This was forwarded to me by a friend. Is the contents factual?
Hanoi jane - UPDATED
KEEP THIS MOVING; ACROSS AMERICA HONORING A
TRAITOR
"This is for all the kids born in the 70's that do not remember
this, and didn't have to bear the burden, that our fathers,
mothers, and older brothers and sisters had to bear.Jane
Fonda is being honored as one of the "100 Women of the
Century." Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still
countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed
not only the idea of our country but specific men who served
and sacrificed during Vietnam.
The first part of this is from an F-4E pilot. The pilot's name is
Jerry Driscoll, a River Rat. In 1978, the former Commandant of
the USAF Survival School was a POW in Ho Lo Prison-the
"Hanoi Hilton." Dragged from a stinking cesspit of a cell,
cleaned, fed, and dressed in clean PJs, he was ordered to
describe for a visiting American "Peace Activist" the "lenient
and humane treatment" he'd received. He spat at Ms. Fonda,
was clubbed, and dragged away.
During the subsequent beating, he fell forward upon the camp
Commandant's feet, which sent that officer berserk. In '78, the
AF Col. still suffered from double vision (which permanently
ended his flying days) from the Vietnamese Col.'s frenzied
application of a wooden baton.From 1963-65, Col. Larry
Carrigan was in the 47FW/DO (F-4Es). He spent 6 -years in
the "Hilton"- the first three of which he was "missing in action".
His wife lived on faith that he was still alive. His group, too, got
the cleaned, fed, clothed routine in preparation for a "peace
delegation" visit.
They, however, had time and devised a plan to get word to the
world that they still survived. Each man secreted a tiny piece of
paper, with his SSN on it, in the palm of his hand. When
paraded before Ms. Fonda and a cameraman, she walked the
line, shaking each man's hand and asking little encouraging
snippets like: "Aren't you sorry you bombed babies?" and "Are
you grateful for the humane treatment from your benevolent
captors?" Believing this HAD to be an act, they each palmed
her their sliver of paper.
She took them all without missing a beat. At the end of the line
and once the camera stopped rolling, to the shocked disbelief
of the POWs, she turned to the officer in charge and handed
him the little pile of papers. Three men died from the
subsequent beatings. Col. Carrigan was almost number four
but he survived, which is the only reason we know about her
actions that day.
I was a civilian economic development advisor in Vietnam, and
was captured by the North Vietnamese communists in South
Vietnam in 1968, and held for over 5 years. I spent 27 months
in solitary confinement, one year in a cage in Cambodia, and
one year in a "black box" in Hanoi. My North Vietnamese
captors deliberately poisoned and murdered a female
missionary, a nurse in a leprosarium in Ban me Thuot, South
Vietnam, whom I buried in the jungle near the Cambodian
border.
At one time, I was weighing approximately 90 lbs. (My normal
weight is 170 lbs.) We were Jane Fonda's "war criminals."
When Jane Fonda was in Hanoi, I was asked by the camp
communist political officer if I would be willing to meet with
Jane Fonda. I said yes, for I would like to tell her about the
real treatment we POWs received different from the treatment
purported by the North Vietnamese, and parroted by Jane
Fonda, as "humane and lenient." Because of this, I spent three
days on a rocky floor on my knees with outstretched arms with
a large amount of steel placed on my hands, and beaten with a
bamboo cane till my arms dipped.
I had the opportunity to meet with Jane Fonda for a couple of
hours after I was released. I asked her if she would be willing
to debate me on TV. She did not answer me.
This does not exemplify someone who should be honored as
part of "100 Years of Great Women" Lest we forget..."100 years
of great women" should never include a traitor whose hands
are covered with the blood of so many patriots. There are few
things I have strong visceral reactions to, but Hanoi Jane's
participation in blatant treason, is one of them.
Please take the time to forward to as many people as you
possibly can. It will eventually end up on her computer and she
needs to know that we will never forget."
Regards,
Rudi S.
Hanoi-Jane
Moderator: Commissar D, the Evil
Nah, didn't happen.
'Hanoi' Jane was real. The incident with the paper slips, and probably much of the rest of the message, was false. The officer who was supposedly the only survivor of the incident has himself dismissed the story as nonsense.
