Posted on 02/18/2004 8:38:08 PM PST by xsysmgr
WATERBURY, CT — While John Kerry's handlers continue to find Vietnam War buddies to provide a patriotic prop for each campaign stop, there are thousands of others who view Kerry as one who slandered American soldiers following the war. They remember his role, along with Jane Fonda, in portraying Vietnam War veterans as sadistic soldiers willing to torture and maim innocent civilians. They recall reading his 1971 book The New Soldier, a book with a picture of an American flag flying upside down on the cover and a description of what it called "routine" war-time atrocities committed by American military "war criminals." They witnessed his leadership in the Vietnam Veterans against the War march on Washington in 1971 when he supposedly threw his medals onto the steps of the Capital. And, most importantly, they bitterly remember his testimony before Congress in the "Winter Soldier Investigation" when his charges of American soldiers' war crimes were so extreme that even contemporary critics of the Vietnam war have disputed his outrageous claims.
Indeed many Vietnam veterans have bitter memories of John Kerry — just as they have for Jane Fonda because they both inflicted the same kind of pain for them. Kerry and Fonda attended the same antiwar rallies in those days and Kerry will probably wish he had moved out of camera range when the photographers arrived. But, in those days he was clearly proud of his antiwar activities. The country was in a different place then and his activities helped perpetuate the myth of our sadistic soldiers in Vietnam. Perhaps he thought that veterans would have forgotten his betrayal. But, in old factory towns like Waterbury, Connecticut — a town that became famous for a while when veterans tried to stop Jane Fonda from filming a movie there in the late '80s — there is little love for John Kerry and Jane Fonda among many veterans.
Waterbury vets have an especially long memory of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Their city suffered far more casualties in that war than comparable Connecticut cities. And, they haven't forgotten. They still commemorate Veterans' Day each year by erecting a "Hanoi Hilton" cage in the middle of the city's green and veterans volunteer to take hourly shifts "imprisoned" in the cage. They have little tolerance for those they view as traitors. Even today, more than a decade after the Fonda movie controversy in town, you can still spot the bumper stickers on Waterbury cars with the slogan "We're Not Fonda Hanoi Jane."
During Fonda's time in the city, veterans organized to make her life miserable. They interrupted the filming by honking horns, waving flags within camera range, and picketing the old Waterbury button-factory building where the filming took place. Although they did not stop the film production, Waterbury vets considered their campaign a success as an exasperated Fonda finally appeared on ABC's 20/20 to publicly apologize to all of the veterans she may have offended during the war.
It is doubtful that John Kerry will ever apologize for his role in the radical and most unpatriotic movement. Many might have forgotten about his outrageous behavior and preposterous claims. But, there are certain sections in the city of Waterbury that Kerry may want to avoid as he continues his new march to the Democratic nomination.
— Anne Hendershott is professor of sociology at the University of San Diego. She is the author of The Politics of Deviance.
Bring it on, baby. I for one have been waiting for something like this for a long, long time.
p. 115: "As [Al Hubbard] was later to write in The New Soldier, the casebook on Dewey Canyon assembled by VVAW and published by Collier, a black could not help wondering about the many paradoxes of the war: 'hearing a Vietnamese invite you to live in his home, after the war, and an American explain why you can't live in his block, after the war' and 'feeling happy to be leaving a country in which you do not belong and sad to be returning to a country in which you are not allowed to belong.'"
pp. 148-149: "[Bobby Muller] agreed to contribute an autobiographical essay to the book on Dewey Canyon that John Kerry and his friends were assembling, which was published later that year by Collier under the title The New Soldier. Muller's piece ended up being one of the strongest in the book, forever cementing his connection with VVAW--a connection that would cause him a good deal of embarrassment over the years, as he tried to build a broad-based veterans' constituency, and which he would often try to play down."
p. 155 "John Kerry's brother-in-law David Thorne and his friend George Butler had documented (with tape recorder and camera respectively) the entire Dewey Canyon III operation as Thorne's senior project at the Columbia School of Journalism. Because veterans were 'hot' just then, Collier offered them a book contract--but only provided John Kerry's name was on the book jacket--and the book, called The New Soldier, was rushed into print within a few months. The initial print run was 35,000 copies--quite impressive for that day. The advance was also sizable (most of it was donated to VVAW). Thorne was thus puzzled to find the book available in few bookstores. The next thing he knew, the editor who had commissioned the book was fired. On the grapevine, Thorne heard that 'the White House really put the kibosh on it [The New Soldier]." He was told that 'Nixon was freaked out by the book--he was really worried that the veterans' movement was going to make the antiwar movement legit.'"
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