Get the facts

To all of you, please check your facts and ask yourself some questions before making up your minds, and more especially before condemning each other.

I received an email today condemning the selection of Jane Fonda as one of the 100 most influential women or whatever. Personally, I wouldn't have chosen her to sit on the same page with people like Princess Di or Mother Theresa, but that's my opinion.

Rather than forward the letter I received, I decided to check into the background facts of Ms. Fonda's actions in the 70's regarding Viet Nam. Having been of military age during the Viet Nam conflict and having been registered for the draft while in college (no deferments by that time), I was aware of her trips to Viet Nam and found her actions most distasteful.

This is not to say that I agreed with our military presence in Viet Nam. I'm firmly convinced that our reasons for being there were more to line the pockets of the fatcats in the American military-industrial complex than anything to do with preserving democracy. Had our leaders really been concerned with democracy or threats to it, they would have left a crater where Hanoi was and ensured the fall of communism in that country.

No, my concern was for the fighting men and the idea that even when you disagree with your leaders' reasons, they are still your leaders. America, right or wrong, was and still is my country.

Now, back to Ms. Fonda. If you search, you will find transcripts of an interview she did with Barbara Walters (if memory serves) in which she acknowledged that she'd been duped into actions which caused pain, suffering, and even death to American soldiers. I think she, like most intelligent people, understands that soldiers don't make the choices, they just fight. And, based on the transcript I read of that interview, I think she is genuinely sorry for actions on her part that hurt innocent people, despite that she called them murderers in a Hanoi radio broadcast in 1972.

Did she commit treasonous acts against the US? Yes, and she made choices and paid no consequences for her actions, unless you count the untolled publicity she's received from it.

Should she be put against a wall and shot? Probably not. That's not the American way. Should she be honored as one of the most 100 whatever women? Probably not. But, all things considered, that does seem to be the American way. Yesterday's villians are tomorrow's heroes.