Don't get me wrong; Jane Fonda's actions during the Vietnam war are shameful. However, in this case, someone out there decided to make her a touch more deplorable than she was in reality.
Don't get me wrong; Jane Fonda's actions during the Vietnam war are shameful. However, in this case, someone out there decided to make her a touch more deplorable than she was in reality.
"Shoot twice and go home." - Swiss response to Kaiser Wilhelm II's question in 1912 as to what the 250,000 Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by half a million German soldiers.
A more in-depth response
Taken from http://www.snopes.com/military/fonda.htm :
"The right to freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights. It is also a double-edged sword: the same right that allows us to criticize our government's policies without fear of reprisal also protects those who endorse and promote racism, anti-semitism, ethnic hatred and other socially divisive positions.
Rarely is this dichotomy so evident as when a democratic nation engages in war, and the protection of civil liberties clashes head-on with the exigencies of a war effort. Protesting a government's involvement in a war without also interfering in the prosecution of that war is a difficult (if not impossible) feat, a situation that has sometimes led the government to curtail the freedom of speech, such as when the U.S. Sedition Act (passed during World War I) made criminals of those who would "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States." Under this law, peacefully urging citizens to resist the draft or simply drawing an editorial cartoon critical of the government became illegal. (The Sedition Act was later overturned.)
The most prominent example of a clash between private citizen protest and governmental military policy in recent history occurred in July 1972, when actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a two-week tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts. Aside from visiting villages, hospitals, schools, and factories, Fonda also posed for pictures in which she was shown applauding North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners, was photographed peering into the sights of an NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and made ten propagandistic Tokyo Rose-like radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals." She also spoke with eight American POWs at a carefully arranged "press conference," POWS who had been tortured by their North Vietnamese captors to force them to meet with Fonda, deny they had been tortured, and decry the American war effort. Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress or find it unusual the she was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp (commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton") itself. She merely went home and told the world that "[the POWs] assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done." She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American prison-of-war camps.
To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."
Were Jane Fonda's actions treason, or were they the exercise of a private citizen's right to freedom of speech? At the time, the legal aspects of this question were moot: President Nixon was engaged in trying to wind down American involvement in Vietnam and had to face another election in a few months, so politically he had far more to lose than to gain by making a martyr out of a prominent anti-war activist. (No requirement in either the Constitution or federal law states that the U.S. must be engaged in a declared war -- or any war at all -- before charges of treason can be brought against an individual.)
On the one hand, Jane Fonda provided no tangible military assistance to the North Vietnamese: she divulged no military secrets, she gave them no money or material, and she did not interfere with the operations of the American forces. Her actions, offensive as they were to many, were primarily of propaganda value only. On the other hand, Iva Ikuko Toguri (also known as "Tokyo Rose") was convicted of treason for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the Japanese during World War II (although she claimed her betrayal was forced and was eventually pardoned many years later by President Gerald Ford), and Fonda's efforts could fall under the definition of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." It is also undeniable that some American soldiers came to harm as a direct result of Fonda's actions, an outcome she should reasonably have anticipated.
The most serious accusations in the piece quoted above -- that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result -- are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.
"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."
The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.
The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true, though. That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs.
The unknown author of the "Hanoi Jane" e-mail appears to have picked up Benge's story on-line and combined it with fabricated tales to create the forwarded text. Some versions now circulate with Benge's name listed; others quote his statement anonymously.
In fact, Fonda carried home letters from many American POWs to their families upon her return from North Vietnam, and rumors that a POW was beaten to death when he refused to meet with her were nothing more than rumors. Still, legally treasonous or not, Jane Fonda's actions merit the contempt felt towards her, and her inclusion in ABC's 30 April 1999 "A Celebration: 100 Years of Great Women" rightly angered many who failed to see what was so "great" about this woman. She didn't go to North Vietnam to try to bring about peace or to reconcile the two warring sides or to stop American boys from being killed; she went there as an active show of support for the North Vietnamese cause. She lauded the North Vietnamese military and citizens while she denounced American soldiers as "war criminals" and urged them to stop fighting, she lobbied to cut off all American economic aid to the South Vietnamese government even after the Paris Peace Accords ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, and she publicly thanked the Soviets for providing assistance to the North Vietnamese. And she did all this not as a reckless youth who rashly spouted ill-considered opinions now best forgotten, but as a 34-year-old adult who should be expected to bear full responsibility for her actions.
