Wannabes, Valor Thieves, Poseurs, Fakes, Frauds, Scumbags, Low Lifes, Impostors,Charlatans, and Cheats (Redux)

Monday, while driving south from Quebec to Fort Lee, I passed the town of South Hadley - home to Mount Holyoke College - comfortably nestled in the foliage-blazed hills of western Massachusetts.

The moment brought to mind Joseph Ellis, the Pulitzer Prize winning Mt. Holyoke College professor, author, historian, former Acting-President, and bold-faced despicable career-long liar about his service in Vietnam.

Long-time readers here will recall a post with the above title, which ran in March 2008. As the thought of Ellis (and others) has again made my blood boil, I thought it fitting to re-post the piece, which follows:

Shortly after my 19th birthday, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

Parris Island was as tough as its reputation. Infantry training was unbearably long and taxing beyond anything that even my fertile mind could have conjured. Then, one day, over a year later, I stepped off a plane in Danang and spent most of the ensuing year shooting or being shot at. It wasn't every day. There were times when we'd go weeks with little or no action at all. But the troops of the North Vietnamese Army were always out there looking for us and waiting for their moment. At those rare times when our two sides found each other, the dance was macabre.

It was a long year.

Friends were killed and injured. We were exposed to cancer and diabetes causing Agent Orange. Most from my unit carry government disabilities for mental and physical wounds received.

Lives were never the same.


To a man, however, we are proud that we served our country and were with each other (living and dead). We will ever stand tall that we earned the title of United States Marine.

Consequently, we get angry - VERY angry - when some poser wannabe tries to hitch a free ride on our bus.

An article in today's New York Times triggered me. Senator Hillary Clinton admitted that she lied about being exposed to sniper fire while visiting Bosnia with her husband, the President, in 1997...check that...she didn't "lie" she (in the current hot lexicon of Washington, DC) "misspoke”.

Speaking from my own experience and that of my many brothers - trust me on this - when a sniper is shooting at you, it is not a "kind of pregnant" sort of deal. Every orifice opens and closes and opens again, adrenaline spews and you instantly make yourself so small that, in the lexicon of the day, you'd have to look up to look down. It is the scariest fucking moment that you can possibly imagine.

Mrs. Clinton has now joined the vomitously long list of wannabes who would like to make the public think that they stood tall in harm's way.

Believe as you may about Senator John Kerry and his swift boat experience in Vietnam, but no one questions that he was there, got shot at, and served his country with honor. Medals/no medals, Wounds/no wounds?

Big deal.

He served.

War Wannabes are a subject about which I feel strongly, so let's pull back the rocks and see who climbs out.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (at the time a Congressman) said at Congressional Vietnam Veterans' Caucus "I spent five years as a Navy pilot, starting in November of 1962. One year was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photoreconnaissance support missions. I'm proud of my Navy service. I put my ass on the line day after day. (WSJ 12/29/01)


Liar liar pants on fire.

Mr. Harkin's Navy record shows his only decoration is the National Defense Service Medal, awarded to everyone on active service during those years. He was never within half a world of Vietnam.

Professor (and Pulitzer prize winning historian) Joseph Ellis of Mt. Holyoke College fabricated his alleged war record for years. According to the Boston Globe (6/20/01) he told students and anyone else that would listen, that while serving under General Westmoreland, he saw action clearing out the area around My Lai as a platoon commander of combat paratroopers from the legendary 101st Airborne.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Ellis never left the states. He also lied to his students and in numerous television and press interviews about his work as an anti war activist (not), a civil rights worker in Mississippi (not) and as the scorer of the winning touchdown in the last game of his senior year in high school (not.) He wasn't even on the team. Oh, and during the Vietnam War? Ellis was teaching history at the United States Military Academy. 


Incredibly, then Mt. Holyoke president Joanne Creighton supported Ellis and said he was a "man of great integrity, honesty and honor". No kidding, you can't make this up. How can a blatant liar be a man of "great integrity, honesty, and honor". Where was she educated? I remained stunned that he wasn't tossed out on his ear.

Where were groups like the American Legion when we needed them to defend us?

The American Legion?

Oops.

Paul A. Morin is the National Commander of the American Legion. In the lead sentence of his campaign biography, according again to the Boston Globe (12/3/06) he describes himself as a "Vietnam veteran of the US Army”. When he testified before the House Veterans' Affairs Committee that fall, he was also introduced as such. He went on to say, "When we came home (from Vietnam), life was a little different. We do not want to see any veteran ever returning to what we did, so we'll be there to be welcoming them home with open arms".

Liar, liar pants on fire.

The closest he got to Vietnam was Ft. Dix, NJ.

Had enough?

I haven't.

Former Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson fired up his baseball teams with bloody tales of his days as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam. He had killed a little girl and her brother who happened into the line of fire.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Johnson served in the Marine Reserves. An exemption for baseball players had kept him out of combat.

Former U.S. Rep. Wes Cooley told reporters he'd fought in Korea as a Special Forces demolition expert trained in mountain climbing and escape tactics. The Oregon Republican said he'd engaged in countless secret missions.


Liar, liar, pants on fire.

He never left the states. He hadn't even finished his training when the Korean conflict ended.



Actor Brian Dennehy said he served five years in Vietnam and had been hit by shrapnel. Combat, he told Playboy magazine, was "absolute f---ing chaos”.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Dennehy had been a Marine, but his only overseas assignment had been as a football player on a service team in Okinawa.

There are groups and individuals who are ever vigilant for Wannabes. One among them is Stephen Burkett, co-author of "Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History”. My hat is off to all who are vigilant for evidence of such unspeakable fraud. 

I encourage each of you to join the ranks. Posers are your friends, neighbors, and co-workers. It has been said that there are more people who falsely claim to have served in harm's way in Vietnam than those that actually did.

I feel strongly that an early post World War II American public would not have stood for the swift boating of Senator John Kerry in 2004, the "unpatriotic" moniker hung on Vietnam War triple-amputee Senator Max Cleland during the Georgia primary the same year, or the Republican sliming of Senator John McCain (former prisoner of war) during the South Carolina primary in 2000.

To this day, few people stand tall to protect and defend the service of those who served in harm's way during the Vietnam War. We have the power to change that.


Perhaps a good way to begin is to boycott books written by Joseph Ellis. To Vietnam Veterans, he holds a dubious place of honor that heretofore had been the exclusive domain of Hanoi Jane Fonda.

He lied about himself, for goodness sake.



Did he lie about Jefferson?

This Imposter is teaching our kids.

The list follows:



Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation


His Excellency: George Washington


American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson


American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic


Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams


After the Revolution: Profiles of Early American Culture


Thomas Jefferson, Genius of Liberty


School for Soldiers: West Point and the Profession of Arms


Something That Will Surprise the World: The Essential Writings of the Founding Fathers


Thank you for visiting.

Upcoming Loon Events!

Here are the flyers for upcoming Loon events in:

Newport, VT (near my mother's hometown of Stanstead, Quebec)

Holyoke, MA (Home of Neil (Doc) Downey, Charlie Company Senior Corpsman)

Huntington, NY (near my birthplace of Northport, NY)

Great thanks to all of the friends, family, and Vietnam brothers who have taken the leadership in organizing these and other events.

Semper Fidelis.

Please pass these along to any friends or family that may be nearby.

Thank you for visiting.

"but I need a job and I want to be a paperback writer..."

Here is the draft cover copy of the paperback edition of Loon: A Marine Story, which will be released on May 25, 2010.

Thank you for visiting.

The Writing of Loon: A Marine Story - Part 5

This is the last of a 5 part repost.

When I returned home from Hong Kong, the contract was waiting. The details were numbingly legal, but the bas

I was only disappointed to hear that the publication date had been set for May 19, 2009 - well over a year away. RH sought to position Loon as a beach book, a summer read. They also wanted to be certain that it didn't get caught up in the media hysteria surrounding the Presidential election.

I was assigned an executive at Random House who was to shepherd Loon from manuscript to publication. The book now belonged to them, so the first time I had someone else on my team with a financial stake in the book's success. 

