Throughout this story, Sam keeps bringing up Agent Orange. I have heard about Agent Orange, but I didn't know exactly what it was until I did some research on it. Agent Orange is a herbicide that destroys the trees and shrubery in an area. This was important for the Vietnam war because most of the fighting was done in the jungle where it was hard to see from above. This herbicide would kill the shrubery so that the airplanes could see from above. It wasn't thought to be harmful to people until they did some reserach and found out that it causes serious diseases which could be fatal. The decontaminated part of Agent Orange is called TCDD, or dioxin, which led to the fatal diseases. Agent Orange is something that hadn't been fully examined when this story takes place. We now know after years of research that Agent Orange causes many diseases.Sam is very concerned with Emmett's health because of all the research she has done about Agent Orange. She is convinced that Emmett is suffering from it. "'Be serious,' said Sam. 'You've got Agent Orange. Those pimples are exactly how they described them on the news.' Agent Orange terrified her" (31). Along with the dime sized pimples, Emmett has been suffering from pains in his head and he has gas, which Sam thinks could be a type of metabolic disturbance because Agent Orange could mess with the immune system (68). After Emmett finally agrees to see a doctor about his symptoms, he still doesn't believe it could be Agent Orange. Sam isn't convinced still; she knows that it's going to take a lot to convince Emmett that he needs to take it seriously. At one point, Emmett makes a smartalic remark about what the doctor said. He says that the doctor told him "he'd seen a lot of vets with all kinds of complaints...they wanted to blame everything from a sore toe to a fever blister on Agent Orange" (75).
Emmett isn't taking this seriously as of right now. I would only hope that as I read on he takes more initiative and tries to figure out whether he is suffering from a by product of this herbicide. Emmett may not have serious noticiable effects, but it is something that every veteran who fought in Vietnam and every citizen in Vietnam needs to worry about. The picture on the left is of a Vietnamese woman who suffers from Agent Orange. Agent Orange is affecting even the third generation of those who were exposed to the herbicide. Agent Orange is a serious topic when dealing with the Vietnam war which shouldn't be taken lightly. Hundreds of thousands of people are effected by the aftermath of the herbicide, causing serious life threatening diseases and deformaties.
2 comments:
Ok was this exactly what we had to write about for the closed topic or what? haha it is exactly what i did my open topic on. I think that Emmett knows he has it as wel, but denies the fact because he knows that there is nothing he can do about it. Just like with life and war; therea re so many things that you wish you could have gone back and done different but you cant. So you just try to forget about it and move on.
I believe that it is horrible to think that the United States used such a chemical without thinking of the consequences. They were just thinking of how to distroy the enemy in a war that wasn't their war to fight. It is just shocking when I see images of kids and people born with horrible defects because their grandparents were exposed to a chemical without being guilty of anything.
Post a Comment