In 1988, sixteen years after denouncing American soldiers as war criminals and tortured POWs as possessed of overactive imaginations, Fonda met with Vietnam veterans to apologize for her actions. It's interesting to note that this nationally-televised apology (during which she attempted to minimize her actions by characterizing them as "thoughtless and careless") came at a time when New England vets were successfully disrupting a film project she was working on. It's also interesting that not only was this apology delivered sixteen years after the fact, but it has not been offered again since. More than a few have read a huge dollop of self-interest into Fonda's 1988 apology. (Finally, in an interview in 2000, almost thirty years after the fact, Fonda admitted: "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.")
Whether the war was right or wrong, those who risked (and gave) their lives fighting it deserve respect, and for Fonda to brand men who were held captive and tortured as "liars" and "hypocrites" (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) in order to defend her political views was and is unpardonable.
"The right to freedom of speech is one of our most cherished rights. It is also a double-edged sword: the same right that allows us to criticize our government's policies without fear of reprisal also protects those who endorse and promote racism, anti-semitism, ethnic hatred and other socially divisive positions.
Rarely is this dichotomy so evident as when a democratic nation engages in war, and the protection of civil liberties clashes head-on with the exigencies of a war effort. Protesting a government's involvement in a war without also interfering in the prosecution of that war is a difficult (if not impossible) feat, a situation that has sometimes led the government to curtail the freedom of speech, such as when the U.S. Sedition Act (passed during World War I) made criminals of those who would "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States." Under this law, peacefully urging citizens to resist the draft or simply drawing an editorial cartoon critical of the government became illegal. (The Sedition Act was later overturned.)
The most prominent example of a clash between private citizen protest and governmental military policy in recent history occurred in July 1972, when actress Jane Fonda arrived in Hanoi, North Vietnam, and began a two-week tour of the country conducted by uniformed military hosts. Aside from visiting villages, hospitals, schools, and factories, Fonda also posed for pictures in which she was shown applauding North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gunners, was photographed peering into the sights of an NVA anti-aircraft artillery launcher, and made ten propagandistic Tokyo Rose-like radio broadcasts in which she denounced American political and military leaders as "war criminals." She also spoke with eight American POWs at a carefully arranged "press conference," POWS who had been tortured by their North Vietnamese captors to force them to meet with Fonda, deny they had been tortured, and decry the American war effort. Fonda apparently didn't notice (or care) that the POWs were delivering their lines under duress or find it unusual the she was not allowed to visit the prisoner-of-war camp (commonly known as the "Hanoi Hilton") itself. She merely went home and told the world that "[the POWs] assured me they were in good health. When I asked them if they were brainwashed, they all laughed. Without exception, they expressed shame at what they had done." She did, however, charge that North Vietnamese POWs were systematically tortured in American prison-of-war camps.
To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."
Were Jane Fonda's actions treason, or were they the exercise of a private citizen's right to freedom of speech? At the time, the legal aspects of this question were moot: President Nixon was engaged in trying to wind down American involvement in Vietnam and had to face another election in a few months, so politically he had far more to lose than to gain by making a martyr out of a prominent anti-war activist. (No requirement in either the Constitution or federal law states that the U.S. must be engaged in a declared war -- or any war at all -- before charges of treason can be brought against an individual.)
On the one hand, Jane Fonda provided no tangible military assistance to the North Vietnamese: she divulged no military secrets, she gave them no money or material, and she did not interfere with the operations of the American forces. Her actions, offensive as they were to many, were primarily of propaganda value only. On the other hand, Iva Ikuko Toguri (also known as "Tokyo Rose") was convicted of treason for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of the Japanese during World War II (although she claimed her betrayal was forced and was eventually pardoned many years later by President Gerald Ford), and Fonda's efforts could fall under the definition of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy." It is also undeniable that some American soldiers came to harm as a direct result of Fonda's actions, an outcome she should reasonably have anticipated.
The most serious accusations in the piece quoted above -- that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given her by American POWS to the North Vietnamese and that several POWs were beaten to death as a result -- are proveably untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail categorically deny the events they supposedly were part of.
"It's a figment of somebody's imagination," says Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him. "I never met Jane Fonda."
The tale about a defiant serviceman who spit at Jane Fonda and is severely beaten as a result is often attributed to Air Force pilot Jerry Driscoll. He has repeatedly stated on the record that it did not originate with him.
The story about a POW forced to kneel on rocky ground while holding a piece of steel rebar in his outstretched arms is true, though. That account comes from Michael Benge, a civilian advisor captured by the Viet Cong in 1968 and held as a POW for 5 years. His original statement, titled "Shame on Jane," was published in April by the Advocacy and Intelligence Network for POWs and MIAs.
The unknown author of the "Hanoi Jane" e-mail appears to have picked up Benge's story on-line and combined it with fabricated tales to create the forwarded text. Some versions now circulate with Benge's name listed; others quote his statement anonymously.
In fact, Fonda carried home letters from many American POWs to their families upon her return from North Vietnam, and rumors that a POW was beaten to death when he refused to meet with her were nothing more than rumors. Still, legally treasonous or not, Jane Fonda's actions merit the contempt felt towards her, and her inclusion in ABC's 30 April 1999 "A Celebration: 100 Years of Great Women" rightly angered many who failed to see what was so "great" about this woman. She didn't go to North Vietnam to try to bring about peace or to reconcile the two warring sides or to stop American boys from being killed; she went there as an active show of support for the North Vietnamese cause. She lauded the North Vietnamese military and citizens while she denounced American soldiers as "war criminals" and urged them to stop fighting, she lobbied to cut off all American economic aid to the South Vietnamese government even after the Paris Peace Accords ended U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, and she publicly thanked the Soviets for providing assistance to the North Vietnamese. And she did all this not as a reckless youth who rashly spouted ill-considered opinions now best forgotten, but as a 34-year-old adult who should be expected to bear full responsibility for her actions.
In 1988, sixteen years after denouncing American soldiers as war criminals and tortured POWs as possessed of overactive imaginations, Fonda met with Vietnam veterans to apologize for her actions. It's interesting to note that this nationally-televised apology (during which she attempted to minimize her actions by characterizing them as "thoughtless and careless") came at a time when New England vets were successfully disrupting a film project she was working on. It's also interesting that not only was this apology delivered sixteen years after the fact, but it has not been offered again since. More than a few have read a huge dollop of self-interest into Fonda's 1988 apology. (Finally, in an interview in 2000, almost thirty years after the fact, Fonda admitted: "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.")
Whether the war was right or wrong, those who risked (and gave) their lives fighting it deserve respect, and for Fonda to brand men who were held captive and tortured as "liars" and "hypocrites" (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary) in order to defend her political views was and is unpardonable.
"Shoot twice and go home." - Swiss response to Kaiser Wilhelm II's question in 1912 as to what the 250,000 Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by half a million German soldiers.
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Commissar D, the Evil
- Moderator
- Posts: 4823
- Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2002 7:22 pm
- Location: New Jersey
An Excellent Post Chuikov!!! Both a fair rendition of the facts and a good reminder of the divisiveness of the Vietnam War.
You've certainly hit the right issues and I'm proud that this was posted on Soldatenheim!! Very Best Regards, David
You've certainly hit the right issues and I'm proud that this was posted on Soldatenheim!! Very Best Regards, David
Death is lighter than a Feather, Duty is heavier than a Mountain....
I think deep down Mrs. Fonda realizes that her actions were a mistake. I have many friends who served in the Vietnam War who in there company her name is never brought up. Vietnam was a divisive war that has never ended for a lot of people. Just like the second world war still has effects on Europe and Asia today. I for one still shake with anger and revulsion when I see her atop that anti-aircraft gun. Have a great day!!!
