Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

There is one thing that happened while in North Vietnam that I will regret to my dying day— I allowed myself to be photographed on a Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun. I want to, once again, explain how that came about. I have talked about this numerous times on national television and in my memoirs, My Life So Far, but clearly, it needs to be repeated.

It happened on my last day in Hanoi. I was exhausted and an emotional wreck after the 2-week visit. It was not unusual for Americans who visited North Vietnam to be taken to see Vietnamese military installations and when they did, they were always required to wear a helmet like the kind I was told to wear during the numerous air raids I had experienced. When we arrived at the site of the anti-aircraft installation (somewhere on the outskirts of Hanoi), there was a group of about a dozen young soldiers in uniform who greeted me. There were also many photographers (and perhaps journalists) gathered about, many more than I had seen all in one place in Hanoi. This should have been a red flag.

The translator told me that the soldiers wanted to sing me a song. He translated as they sung. It was a song about the day ‘Uncle Ho’ declared their country’s independence in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh Square. I heard these words: “All men are created equal; they are given certain rights; among these are life, Liberty and Happiness.” These are the words Ho pronounced at the historic ceremony. I began to cry and clap. These young men should not be our enemy. They celebrate the same words Americans do.

The soldiers asked me to sing for them in return. As it turned out I was prepared for just such a moment: before leaving the United States, I memorized a song called Day Ma Di, written by anti-war South Vietnamese students. I knew I was slaughtering it, but everyone seemed delighted that I was making the attempt. I finished. Everyone was laughing and clapping, including me, overcome on this, my last day, with all that I had experienced during my 2 week visit. What happened next was something I have turned over and over in my mind countless times. Here is my best, honest recollection of what happened: someone (I don’t remember who) led me towards the gun, and I sat down, still laughing, still applauding. It all had nothing to do with where I was sitting. I hardly even thought about where I was sitting. The cameras flashed. I got up, and as I started to walk back to the car with the translator, the implication of what had just happened hit me. “Oh my God. It’s going to look like I was trying to shoot down U.S. planes.” I pleaded with him, “You have to be sure those photographs are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.” I was assured it would be taken care of. I didn’t know what else to do. (I didn’t know yet that among the photographers there were some Japanese.)

It is possible that it was a set up, that the Vietnamese had it all planned. I will never know. But if they did I can’t blame them. The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it. Had I brought a politically more experienced traveling companion with me they would have kept me from taking that terrible seat. I would have known two minutes before sitting down what I didn’t realize until two minutes afterwards; a two-minute lapse of sanity that will haunt me forever. The gun was inactive, there were no planes overhead, I simply wasn’t thinking about what I was doing, only about what I was feeling, innocent of what the photo implies. But the photo exists, delivering its message regardless of what I was doing or feeling. I carry this heavy in my heart. I have apologized numerous times for any pain I may have caused servicemen and their families because of this photograph. It was never my intention to cause harm. It is certainly painful for me that I, who had spent so much time talking to soldiers, trying to help soldiers and veterans, helping the anti-war movement to not blame the soldiers, now would be seen as being against our soldiers!

1 posted on 07/22/2011 11:01:10 PM PDT by Keltik
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies ]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-94 last
To: Keltik
Bull!

If you were 40 years younger we would have photographs of you in Afghanistan helping the Taliban set up IEDs.
You are an evil treasonous Leftist and your legacy as the female Benedict Arnold is set in stone.

183 posted on 07/23/2011 8:14:27 AM PDT by Happy Rain ("Will Geico save you 15% on your insurance? Is Obama an evil Marxist tyrannical son of a bitch?")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

Jane, your explanation and your excuses ring as hollow with me today as they did back in the day. As proud service member at the time, and a still proud veteran today, your actions, your words and deeds, were treasonous, and very likely contributed to the emotional and physical stress and torture those POW’s were living with EVERY SINGLE DAY.
You will have to live with that.
For my part...you sowed that field, and you deserve to reap whatever putrid crop it produces.

Now, go away. There are patriots across the land with no need for you and your kind.


188 posted on 07/23/2011 8:28:11 AM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. 01-20-2013: Change we can look forward to.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik
Here's the truth about Jane Fonda's trip to North Vietnam: she was a high-profile communist propagandist working for our enemies in time of war. In a just world, she'd be getting out of prison right about now.

WinterSoldier.com has the only complete set of transcripts of Fonda's 1972 broadcasts on Radio Hanoi.

Note the similarities to the "war crimes" propaganda of John Kerry, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and generations of leftists since then.

189 posted on 07/23/2011 8:35:15 AM PDT by Interesting Times (WinterSoldier.com. SwiftVets.com. ToSetTheRecordStraight.com.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

My God, Jane.

You got fired because no one wants to buy your crap any more.

I wouldn’t buy from you because of being a traitor, but that is not why they fired you.

