Sec 2 Home-learning 2010 Term 2

Task 1: I will be doing my web research and report based on the conflict represented in Hubert Wilson’s Rainbow Death. Below is the poem:

Rainbow Death

Firstly, I would like to enlighten you on some information about the poet Hubert Wilson.

Hubert Wilson
Ssgt USAF, 1968-1972

Hubert Wilson was formerly a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF security service. Together with a dozen or so intelligence school graduates, they prepped for about 14 months at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Texas. They were sent to Vietnam in Southeast Asia in 1970 and about half of them ended up in the 6924th Security Squadron, Da Nang, which was an Agent Orange hotspot. The rest of them were assigned to Shemya Island, Alaska along with the 6984th Security Squadron, which was a far less contaminated environment than Da Nang.

After staying there for about 18 years, and due to the increasingly amount of Agent Orange that was present there, his health problems progressively got worse and he started to have unexplained headaches and limb pains. Following that, his central nervous system radically deteriorated with Parkinsonian type tremors, severe headaches, progressive limb pains etc. No doctors had been able to diagnose the illness at that time, and thus, he was not able to receive any medical help or assistance from any doctor.

Despite the difficulties, he did not give up but instead decided to turn to writing war poetry as his past-time since his brain was still functioning moderately well and also to remind himself of all the painful war times that he had been through, publishing one of his most famous poem

“Rainbow Death”

Rainbow Death Analysis (:

This poem, Rainbow Death, speaks of a modern day ingredient of warfare during the Vietnam War that has caused appalling death and suffering, not only to its intended victims - the Vietnamese people, but also to the USA themselves, who were the service personnel that used and started the dreaded nuclear weapon -“Agent Orange”, and this shows how in a war, both sides, no matter what, will get hurt or suffer consequences in one way or another, hence, there is no such thing as ‘Win-Win’ situation in a war, like we do in Hwa chong (:

“Agent Orange”, is the code name for a herbicide and defoliant, highly contaminated with TCDD. It is used by the U.S. military in its Herbicidal Warfare program during the Vietnam War. During the war, about 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in a total number of 400,000 deaths and disabilities, with 500,000 children born with birth defects.

From 1962 to 1971, Agent Orange was by far the most widely used of the so-called "Rainbow Herbicides" employed in the herbicidal warfare program. During the production of Agent Orange, dioxins were produced as a contaminant, which could be the reason for the numerous health problems in millions of people who have been exposed to them. Agents Blue and White were also part of the same program but they did not contain any dioxins and was thus not as harmful as Agent Orange.

This poem “Rainbow Death” is basically to bring up the issue on the consequences of war. Hubert tries to show that even after war has ended, the effects of these wars would still stay (radiation etc) and the pain and sufferings of war would linger behind in the minds and hearts of people forever.

“Wars aren't over when the wars are over”.

Hubert Wilson also tries to show us the horror of modern warfare. As technology continues to improve, our weapons of war becomes more powerful and more destructive. From the title,
“Rainbow Warfare” may mean two things. It could mean the rainbow agents like Agent Orange in the herbicidal warfare program (there were many colours for their code names) or it could mean 'peace' (rainbow) after warfare (rain).

Resources:

- http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html#Rainbow

-http://www.voicesnet.org/displayonepoem.aspx?poemmid=168881

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent Orange

- http://www.lewispublishing.com/orange.htm

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