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April 20, 2005

A Viet Nam veteran who isn’t Fonda Jane

Apparently the Nam vet who stood in line for forty five minutes with a mouth full of tabacco juice just so he could spit it all over Jane Fonda who was signing copies of her new book was angry.

Forty-five minutes! That is a long time to be holding that nasty black toxic plant mixed with saliva in his cheek pouches without displaying discomfort or just involuntarily hocking up a big brown loogey all over the floor.

More importantly however, is the 38 years this guy has been burning with seething anger, resentment, and rage toward Ms. Fonda. It seems while the spitting vet was over in Viet Nam in 1972 Hanoi Jane did a propaganda tour of North Viet Nam which included radio and TV statements against Nixon and the war and that famous pose atop a North Vietnamese Anti-Aircraft Gun. The sense of anger and humiliation was more than this guy could stand. Even after 38 years and even after knowing with near certainty he would be arrested. Which he was.

I rather feel for this guy too because I am in the same boat as he is, at least in circumstances and history, if not in how I adapted. I served in the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division in Gulf War of 1991 as a platoon commanding 2nd Lieutenant. When I returned from the Kuwait, I was wierded-out and listless for months at time. When you see whole oil fields ablaze at night, huge fires as far as I could see with my binoculars, and the smell of unwashed men, oil smoke, the occaisonal dead Iraqi or civilian swarming with flies, well it stays with you and changes your attitudes about things. Who is playing in the World Series, or who wins a lot of money on Jeopardy, or whether Colonel Brown will give me a good Officer Efficiency Report all seemed stupid, pointless, and irrelevant. And I was only over there nine months and only in actual shooting combat (if you can call directing air and artillery strikes against demoralized, leaderless, starving, and scared Iraqi conscripts “combat”) about 74 hours.

I think given time, rest, and lots of Zoloft I am now pretty much OK, unlike Mr. Spit. For 38 YEARS, he has stayed mad! More years than my whole lifetime as it were. By all accounts of him I’ve read in the media, he had made a “successful transition” to civilian life as the Army likes to view it, and then this spewing all over Ms. Fonda. Go figger.

Some vets turn their rage against symbols like Ms. Fonda because that is all she is or ever was really. The US did not lose the war because of her.

Some vets turn their anger outward. They are very angry. Very, very angry and they already know the mechanics of death and have tasted Ares’ bile. The result of this anger is what Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney were “commemorating” in Oklahoma City today. Welcome home soldier.

Posted by Ali Massoud at April 20, 2005 11:10 PM

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