The people watching these shows have no freakin’ idea of who you are. You are just an old lady hawking crap.

Get over yourself.


191 posted on 07/23/2011 8:43:39 AM PDT by Vermont Lt (I can't think of anything clever, so I'll just say, "Obama sucks.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

Me thinks the bitch doth protest too much. And too unconvincingly. F you Jane.


193 posted on 07/23/2011 8:50:21 AM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik
Hanoi Jane was and probably still is a communist and was married for quite some time to Tom Hayden, also a communist and one of the founders of the SDS as well as president of it for awhile. Hanoi Jane was also a member of the SDS so when she says she never never did anything to hurt our country she is an outright liar.

Her huddy Hayden was also on the trip to Hanoi with Hanoi Jane and her infamous affair with the commie anti-aircraft gun. Both of them were and are traitors to our country. The two traitors are with Moonbeam Brown in the below pic, quite a trio.

Moonbeam and Hanoi Jane

195 posted on 07/23/2011 9:47:56 AM PDT by jazusamo (His [Obama's] political base---the young, the left and the thoughtless: Thomas Sowell)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

Hanoi whore. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?


202 posted on 07/23/2011 10:54:32 AM PDT by ataDude (Its like 1933, mixed with the Carter 70s, plus the books 1984 and Animal Farm, all at the same time.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqN7WtgLXAU

Jane Fonda RARE BIO pt 8

In this clip, she is shown (at 4:18 in the video) seating herself at an anti-aircraft gun. See if it fits her recollection of what happened. (Somewhere, I saw her actually looking through the sight of one of these guns, but it doesn’t show that here.)

This clip also has (starting at 6:04) testimony from a POW who talks about being tortured at the time Jane was visiting. See if that fits with her contention that torture had stopped 2-1/2 years before she got there.


211 posted on 07/23/2011 1:02:03 PM PDT by Rocky (REPEAL IT!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

She was ‘’exhausted’’ and an ‘’emotional wreck after the two week visit’’. Oh Poor Jane. American POWs and soldiers fighting we just having a grand old time of it though and this pampered Hollywood ,self-important Marxist bitch was ‘’exhausted’’.


214 posted on 07/23/2011 10:00:13 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik
My following lengthy post to Fonda's website is now "awaiting moderation" No doubt it will never see the light of day there but I felt better myself for having ranted.

I wonder if any of these oh so supportive individuals on the site were actually even alive during the infamous Hanoi trip. Did they know one thing about it before this? Have they tried to find out? All the gushing, "I knew it couldnt be true Jane, and I support you Jane" is based on what exactly? The fact that Jane Fonda says so? That you liked her in a movie? What? If one cares to research just a little, one can read Fonda's own words during that time, she never minced words or shrank from speaking the truth of her communism. One cannot support and endorse that way of life and then still claim to support American military troops as Ms Fonda is just recently claiming was the case. I realize some of you may prefer not to be confused by facts but the evidence is abundant and available if you care to look. I lived during the Vietnam era. I remember the war, the soldiers, this story, the truths and the lies of it. I am very sure that Ms Fonda is sorry. She is sorry that some evidence still exists of her shameful behaviour. Much like the criminal that is sorry to be caught and going to jail. I doubt the Hanoi trip is a reason for being dropped from QVC. Perhaps Ms Fonda it is simply that none of the customers know or care "who you are". It could just be that you no longer have any drawing power. They likely never heard of Hanoi Jane. Why is it still so disturbing to me all these years later? Perhaps for the same reasons it still disturbs you Ms Fonda. We both know the truth of it.
229 posted on 07/24/2011 2:05:54 AM PDT by D1X1E
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik
I never thought she was trying to shoot down our planes - I thought she was there giving comfort to our enemies in a time of war. Also that she was undermining our soldiers - and giving comfort to those back home who would spit on returning United State soldiers.

Putting up the crap about shooting at US planes is her effort to make people who hate her (with good cause) look like they're 'extreme'. Sorry Jane, going to a foreign country we're at war with - and singing and posing with the enemy is the act of a traitor. You don't have to be shooting at our men to qualify...

232 posted on 07/24/2011 1:11:06 PM PDT by GOPJ (Honk if I'm paying for your car, your mortgage, and your big, fat Greek bailout - mewzilla)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

People died and were tortured because of Hanoi Jane.

Own it, Jane. It’s all yours. All that blood, pain, lost babies, families.


235 posted on 07/24/2011 7:29:42 PM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

“What happened next was something I have turned over and over in my mind countless times.”

I get great satisfation knowing she turns that over and over in her mind every night she lays down to sleep.


238 posted on 07/26/2011 12:22:45 AM PDT by Royal Wulff
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]

To: Keltik

Believe a lying traitor? Not me.


241 posted on 07/26/2011 12:44:48 AM PDT by bannie ("The gov't that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-94 last

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson