Lyr Add: Agent Orange (from Kate Wolf) & discuss

Subject: Lyr Add: AGENT ORANGE (from Kate Wolf)
From: rich-joy
Date: 25 May 02 - 01:09 AM

Our weekend national newspaper here in Oz is carrying another story of the tragic on-going effects of Agent Orange, to the Vietnamese children now being born. (A.O. was the 2,4,5-T defoliant used to clear the jungles of Vietnam. From about 1961 to 1971, apparently, around 8800 tonnes were sprayed over 2.9 million hectares!!!)

This brought to mind again, the following powerful song that I do from time to time.
Does anyone know anything about its author, Muriel Hogan?


AGENT ORANGE
(Muriel Hogan) As recorded by Kate Wolf on "Give Yourself to Love" (1983)

1. I was seventeen when I quit school, the year that I enlisted.
I don't recall just why I did; my mom says I insisted.
I had some strange idea then, that Uncle Sam was right.
My mama cried – she signed the card – and I went off to fight.

Refrain:
But I just found out this mornin' – the doctor told me so:
They killed me in Vietnam – and I didn't even know.

2. Got off the plane in Vietnam – it didn't look like war
But all I saw, I started wonderin', what we came there for.
Some Officers got drunk at night and cheated on their wives
While those peasants on the other side – were fighting for their lives.

3. You know the army tried some fancy stuff, to bring them to their knees
Like Agent Orange defoliant, to clear the brush and trees.
We'd fly all day above the trails, through clouds of poison spray
But they never said that chemical would hurt our health today.

Refrain:
But I got the news this mornin' – the doctor told me so:
They killed me in Vietnam – and I didn't even know.

4. Well I tried hard to forget that war like everybody else did.
I settled down, got married and – I even had some kids.
Our children both had birth defects; the doctors had their doubts.
They never said what caused it – but I think I just found out.

Refrain:
But I just found out this mornin' – the doctor told me so
They killed me in Vietnam – and I didn't even know.

5. The Doctor says I have some time – he was trying to be kind
You know, I've never been a radical, but this has changed my mind
I'd be so proud to hear my son say: "Hell no, we won't go!
Because you killed our dad in Vietnam – and he didn't even know."

6. This Agent Orange from Vietnam, we carry with us still.
It stays inside for years and years and does its best to kill.
You might get cancer of the liver; you might get cancer of the skin.
You might get a VA disability; you might not live to win.

Refrain:
Because I got the news this mornin' – the doctor told me so:
They killed me in Vietnam – and I didn't even know.
They killed me in Vietnam – and I didn't even know.

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: rich-joy
Date: 25 May 02 - 01:23 AM

Sorry, that was a cut-and-paste job and I wasn't sure how it would turn out ... is there a joe-clone in the house???!!!

Forgot to mention the Vietnamese Victims of Agent Orange Trust website at : www.users.bigpond.net.au/agent_orange_trust/

The song also reminds me that the Viet Vets aren't the first to be so badly treated by their Govts (and won't be the last I daresay - and maybe that's one of the bigger, unexpected hazards of soldiering ...) My uncle was with the Occupation Forces in Japan at the end of WWII, after the dropping of the Big Ones. He, like his fellow soldier mates, has unexplained health problems that the Aust'n Govt seems disinclined to own. Things happen to stall investigations - like War Records go missing - until the old soldiers gradually die and the living proof with them. Man's inhumanity to man is not reserved for the battlefield I guess ...

Anyway, just felt the need to post that song, which had been mentioned in other threads, but I couldn't find in the DT. R-J

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: GUEST
Date: 25 May 02 - 01:56 AM

53 tell your story

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 May 02 - 11:58 AM

The U.S. government has just officially admitted that they tested nerve gas on U.S. troops on ships. As the saying goes, What were they thinking?

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: gnu
Date: 25 May 02 - 12:29 PM

AO was used for years in New brunswick, Canada by the Power Corp for keeping hydro lines free of brush and by the lumber companies for keeping hardwood brush down while the young softwood was coming up.

After AO was banned, they used Roundup and nowadays they use Vision. If you read our game laws, it would scare you. Children and pregnant women cannot eat brook trout or the liver of deer or moose, and adult, healthy males should only have small portions of trout of a certain size, no moose liver, and only enough deer liver for a cracker once a week. Cadmium, they say. BS, I say.

