- War Poetry


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

Task 1
Based on your understanding of the selected poem, perform extensive web research and write a report detailing the conflict represented in the poem(s) of your choice. Bear in mind that this piece of background information will allow your blog audience to further understand the poem as well as your analysis of the poem in Task 2.

Hubert Wilson
Ssgt USAF, 1968-1972

In this poem, 'Rainbow Death', the poet is Hubert Wilson who was a Vietnam War veteran served in the USAF security service during the Vietnam War (American against Vietnam).When he was a young man, together with a dozen or so intelligence school graduates, they prepped for about 14 months at Kelly AFB in San Antonio, Texas. They were then sent to Vietnam or other places in Southeast Asia in 1970 to fight for USA in the Vietnam War and eventually stayed there for about 18 years. During his times in the war, his heath had started to deteriorate greatly and suffered from Parkinsonian type tremors, severe headaches, progressive limb pains, however, the doctors were unable to diagnose his disease. Also, having limb pains, Hubert Wilson’s mobility had deteriorated and thus later caused him to retire as a soldier. Like his father, Hubert Wilson then began writing poems as his pastime and wrote many poems, mostly about war which he had experienced as a retired soldier, thus wrote one of his best and famous poems, ‘Rainbow Death’.

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 the service personnel that used or even just came into contact with “Agent Orange”. Thus, this shows that in a war, both sides, no matter what, will get hurt and affect in one way or another, hence, there is no such thing as ‘Win-Win’ situation in a war.


As trench warfare was still not common during that time, both sides, especially the USA, had used ‘Agent Orange’ which 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.

Thus, this poem shows the impacts of modern warfare (in this case, gas attack) are great and had killed many innocent lives and affected the younger generations. In the poem, stanza 2 line 10, “Generations untold WILL pay”, this shows that the use of modern warfare would cause innocent unborn babies suffer from birth defects and in this line, the word ‘WILL’ emphasises on the great impact that ‘Agent Orange’ would bring to mankind during the war.


This poem, ‘Rainbow Death’ by Hubert Wilson, is written to remind everyone in the world that "wars aren't over when the wars are over". Although this sentence may seem contradictory, it generally means that even though wars have seemed to have ended, the effects of the wars still remains and would cause further problems to mankind, thus showing the danger of modern warfare. The modern warfare will not only cause harm and killed the soldiers on the battlefield fighting bravely for their countries, but also affect the younger generations. Hence, Hubert Wilson’ s intention of writing this poem is to emphasize the impacts and danger caused by war and modern warfare, and also tell people to think clearly before starting a war.



Resources:

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