Zu Befehl!! Herr Feldmarshall
I think Mrs. Fonda realizes that her actions were a mistake. I have many friends who served in the Vietnam War who in there company her name is brought up. Vietnam was a divisive war that has never ended for a lot of people. Just like the second world war still has effects on Europe and Asia today. Have a great day!!!
Zu Befehl!! Herr Feldmarshall
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Sam Moniac
- New Member
- Posts: 14
- Joined: Fri Nov 22, 2002 9:16 pm
Miss Fonda is lower than lower. She probably thought that she was very well informed on the topic do to her association w/ radical Hollywood types. She was too much of a ditzy whore to not realize that she had been brainwashed.
Why is it that Hollywood is so far to the left? Is this linked to the anti-nazi propaganda of World War 2? The gov’t literally turned Hollywood into a propaganda machine. Who else could make better anti-nazi propaganda than communists? Hollywood emerged from the Second World War as a left wing entity.
Why is it that Hollywood is so far to the left? Is this linked to the anti-nazi propaganda of World War 2? The gov’t literally turned Hollywood into a propaganda machine. Who else could make better anti-nazi propaganda than communists? Hollywood emerged from the Second World War as a left wing entity.
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Commissar D, the Evil
- Moderator
- Posts: 4823
- Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2002 7:22 pm
- Location: New Jersey
Hi Sam, I think the problem with arresting and trying Jane Fonda were that any trial of her would have become a media trial of America's involvement in Vietnam and she wasn't the only celebrity to publicly oppose the war. I'm also fairly certain that other Americans visited North Vietnam during this period, though with less publicity. And public opinion was shifting against the war. The political event of the trail would have out-weighed any possible benefit to the government.
And remember, there were many, many Americans, including myself, who opposed our intervention in the war and believed that intervention to have been illegal under our own laws. So a conviction of Jane Fonda could not have been guaranteed.
Best Regards and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
David
And remember, there were many, many Americans, including myself, who opposed our intervention in the war and believed that intervention to have been illegal under our own laws. So a conviction of Jane Fonda could not have been guaranteed.
Best Regards and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
David
Death is lighter than a Feather, Duty is heavier than a Mountain....
Hi David,
As you know doubt are aware, there is a big difffrence between opposing the war and doing a site visit to AAA guns being used against American troops.
I doubt there is anything Jane Fonda could have been charged with anyway, without a declaration of war at least.
I was a little young to have had strong feelings about the war at the time, in hind sight, I am against it, you fight a war to win, not to break even.
But that's off the subject. What Jane Fonda did was dispicable.
But now is not the day for those feelings.
Happy Holidays to all.
As you know doubt are aware, there is a big difffrence between opposing the war and doing a site visit to AAA guns being used against American troops.
I doubt there is anything Jane Fonda could have been charged with anyway, without a declaration of war at least.
I was a little young to have had strong feelings about the war at the time, in hind sight, I am against it, you fight a war to win, not to break even.
But that's off the subject. What Jane Fonda did was dispicable.
But now is not the day for those feelings.
Happy Holidays to all.
In other words, I don't think a declaration of war would have been required to have her tried for treason. She was actively colloborating with and supporting a nation which was killing American soldiers; that's enough for 'treason' in my book.At the time, the legal aspects of this question were moot: President Nixon was engaged in trying to wind down American involvement in Vietnam and had to face another election in a few months, so politically he had far more to lose than to gain by making a martyr out of a prominent anti-war activist. (No requirement in either the Constitution or federal law states that the U.S. must be engaged in a declared war -- or any war at all -- before charges of treason can be brought against an individual.)
Politics saved her, but that doesn't mean anyone who knows her history has to respect her.
"Shoot twice and go home." - Swiss response to Kaiser Wilhelm II's question in 1912 as to what the 250,000 Swiss militiamen would do if invaded by half a million German soldiers.
Burn the bitch
To this day i have never seen a jane movie, she is still up to buul crap as she now burns or locks up movies her an turner decide arnt good for us, including bugs bunny.
She is a traitor bitch
Burnburn burn burnburn
Schultz
She is a traitor bitch
Burnburn burn burnburn
Schultz