But Admiral Stockdale was not the befuddled clown some hack comics tried to make him out to be.  A brilliant classics scholar, he was also a warrior’s warrior.  His evil North Vietnamese captors tortured him unmercifully – not calling him mean names, not dunking him in water as trained medics watched, but real, savage torture that left his body broken.  But it did not break his American spirit; when the communists decided they wanted to film him for propaganda he calmly took a wooden stool and bashed his own face in so they couldn’t use him.  We saw his Medal of Honor sitting in his study surrounded by books.

Pete and I both later joined the Army, and we both served multiple deployments. I don’t know how it affected Pete, but during Desert Storm I took one round out of one of my M16 magazines and kept it in my top BDU pocket.  I’m no Admiral Stockdale, and I figured if I went through my other 209 rounds I needed some insurance that I wouldn’t be getting captured alive.

Which brings us to the subject of someone who resides at the opposite end of the character scale from Admiral Stockdale.

Hanoi Jane – I will not refer to her otherwise – is apparently attempting another one of her periodic reinventions as part of her continuing quest to remain in the cultural spotlight she craves.  She recently appeared on Larry King to whine about how “right wingers” labeled her “Hanoi Jane” and created a “myth” about her visit to Vietnam in 1972.  She was kind of unclear about exactly what “myth” she is referring to.  Her country was at war with North Vietnam when she went there.  And, while Admiral Stockdale’s bones were being torn from their sockets, Hanoi Jane flitted like a butterfly between her murderous hosts, posing for photos on anti-aircraft guns and slandering her countrymen as “war criminals” in nearly a dozen radio broadcasts.  Then she came home and called the people exposing the sick cruelty of her red pals “liars.”

The only “myth” about this piece of human garbage is that Hanoi Jane is something other than a traitor who deserves nothing more than our contempt.

I think either Pete or I asked the Admiral back then what he thought of Hanoi Jane.  I don’t remember his response exactly, but I don’t think he ever gave her much thought at all.  And if he ever did waste a few precious moments considering her, I think he would be puzzled.  It’s hard for someone with so much character to understand someone with so little. 

In this way, Admiral Stockdale can teach us one more lesson.  The worst fate we can impose upon Hanoi Jane is to affix her nickname to her forever and then consign her to a richly deserved mental oblivion.  Let’s purge her from our collective consciousness, perhaps pausing only to spit in contempt should the thought of her by chance cross our minds.  And then let’s fill the cultural space Hanoi Jane no longer occupies with those worthy of our respect and our attention. 

And maybe it’s appropriate that we start by replacing her there with a true American hero like Admiral James Stockdale.

IF YOU’RE A FEMINIST–MAKE UP
IF YOU’RE A CHAUVINIST–CATCH UP
IF YOU’RE A MODERATE–FESS UP
IF YOU LEAN RIGHT–STRAIGHTEN UP
IF YOU’R A LIBERAL/PROGRESSIVE…
WHATEVER-GIDDY UP & MOVE ON

Fear

I was in the Friars Club gym yesterday pretending to work out. The Friars Club gym is great for the ego because no matter what time of day or night you’re in there, you’re always the youngest guy by 30 years.

As I reclined on the stationary bike, my feet up on the handle bars, watching TV  (the preferred Friars Club method of exercising) I saw something on FOX News that got my blood pumping harder than anything I would be doing in my workout.  Shephard Smith was doing a report on the Octogenarian Neo Nazi (OctoNazi?) who opened fire at the Holocaust Museum. In a breathtakingly oddball blizzard of profundity Shephard:

1) Cited the OctoNazi attack as yet another example of “intolerance and bigotry” by “a certain segment of the population” who simply cannot “accept that a black man has been elected president”!

2) Held this bizarro incident up as proof that – I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! – Homeland Defense Secretary Napolitano was right when she issued the report that claimed returning veterans posed a threat of right-wing terrorism in our country. Because OctoNazi was a returning veteran (granted, he returned six and a half decades ago…).

Maybe Shephard is right? OctoNazi was a World War Two vet, so he had over sixty years to stew over his craziness. Lurking out there somewhere there’s got to be a 130 year old veteran of the Spanish American War, filled with over a century of brooding and plotting, ready to launch a domestic terrorist attack to proove that Napolitano and Shephard are on to something!