Left Wing Kerry: ***** THE ARMY!
Kerry Teamed Up With Fonda's '***** the Army' Cast When Democratic
presidential front-runner John Kerry teamed up with 'Hanoi' Jane Fonda
and actor Donald Sutherland for a September 1970 anti-Vietnam War
protest at Valley Forge, Pa., he was joining the same cast that Fonda
had assembled earlier that year for her "***** the Army" tour - a kind
of reverse USO tour designed to undermine the morale of U.S. soldiers
fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia.
On Friday, Kerry suggested that he had no idea how radical Fonda would
eventually become, telling radio host Don Imus that he thought her
decision to turn against her country by traveling to Hanoi 18 months
after Valley Forge was "terrible."
But by the time Kerry agreed to follow the anti-American actress and
Sutherland onto the same stage 34 years ago, Fonda's anti-military
road show was already well known to both soldiers stationed in Vietnam
and those who had returned home.
In "Winter Soldier: An Oral History of the Vietnam Veterans Against
the War," author Richard Stacewicz notes that when Fonda and Kerry
addressed the Valley Forge rally - as depicted in the now infamous
photo - Fonda's military-bashing credentials were already
well-established.
"Fonda was becoming very well known at that point for her support of
the GI movement. She and Donald Sutherland had been going around to GI
bases for a while with the FTA show ["F *** the Army," a spoof of USO
shows that was performed just outside bases]," writes Stacewicz.
Fonda's role as a kind of reverse Bob Hope is confirmed in the Vietnam
veterans history "Stolen Valor," by B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley.
"Fonda was involved in an organization called F.T.A., which we all
knew stood for 'F--k the Army,'" Burkett, a Vietnam veteran himself,
reports.
Though both Fonda and Kerry are now both claiming their contact was
minimal at Valley Forge and afterward, in fact, while the
Massachusetts Democrat served as the VVAW's leading spokesman under
the title "National Coordinator," Fonda was named the group's
"Honorary National Coordinator," according to two histories of the
VVAW, Andrew Hunt's "The Turning" and Gerald Nicosia's "Home to War."
With her celebrity drawing power, Fonda became Kerry's leading
fund-raiser at the VVAW, traveling the country to tout the group's
mission to expose so-called U.S. war crimes in Vietnam.
The effort culminated in the next Kerry-Fonda collaboration, the
"Winter Soldier Investigation," which she financed and where Kerry and
other members of the VVAW tried to elicit the most gruesome testimony
possible from combat veterans. More than a few Winter Soldier
witnesses later turned out to be
complete impostors.
Al Hubbard, VVAW's executive secretary, was also one of the principal
organizers of the Winter Soldier event. His supposed combat heroism
had earned him mythical status within the organization, writes author
Hunt. He and Kerry would later go on to appear side-by side on NBC's
"Meet the Press" to denounce the war.
But as "Stolen Valor" author Burkett explained to the Wall Street
Journal last month, his research showed that Hubbard had grossly
inflated his combat credentials.
"Hubbard claimed to be an Air Force pilot who was wounded in Vietnam.
Truth: Hubbard was never a pilot, never an officer, never wounded and
never assigned to Vietnam," said Burkett.
Hubbard is also featured prominently in Kerry's 1971 book about the
group's April 1971 Washington, D.C., protest, "The New Soldier," where
he and Kerry appear in a photo together on the same stage as Ramsey
Clark.
Carl Limbacher
--
Left-wing liberals are EVERYTHING they accuse the right of being. They
are mean, vicious, hateful, greedy, cold-hearted, closed-minded,
selfish, intolerant, bigoted and racist.
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