Many of my generation can’t watch a Jane Fonda movie without recalling her trip to North Vietnam in 1972, where she was photographed sitting on an antiaircraft gun the Communists were using to shoot at U.S. airplanes.
That visit, as well as some of her critical remarks against U.S. actions in the war, were replayed in Ken Burns’ excellent PBS series on the Vietnam war.
There were many at the time who considered Fonda a traitor, branding her derisively as “Hanoi Jane.”
Over the years, Fonda has repeatedly apologized for that photograph, although she has maintained she was not a traitor for speaking out against the war or for trying to get U.S. soldiers to turn against it.
Within days of seeing her in the PBS series, I watched a couple of movies on television in which she stars with Robert Redford.
The latest, which was just released by Netflix, is called “Our Souls at Night,” based on a book about two aging people who start sleeping together for platonic company. Of course the plot then gets more complicated.
Although I never agreed with Fonda’s politics, she’s an excellent actress. I may have shunned her movies for a while in the 1970s but not anymore.
I can be entertained by an actor or an athlete with whom I disagree — which brings me to the current brouhaha over certain National Football League players disrespecting the National Anthem by not standing while it’s being played.
While the players have the constitutional right to do this, I don’t condone it. But I’m not going to quit watching the games on television.
Some fans are, though, which is their right.
There’s enough irony to spread around in all this attention on respect or disrespect for flag and country and the right to protest, past and present.
In my opinion, President Donald Trump did more to encourage the anthem kneeling than he did to stop it when, playing to his base, he condemned it and, in his usual bombastic style, said he wished one of the disrespectful players would be fired.
Those who are too young to recall the 1960s should watch that Vietnam series when it is repeated, if they haven’t already.
This country is politically and philosophically divided these days — but not any more than it was back then. Perhaps not even as much.
At least the highly paid athletes who refuse to stand at attention for the Star-Spangled Banner claim they mean no disrespect to the military.
Returning soldiers from Vietnam, many of whom were draftees, were reviled by the protestors of that day when they appeared in uniform. It was a sad chapter in American history.
Those serving in today’s all-volunteer military are well respected by Americans of all political persuasions, from the president on down. That’s as it should be.
One of President Trump’s most ridiculous comments — and many can be attributed to him — was when he implied on the campaign trail in 2015 that Sen. John McCain was not a war hero.
“He’s not a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Trump said.
McCain, a naval aviator, was shot down during the Vietnam War and held prisoner for more than five years in Hanoi, refusing early release for Communist propaganda purposes even after being repeatedly beaten.
Trump, who was of draft age during that war, was never captured, unlike McCain. He managed to get five deferments and never served.
