Posted on 05/02/2007 6:09:19 AM PDT by RDTF
When rocker John Mellencamp performed for the recovering soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Friday night, a couple of things were missing. He squelched his typically blistering rhetoric against the war in Iraq. Also MIA, as it turned out, was folkie and antiwar activist Joan Baez, who says she was disinvited from the event by Army officials.
In a letter that appears today in The Washington Post, Baez says Mellencamp had wanted her to perform with him and that she had accepted his invitation.
"I have always been an advocate for nonviolence," she writes, "and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago. . . . I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that's why I didn't hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
"In the end, four days before the concert, I was not 'approved' by the Army to take part. Strange irony."
Reached by telephone yesterday at her home in Menlo Park, Calif., Baez, 66, said she wasn't told why she was given the boot, but speculated, "There might have been one, there might have been 50 [soldiers] that thought I was a traitor."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Believe it or not, I worked with Joan Baez’s mother in a bookstore back in 1975.
I love it. God bless our troops.
I loved him when I was in highschool. I heard him on a talk show somewhere in the last couple years though and he really ticked me off. I don’t knowingly support ANYONE who doesn’t support our troops. Reasoned or not. :-)
I realize now that I might have contributed to a betterBITTER welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam.
(continued) Royalties, concert ticket gate percentages and other monies continue to be paid to the creators of anti-American music, such as some songs by Baez, The Guess Who, War, CCR, Linda Ronstadt and many others as a result.
Hear, hear, America.
LOL! You too! And I should say, I called her a hag not cause of her appearance necessarily, but because of her views. :)
i see no irony here...
Fifty? FIFTY?????
I do recall that Joan Baez was the only one on the left to speak out against the genocide going on in Cambodia & the boat people from Viet-Nam, and admit that the antiwar movement had some responsibility for it.
And she wonders why those who remember her would rather not ...
IMHO She never looked that good anyway. To be honest I can’t remember a single song she did. I just remember she was a folk singer and was always involved with the antiwar stuff. I know I’ve heard her way back when but I don’t think she impressed me.
I’m surprised they let in Mellonhead Cougarcamp. Talk about torture!
Didn’t she sing “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” or something like that?
“...she was disinvited from the event by Army officials.”
Wow. The leadership at Walter finally showed some brains and onions.
Yeah, Not so much.
More like understatement of the year...
Yeah - the rest didn’t know who she is. LOL!
Singer John Mellencamp on the Charlie Rose Show said the removal of the Taliban after 9/11 was wrong, but further Mellencamp stated if the United States knew exactly where Osama bin Laden was it would be wrong to drop a bomb on OBLs head.
Yeah - that's about what I heard him say that ticked me off. He's a loon.
1 or 50??? Is she kidding??!!! She and her ‘friends’ covered themselves with s^%$ during the U.S./Viet Nam conflict. Is the whole world supposed to forget about that??? You can bet those officers remembered, anyway!!!
Great Post. You have shown for all what a girly-man John Cougar Mellonhead is. He’s barely better than the Vichy Chicks.
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