I can remember huge tracts of forest where you wouldn't hear a bird, squirrel or cricket. It looked like winter in July. I have also caught three-eyed trout up there.... and not just one. Scary stuff.

Oh yeah, they use that crap on the potato fields just before harvest to keep the machinery from clogging up with the tops. Bon apetit !

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 25 May 02 - 03:10 PM

Just an FYI - Agent Orange is Roundup. The problem with Agent Orange (and Blue, White, and other colors) was it was not clean. Had lots of PCBs/carcinogens (spell that CANCER causing) in it so it was illegal to use here at home. Instead they sold it to the government and they used it overseas.

Also causes depression, sleep problems, nightmares, anxiety related issues, and combined with PTSD it is probably the number one killer of those who served in Viet Nam.

Steve

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: rich-joy
Date: 26 May 02 - 03:03 AM

Norton1 - what do you mean about Agent Orange and Roundup???

Gnu - what's Vision???

Does anyone know anything of Muriel Hogan??? R-J

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: gnu
Date: 26 May 02 - 04:54 AM

Vision is the brand name of the chemical used in forestry operations (arial spray) here in N.B. to kill hardwood in freshly cut areas to allow the softwood to dominate and choke out further hardwood growth. Deadly stuff.

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: rich-joy
Date: 27 May 02 - 11:38 PM

Thanks Gnu, but what an "interesting" choice in names ...

I'm sure that last time I was on the 'Cat, I saw this thread had been changed to a "LYR ADD : Agent Orange" one.(thanks to whoever did it, but where is it now? - Ah, maybe I was on Ragtime then or something ...)

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 28 May 02 - 10:06 AM

Agent Orange is Round-Up. Same chemical - only difference is the toxicity of the PCB by products. When they manufacture this plant killer there are some very nasty by products. If the level is too high in these by products it is not allowed to be sold in the US. So it goes to other places.

The thing that made Agent Orange/Round-Up so bad is the high levels of carcinogenic material in them that was used in Viet Nam and other places. Really messes you up. Take a look at what makes up Agent Orange and then look at Round-Up - same stuff.

Steve

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 28 May 02 - 10:59 AM

This is a pretty good site on Agent Orange.

Steve

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: GUEST
Date: 28 May 02 - 11:43 AM

Courtesy of Monsanto the uncaring unfeeling inhuman chemical Corp.. (or Corpse)

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: gnu
Date: 28 May 02 - 11:57 AM

I heard that Monsanto makes a strain of canola that you can't even kill with Round-Up. The bad part is that farmers buy "more than enough seed" for a year's planting, but Monsanto only allows use of their seed for one year, so, if the farmer doesn't purchase any seed the following year and they find their strain of canola growing on his land, which he can't kill, they sue him.

Don't take any of what I just posted as gospel... I heard it from someone who saw it on the TV, so take it with a grain of salt.

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: rich-joy
Date: 30 May 02 - 06:28 AM

thanks also Norton1, for that chilling clarification ... Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: rich-joy
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 09:17 AM

Just located some data on the author MURIEL HOGAN :

"Hello from Muriel Hogan, Documentation
...
In my long career as a generalist, I've worked as a health writer, a production machinist, a lithographic stripper (not as much fun as the dance-hall variety), a library acquisitions assistant, the director of a community center, and the manager of the Underground Switchboard Medical Clinic.

My educational background includes a B.A. in journalism, a master's in library science, and a two-year stint in Paris (a city on which I have a life-long puppy love crush).

In my abundant spare time, I read almost anything (especially trashy spy-thriller novels), and do some folk singing (specializing in labor and political songs).

Starting in the late 1970's, I worked with Vietnam veterans' organizations on the Agent Orange issue. I'm especially proud of my comprehensive bibliography on the effects of dioxin on human health, and my Agent Orange song, "Paul Reutershan," which has been performed and recorded by some of my favorite musicians.
... "
I found this at :
http://personalpages.tds.net/~ti51/new37.htm
"Raised Dot computing Newsletter : Exploring Microcomputer Applications for the Visually Impaired"
February 1986 - Vol. 4, No. 37

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: agent orange - on-going effects
From: rich-joy
Date: 25 Jun 02 - 09:31 AM

After some Google investigation, I am now thinking that the song that I've always known as "Agent Orange", was written by Muriel Hogan as "Paul Reutershan".

