An entry in VA's July 1, 2019 ship list
USS Nicholas
DD-449 Category II
What VA's list records about this vessel, in the source's own words, and where to take it next.
July 1, 2019, original source entry
What the VA list records
Category II
Temporary inland-waterway service
Category II: a larger ship that temporarily entered inland waterways
operated on Ganh Rai Bay during April 1965, Mekong River Delta during January 1967, and Ganh Rai Bay and Mekong River Delta during August 1968
VA source wording, reproduced verbatim.
Source class: Destroyer
Where to go from here
Turn this entry into your next step
The ship record is one piece. Your service dates and the applicable rules are the next pieces.
01, build the record
Find your ship's records
Deck logs, service records and where to request them.
Find records
02, understand the rules
Agent Orange conditions
See the presumptive conditions and the service rules.
Read the guide
03, look beyond this list
Other shipboard exposures
Asbestos, fuels and the other shipboard hazards the record documents.
Explore shipboard topicsWhat this entry can establish
The ship's record is not your service record
This entry describes the ship, not any individual sailor: was the veteran aboard during the listed activity is a question only service records answer. A ship appearing here does not by itself prove any person was aboard on the listed dates, and the categories that involve going ashore pair with the veteran's own statement of having done so.
The wider eligibility rules
The law grew past this list
Under the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act, federal law presumes herbicide exposure for veterans who served on a vessel "not more than 12 nautical miles seaward" of the demarcation line of the waters of Vietnam and Cambodia between January 9, 1962 and May 7, 1975 (38 U.S.C. 1116A). That offshore presumption does not depend on this list. The regulation text of 38 CFR 3.307 still reads the older way; the statute controls.
This list matters today mainly as evidence: it documents, in VA's own words, what this ship did and when.
Keep browsing the directory
Other entries the source puts in Category II. A directory link is a browsing suggestion, not a claim of comparable exposure or eligibility.
Source: VA Compensation Service, "Navy and Coast Guard Ships Associated with Service in Vietnam and Exposure to Herbicide Agents," July 1, 2019, quoted verbatim. Legal context verified against 38 U.S.C. 1116A on August 17, 2026. Educational catalogue, not legal advice, and not a determination about any veteran's claim.
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