Task 1

Rainbow Death

America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.

Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!

Hubert Wilson



Hubert Wilson was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service along with a dozen or so intelligence school graduates who prepared for about 14 months at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Texas, before anticipating being sent to Vietnam or elsewhere in Southeast Asia in 1970. He was assigned to Shemya Island, Alaska, with the 6984th Security Squadron, while the other half ended up in Da Nang (an Agent Orange hotspot) in the 6924th Security Squadron. Shemya Island eventually was a more contaminated environment than Da Nang.

Hubert Wilson's health problems started approximately 15 years ago with unexplained headaches and limb pains. Four years ago, his central nervous system radically deteriorated with Parkinsonian type tremors, severe headaches, progressive limb pains, etc. No physician has ever diagnosed the specific illness. Hubert Wilson guessed that it was because of the heavily contaminated drinking water at Shemya during his year there as an intelligence analyst. Organo-phosphate toxins may not run their toxic course until 20 to 30 years after initial exposure.

Since Hubert Wilson's brain can still function moderately well, he turned to writing just like his late Father.

This small poem speaks of a modern day ingredient of warfare that has caused appalling death and suffering to the Vietnamese people and also the service personnel that used or even just came into contact with “Agent Orange”. Agent Orange is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant—contaminated with TCDD—used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.

Hubert Wilson wrote this poem to remind people that the horrors of war does not just happen during it, but also after it.

Recources: http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange