Steve House and Phil Steward, two former U.S. soldiers who had served in post-war Korea, testified that they were involved in the burial of the toxic herbicide, Agent Orange, in the late 1970s. House said that beginning in February 1978, he and the other U.S. soldiers were ordered to bury “hundreds of barrels” at Camp Carroll and spent the next six months digging trenches several times a week, Chosun Ilbo reports.

Used in the ’60s and ’70s to clear the land to expose potential North Korean infiltrators, the chemical is known to cause various medical problems, including diabetes, peripheral neuropathy and skin rashes. House and Steward now suffer from many of the diseases associated with the exposure to Agent Orange.

At the parliamentary hearing on Monday, House told his audience: “I’m running out of time. It’s up to you to take it the rest of the way, so we can get some answers for the Korean people and the Americans who were exposed to this stuff.”

[Photo: Chosun Ilbo/Yonhap]