Posted on 06/03/2007 11:40:29 AM PDT by lowbridge
this past Memorial Day weekend, was loaded with John Wayne movies, Wayne being the symbol of American stand-up-and-fight courage, especially in the most bloody and noble of U.S. military endeavors.
But when you tell people, especially lovers of John Wayne and all he ostensibly stood for and still stands for, that Wayne assiduously avoided military service during World War II, well, they either don't believe it or don't take it well.
At the outbreak of WW II, Wayne was 34, the father of four and his movie career was on the grow. He didn't have to enlist. And he didn't.
But many other "older" Hollywood leading men heard the call and answered it. Clark Gable was past 40 when he flew combat missions. Jimmy Stewart, who in four years rose from Pvt. Stewart to Col. Stewart, was 34 when he joined the Air Corps, gaining weight to meet the minimum standard.
But John Wayne, the fellow who starred in so many World War II action movies, never served.
Yet, TV programmers have seen to it that Wayne, more than any other American, is synonymous with Memorial Day, a day to honor those who did serve
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Proof please. Wayne was a B-minus actor with a second class studio in 1942. He was nowhere near as popular as Gable, Power, Fonda or Stewart, all of whom served. Wayne's star rose during the war while these others were overseas. His real star power built on that and grew in the fifties.
Aaahh the lottery. I started in college in the fall of 1969. The first lottery was drawn that December IIRC. One of the first things you asked any new guy you met was his lottery number. Was he going to be around for a while? My college boyfriend was number 97. My hippie brother was 45. Neither served as the war was in it’s last throes by the time both graduated.
Thenk kyew.
Pickle one.
Some people refuse to believe he was an “actor.”
“In 1944 Wayne was reclassified as 1-A. His studio appealed and got him reclassified to 2-A until the war ended.”.............. We had a married guy with 4 kids in my platoon in Basic that was drafted. So it is possible. I’ve always heard that Wayne was classified 4f for flat feet. BTW...How many Hollywood A list types served 1962-1975?
Wayne wasn’t A List until the war and after.
Has it been that long? My does time go by fast!
They did the same thing to Ronald Reagan It only works with republicans. Clinton was a hero for not going.
John Wayne and me are no lesser of a patriot because we did not personally serve.... Pilgrim!(any one care to look up the military service for Mushnick)
“Stage Coach” 1939 = A list for Wayne
He looks like a Mushnick or Munchkin, or whatever; little men with little grizzly beards who just loooooove trashing those greater than they. He probably didn’t like the Duke’s politics as well, which is probably his real motivation.
As for serving, I went to Vietnam; if someone else failed to get drafted and yet said nothing against those of us who went, I have nothing whatsoever against that person.
This was discussed on TMC, which they said that Wayne had an old football injury for one, and that the Military believed his Movies would boost morale, and even had Wayne make some Military shorts (not movies), which TMC ran a few brief clips.. now if that was all bull I don’t know.. I choose to believe it, if you think it’s important to prove otherwise go do your own research.
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CLINTON & HILLARY’s supporting Communist North Vietnam’s push to take over a then Free South Vietnam during the Vietnam War =
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education (SLAVE LABOR) Camp
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
http://www.JourneyFromTheFall.com
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Interesting movie. He wasn’t “John Wayne” in that film. Look at who got top billing. It wasn’t Wayne.
“Mr. Mushnick’s penchant for nostalgia might be attributed to a childhood spent on Staten Island in the green, pure days before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge linked the borough to Babylon. He was a sports fanatic early on. He served as a water boy who kept tackle charts for the Wagner College football team, which brought him his first brush with stardom. Former Jet head coach Rich Kotite, then Wagner’s star tight end, once loaned him a windbreaker during a game. Now there was a true sportsman.
Mr. Mushnick left Eden to attend Waynesburg College in southwestern Pennsylvania, where he cultivated a fondness for eccentric jocks and Quaaludes. Then, after graduating in 1973, he got a job as copy clerk at the Post , the only newspaper that would hire him. With the exception of a short stint at Newsday , he has been at the Post ever since.”
http://www.nyobserver.com/node/40269
Hey Phil, Surely a brilliant liberal like yourself, knows that Saturday May 26th, just two days before Memorial Day was the celebration of what would have been John Wayne's 100th birthday.
Gee, maybe that explains why so many of his films were shown, all while you were pining for the Bareback Mounting film instead.
I served ,USMC 67-69 ,I don’t think I did near as much for America as John Wayne or Ronald Reagan. I also think most draft dodgers did more than John Kerry. Maybe it’s just me!
That's because it was his 100th birthday, and many channels were doing Duke film retrospectives.
"Ford was disgusted by John Wayne's refusal to enlist in 1941. When Ford filmed They Were Expendable (1945) after World War II he included every actor's former military rank and branch (Ford himself was a Navy officer and combat photographer). Of course, there were no credentials behind Wayne's name, which the actor took as a real slap."
This is a well known bit of Hollywood history. Ford, btw, was 13 years older than Wayne and he went to war with a camera in his hand. And, Robert Montegomery, the star of the film, left a better Hollywood career than Wayne's and went to war where he skippered a PT Boat for real.
Wayne was nothing but an actor, putting him (or any celebrity) on a pedestal invites ridicule.
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