Personal Account: From Vietnam to Hope — A Veteran’s Journey Through Agent Orange and the Discovery of Moringa by Consuming Orange Toucan Beverage

By Roland Eugene Wheeler, U.S. Navy Veteran, TS Clearance

In the summer of 1969, during one of several missions into the A Shau Valley complex in
Vietnam, our unit witnessed a helicopter finishing a chemical spray. At the time, we were
unaware that it was Agent Orange, the herbicide that would become the silent killer of
thousands of veterans. The A Shau Valley would later be identified as having the highest
concentration of Agent Orange in the entire country.

I left Vietnam in April of 1970. In the years that followed, I was diagnosed with Type II
Diabetes, a condition now recognized as presumptively connected to Agent Orange exposure. The disease progressed, and I later required Triple Bypass Open Heart Surgery, again tied to that same chemical exposure. These are burdens many of us carry. I consider myself fortunate to still be here—unlike my best friend from high school, who gave his life on April 5, 1970, just days before I left Vietnam.

But then, a surprising development occurred. In late 2023, after consuming a beverage called Orange Toucan for over two years—about one can per day—I noticed something remarkable. My A1C levels were significantly lower and my morning blood-sugar-fast numbers were such that my doctor reduced my daily insulin shots by 8 mls to get me to 110 plus or minus 10 each morning. We searched for an explanation and as I
explained I hadn’t changed anything in my daily workouts or lifestyle except for consuming one of the three flavors that Orange Toucan produced. We attributed this improvement to an ingredient infused in the beverages: Moringa.

Each can of Orange Toucan contains 500 mg of Moringa, a plant long recognized in traditional medicine but only recently gaining recognition in Western science for its anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and blood sugar-regulating properties. I hadn’t planned it—this wasn’t part of any treatment strategy. I had simply stumbled onto it. But it made a difference. A real one.

After years of dealing with the aftershocks of chemical exposure, the discovery of a plant-based solution that could impact my health so meaningfully felt like a small but significant victory. For me—and maybe for other veterans as well as the 136 million people coined by the American Diabetes Association as Pre-diabetic and Diabetic like me—it offered hope. That is my prayer!