Can anyone confirm this???

Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: agent orange & discuss on-going effects
From: Shimbo Darktree
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 10:41 PM

Having heard Rich-Joy sing this song last night (very well, too), I am resurrecting the thread to see whether anyone knows if "Paul Reutershan" is the correct name for the song.

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: agent orange & discuss on-going effects
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 11:57 PM

Cripes!!!

You just have to love it when a week-end clone is at the controls...digging up defunct threads to keep "the bored" alive.

Agent Orange

- produced by Monsanto - aka RoundUp Weed Killer a "salt type" hericide used on corn and cotton and by almost every municipal area of the USA. It is 50% of Monsanto sales and 70% of their profits.

It is a simple compond of glyphosate ammonium salt.

Sorry to see your sour-grapes posted here....an investment in 70 could have reaped you a 1000% return.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: LYR ADD: agent orange & discuss on-going effects
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 12:05 AM

The ingrediants are readily available in any community....and easily/safely componded by the home-chemist for a small fraction of the commerical marketed price.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

...Cripes!!! can you imagine all the automobile-radiator-repair blokes applying for disability because of exposure to lead and glycol-amonium-salts?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: agent orange & discuss on-going effects
From: Shimbo Darktree
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:32 PM

Thank you, Gargoyle ... charming as usual, I see. Now, if you can lift your mind out of your cesspit of cynicism, you will note that I have not enquired as to the chemical composition of the noxious stuff - I have asked about the correct name for the song. Are you following me, dear boy?

Always yours,
Shimbo

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: agent orange & discuss on-going effects
From: Peace
Date: 29 May 05 - 06:01 PM

Paul Reutershan (if you google his name) was a Vietnam vet who attributed his own death to the effects of 'agent orange'. Don't know as to the official song title. However, it is attributed thus: "The Agent Orange Song (Muriel Hogan)" on a recording by Jim Walktendonk from 1985.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Agent Orange (from Kate Wolf) & discuss
From: rich-joy
Date: 03 Jul 18 - 11:00 PM

I know this is an old thread, but, it's relevant .... also, the Agent Orange legacies are not going away any time soon :((

I finally got around to putting my 1992 version on YouTube, with pics from the Net:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zpSo8Nd4Q4 sung by Richenda Bridge

Just sorry that Catter, Shimbo Darktree, is no longer on this earth; he would have appreciated it!

Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Agent Orange (from Kate Wolf) & discuss
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 01:01 AM

Monsanto just got bought by that paragon of German medicine, Bayer (for $57 billion). They will keep making the poisons without using the Monsanto name, because it has bad publicity.

I call that bad duplicity.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Agent Orange (from Kate Wolf) & discuss
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 05:39 AM

Wonderful song

Listen here: AGENT ORANGE SONG sung by Peggy Seeger, from "Classic Protest Songs from Smithsonian Folkways"

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Agent Orange (from Kate Wolf) & discuss
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 03:57 PM

Well you can't NOT sing songs because they might upset someone, but this song really made me and others squirm when someone sang it right in the face of another session member who was then undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer. Pretty well most of us on the room knew this, but not, apparently the singer. Really horrible during v 6: just saw the guy's face. Thankfully the treatment was successful and the patient is still alive. But I really don't think I ever want to be singing songs about people getting cancer or birth defects

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Agent Orange (from Kate Wolf) & discuss
From: rich-joy
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 08:07 PM

Well, that is a sad situation indeed, Tattie, but IMHO, folksongs are often about what happens to folks in real Life - and that's not all saucy milkmaids and shepherds etc!!

I have an English BinL who was in the Vietnam War, still now with PTSD, and 4+ years ago, we both watched my husband, his brother, die from cancer/chemo ....
but if I still had a decent singing voice, I would still sing this song and I know they both would want me to.
If we stop singing/speaking about the uncomfortable topics, then it's like censorship and helps the "Big Boys" (be they Govts, Big Pharma et al), to WIN over us.

I note that this thread seems to have changed its name a few times since I originated it in 2002 and in the amalgamations, Norton1's postings have been lost.....

Cheers to all :)
R-J, Down Under