Task 1 (26th May)

The poem talks of two opposing factions, that is the American Government and Americans (as in, the citizens). The poem is talking about the American Government's war-related mistakes in the past, about how much pain and suffering it has and will cause. The poem talks of the Vietnam War.
Mr Wilson wrote the poem with one thought in his mind "wars aren't over even when they're over". This can be applied to the fact that the mutative effects of Agent Orange still occur in future generations of those previously infected in the war.

There are a few conflicts if you think about it. There is the one where the American soldiers are forced to go to war even though they did not want to, but as the Government tells them to do so, they just do it. Another conflict is the one between the psychology of the Americans and Vietnamese. They did not want to have mutated babies, they did not want to have grotesquely deformed children, but they had no choice, because of past generation leaders who misled their nations into chemical and biological warfare.

Strangely enough, Wikipedia.org didn't have anything on Mr Wilson. I wonder why...