ASIA : S. Korea Reviews Vietnam War Role : New openness is shown in response to Agent Orange damage claims and a critical movie.

After he returned from Vietnam in 1966, Hong Seung Uk’s bones began to ache and strange spots appeared on his skin. Rheumatism, the doctors told him. When his son was born mentally retarded and with deformed legs, Hong and his wife ascribed it to bad luck. Today, Hong’s chest is paralyzed and he must breathe through a pipe in his chest.

The Presbyterian minister, now 50, belatedly believes he has discovered the culprit that has caused so much of his suffering--Agent Orange, the defoliant that the U.S. government dumped on Vietnamese jungles to destroy vegetation that might hide Communist guerrillas.

Hong is one of 4,700 South Korean veterans and their families who have filed reports this year with the Vietnam War Veterans Office, claiming medical problems that appear to be related to Agent Orange. Included in the group are 256 veterans with paralysis, 233 with cancer, 227 with severe skin disease and 110 with deformed offspring. Each day, 30 new reports come in of South Korean veterans claiming health problems related to Agent Orange.

Such stories, together with a more open environment spurred by democratic reform, have contributed to a wave of re-examination in South Korea about its Vietnam role.

The hit movie in Seoul this summer is “White Badge,” based on a novel by veteran Ahn Jungyo. The movie portrays South Korean soldiers as mercenaries pulled into a war they knew nothing about to promote the economic interests of a government eager for U.S. aid and military contracts.

The movie might have been censored a few years ago. Instead, it boldly shows scenes in which South Korean soldiers hack to death unarmed Vietnamese peasants. Returning veterans are pictured as unhappy and ignored.

“We needed a serious film about the Vietnam War that showed the truth from the Korean point of view,” said Chung Yi Young, the film’s director. “The past view of Vietnam was that presented by the military government.”

South Korea is also indicating new willingness to address the Agent Orange issue. The Veterans Office will pressure the South Korean government to cover health costs of alleged Agent Orange victims and plans legal action against the U.S. manufacturers of the defoliant, said Suh Jung Won, a former Tiger Division captain in Vietnam. He now handles the Agent Orange issue for the South Korean agency.

Suh says the office began urging veterans to come forward with health problems last October when it first discovered a 1984 settlement in which 253,000 Vietnam War veterans from the United States, Australia and New Zealand were compensated with $240 million from the U.S. manufacturers.

Although South Korea sent 320,000 soldiers to Vietnam--the second-largest force after the United States--and its soldiers handled some of the war’s most dangerous and difficult tasks, “we didn’t complain because we saw them (Americans) as our blood brothers,” Suh said. But now he feels “betrayed” that nobody bothered to tell South Korean veterans about Agent Orange and include them in the settlement. “My personal opinion is that we were ignored because of our (lack of) national strength,” he said.

It is unclear how military officials and doctors in South Korea could have missed the U.S. debate on Agent Orange. Some observers speculate that the military government may have deliberately suppressed information to avoid having to make large medical payments.

“I don’t know whose fault it was,” said Lt. Col. Kang Se Jong, in the army’s Compensation Department. “Maybe the Foreign Ministry got a report about (Agent Orange) but just ignored it.”