From: Jasper
Date: 9/29/01
Time: 9:39:04 PM
Charlie,
The "peace" people are the ones who scare me the most, especially when they start trotting out the lessons of Vietnam to explain why we were attacked and why we should take sides with the enemy to make things right.
I'm not talking about people like Kari and Jean who disagree with us on some issues we see as vital. I'm talking about people like Jane Fonda (I told you not to get me started) who became icons in the "peace" movement for (and in spite of) their work for Hanoi. In Jane's case that helping hand to the enemy extended to the Khmer Rouge and the Pathet Lao. She repudiated the Khmer Rouge only when Hanoi when to war against them. She never repudiated Hanoi or the Pathet Lao no matter how many millions of people they murdered. Yes, I do mean millions and I do mean murdered - innocent people systematically slaughtered to advance a political agenda.
The last thing I want to see is a witch-hunt like we had in the '50s. The people who conducted those witch- hunts were also the enemy. What I do want to see is a better understanding of the difference between seeking peace through peaceful means and giving aid and comfort to the enemy by actions designed to give them a strategic advantage.
The worst experience I had in Vietnam wasn't really in Vietnam. It was here in the United Sates when I got sent home for thirty days on an emergency leave. Everywhere I turned, there was Jane and people of influence (who I later learned were a part of Jane's propaganda network) telling the world that I was a murderer and the murderers were the good guys fighting for their freedom from us.
I was a good soldier in the finest army on earth and I took pride in being one. But in the language of the peace movement a "good soldier" was a mindless follower of an "unjust, immoral and unwinnable war" effort who killed just because he was told to. I heard only stories about American blunders, American atrocities and "courageous" Vietnam vets who stood up (beside Hanoi Jane) to "admit" they (we) were war criminals and didn't deserve to win even if we could.
I had nightmares about that emergency leave for decades (Chapter 2:The Authorities).
Before I left in January '71, the peace movement was at a crossroads. It's adherents were beginning to fight among themselves over the best way to end the war (peacefully or violently) and what the objective of their movement should be in concrete terms. I found out much later that the drastic change I saw in the peace movement's influence had to do with a living symbol ordinary people could rally around who was nothing but a bumbling activist (but a great actress) when I left. I learned that when I was fighting the Viet Cong in the jungles of Vietnam, Jane was organizing the most powerful weapon of war ever created: the American entertainment and information industry. She gave us a gift that keeps on giving.
At Jane's first meeting with hundreds of filmmakers and journalists she made the mistake of saying what her idea of peace was. She said, "The only possible just peace is a victory for the Viet Cong." I didn't hear that speech (I was too busy ducking bullets) but I saw what had happened in the five months I was away. No longer was there a debate in America about whether or not we should be fighting. The debate was about how to get out and the language of the debate was the language of the peace movement. No longer was there a debate about who the enemy was. The answer was always the same, "We have found the enemy and it is us." --Jasper