I'd buy him a beer

Vietnam was a brutal, vicious and terrifying conflict during which both sides committed some extreme atrocities. I wasn't there and I can't speak as if I was, but I do know this:

There is no justification for heinous acts. Regardless of the trauma (and I do realize I am speaking as one without the experience), I don't feel there is any condoning of the malicious mutilations, rapes, beatings, and cold blooded murders that took place. Our soldiers were there to serve as protectors...not as conquering barbarians. If your friend did as you say then he should feel guilty about what he did...it should eat at him, it should keep him up at night and haunt his dreams. He took what he had no right to and he violated a human being. He should always have to live with that nightmare, a consequence of his actions. There is a statute of limitations for legal punishment...there is no statute of limitations for a guilty conscience. Feeling remorse doesn't "fix" what they've done...it doesn't make it right and they shouldn't be able to live a completely care free life.
 
Agreed, if you aren't willing to do the time, don't do the crime.

But that brings us back to the original post. I've bought a regretful rapist a beer and had a cup of coffee with Fonda. Neither went to prison. Is spitting on either of them right?
 
And that's what I was most curious about.

Fonda and the rest of us are stuck with whatever we've done in the past. It's the ones who don't think about it at two in the morning who are truly scary.
 
LarryB said:
But, out of curiousity, since a great many people were doing a great many dumb stunts at the time, is there a statue of limitations?
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For the most part, yes.

However, for those who believe "Hanoi Jane" committed treasonous acts, she's still on the hook, as there is no statute of limitations on the formal charge of treason (the details of which are a lot more involved than most people think, though I forget the specifics off the top of my head).
 
From US Constitution Article III Section 3:

“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”

Thre ya go. :)
 
Maj.Striker said:
Yeah, this is not about protesting the merits of the Vietnam war. Freedom of speech is really somewhat a right afforded to all American citizens. /the problem with Fonda is she went to North Vietnam (a country with which America was at open hostilities) and launched basically a propoganda tirade against American forces. To me, that is betraying your country and you don't deserve your citizenship. I wouldn't have let her come back.

As for the comment about famous celebrities sympathetic towards Germany in WW2...well, unfortunately there were too many of them. Lloyd George, The Former King Edward...ugh, his name escapes me but the guy who flew The Spirit of St. Louis. The big difference between these people and Fonda was that they didn't go to Germany once the war began and make propaganda films and speeches against their respective countries. Everyone has a right to disagree with the merits of a war but go and openly convort with the enemy? Completely and utterly disgusting...
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Lindbergh.

I'd never read that he was sympathetic to Germany. I do know that he was opposed to our getting militarily involved in the war, but after Pearl Harbor he tried very hard to get reinstated into the Air Corps. Roosevelt denied his applications. He eventually got a job with Ford, as a technical rep. He ended up in the Pacific theater as a technical advisor on figher aircraft. He flew 30+ combat missions (wasn't supposed to, since he was a civillian, heh) with our pilots, teaching them all sorts of tricks and flying techniques. He tought pilots how to extend their combat range from 500-500 to 750-800 miles, and still hold at least an hour's worth of reserve fuel. His technical expertise was invaluable, and helped us achieve our objectives in the theater. He even shot down a japanese fighter, and participated in many strafing/bombing runs before the brass discovered what he was doing, and decided that a high-profile civillian flying combat missions was a big risk. He put his life on the line. In my book, he's a hero.

Edit: if you didn't mind sitting in a cockpit for 15 hours, you had a max effective range in the p-38 of 2500 miles, thanks to lindbergh.

But anyways, Jane Fonda? I agree with the gentleman's sentiments. She is a traiterous wretch.
 
Lindbergh's sympathies were well documented at the time. There's a PBS write up on them at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lindbergh/sfeature/fallen.html
Having written that "That our civilization depends on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back... the infiltration of inferior blood," there was little risk in allowing Lindhberg to visit the Pacific theater (in the same manner as Japanese-American troops were sent to Italy). Although he had been decorated by Goering, he served well against the Japanese.

As to Fonda, while I confess to lingering suspicions of the friends of those who have shot at me (during a civil rights march), it just doesn't seem sensible to bring it up fourty years later. Nobody is quite the same person after that long.
 
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