support from
any of the organizations
now local support we’ve got a great
bunch of vfw
members american legion members sure we
get local support
i know what national media i know in
national meetings i’m a member of
everything you just mentioned
so well i have tried three times three
times
to get the national vfw
involved they will not even talk to me
in the future you’d like to see some
scholarships from second and third
generation family members that
have the eight-year-old thing what i’d
like to do
uh after we get now we’re never going to
get through with this memorial because
we’re going to do it in phases
as long as the guys want to put their
names on there as long as the widows
want to put their husbands on there
we’re going to keep adding phases to
this memorial
okay uh so it’s never going to end
i i will end before the memorial day
i guarantee you but yeah what i want to
do with this foundation
is if we get enough grants and we get
enough money
i would love to get some second and
third generation
agent orange children
some scholarships
how much you know about the
hand-me-down of ao with the second
generation or third generation okay
right now
i i uh got connections at vanderbilt
university
okay i’ve got two doctors over there
that are doing
research on dioxin
as a as of uh last year in february
they were into the fifth generation
fourth generation for males fifth
generation for females
the only time my feet hit the ground in
vietnam
was when we would uh just completely be
wore out
and we’d go down to wreck locker and
get a football or a soccer ball or a
baseball
and then we would uh beat that big joker
on the
bank and uh little did we know at the
time
that the clearing that we were rolling
around then
was because of agent orange oh wow yeah
okay i mean you know at that time we
didn’t have any idea
what was going on right you’re right
yeah so we’d get out there playing
football
well you know flag football was not for
us
we had to we had to bump heads and
yeah get a little energy out yes get a
little clustration off here
here’s a patch of the organization there
we go let me put this straight up there
how’s that let me get two hands on here
this is two
whoa here we go there you go
look at that actually that patch
was was designed for the memorial that
we built
right look at that
handed out at the dedication that is