This was business. 

I understood business.

What were the next steps? 

• Final editing. There were several minor areas that RH felt could be developed - a paragraph here, a chapter ending there. These were only suggestions, but they were right on every point. The changes were made.
• Permissions. This required that I have written permission from anyone that I had quoted, cited, or mentioned in a potentially libelous way ("Would Sal Martucci, or his family see your humor in watching him get shot for venereal disease?") Several of these permissions required that I personally pay a royalty to the author (Lou Reed Music, for example.)
• Cover design. I had always seen Loon as a coming of age story with broad age and gender appeal. Then again, it is a war story. How do we walk the line to create the cover we want that will be appealing to the broad segment of the market. I found the result to be incredible!
• Copyediting. I had presented what I felt was a near perfect manuscript. What came back were pages of penciled scribble in a language akin to Navajo. The (suggested) corrections were editorial, grammatical, and contextual. Remember how in school you'd turn in a paper with perhaps a couple of soft points that you thought might skate by??!! Nothing missed the copyeditor.

Now, with three months to go before publication, I've been assigned a publicist who has a PhD in English and enough experience to position the book well in the media. At every turn, I have been amazed by professionalism of all with whom I have dealt. Now we again need your help.

We are beginning to plan a book tour, media events, and the like to assure a positive launch on May 19.

So many of you have been supportive of this effort. Thanks to your pre-order purchases, Loon is #219,116 on the Amazon best seller list (A Tale of Two Cities is 604,437). We’ve been as high as 89,000 and as low as over a million. (Editor's note - Loon has risen as high as 2,300 on Amazon and currently sits at 12,300.)

I am confident that Loon will be a #1 best seller. The grand young sons of Charlie Company have earned nothing less.

Please let me know of potential book signing venues (including your house,) media and literary that may be good targets for a favorable review.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for visiting.

Semper Fidelis.

The Writing of Loon: A Marine Story - Part 4

This is the fourth in a series of five reposts

With the Loon manuscript now in the capable hands of my agent in New York, there was little for me to do but wait. Although she felt that there could be 8 or 10 publishers with an interest, she was careful to keep my lofty expectations in check. It was now about cash, marketing, and brand creation. Was there an audience out there for a topic that had a well earned reputation as a marketing graveyard - Vietnam?

Early in February 2008, I received word that we had two declinations. Although the comments were encouraging, the decisions were not. At the end of the month, days before leaving on a three week trip to visit my daughter and her family in Hong Kong, I called to see if there was any news.

"Well, sort of. We got a nibble from Random House."

I'd been in sales long enough to know that all big catches begin with a nibble. Success comes from keeping a fish on the line and reeling it in.

"A nibble," I responded. "Nibbles are good. Yes? I mean, nibbles are better than no nibbles, right?" I needed some hope here, something positive to dream about on a sixteen hour airplane ride.

"Yes, Jack. Nibbles are better than no nibbles."

So off I went to Hong Kong filled with hope. I told friends and family that I'd had a nibble from Random House. The response was enthusiastic. I was ecstatic.

Random House!

I mean, literary insiders knew I had a great agent, but everybody in the world knew how great Random House was! Did I go through all of this just to get a nibble from Random House? No, but I had to admit that the feeling was incredible.

Three days into my trip, my cell phone rang. It was my agent informing me that Random House was going to make an offer for Loon.

The Writing of Loon: A Marine Story - Part 3

This is the third in a series of five reposts

The long flight home from my daughter's wedding in Thailand had me warmly reflecting and eagerly anticipating all at once. It was a magnificent jumble of feelings. Hours after the plane landed, I placed the Loon manuscript in the mail to my new editor in Indiana and begin a vigil by the mail slot of my Georgetown home - so eager was I for any criticism that would make me a better writer and Loon a better book.

The first third of the manuscript returned a month later. It was peppered with pencil marks, littered with arrows going from here to there, and filled with editorial and grammatical commentary. It was like the return of a so-so term paper...on steroids. I soaked up every mark and executed her every suggestion. It was incredible. She was in my head as surely as if she were a protagonist in the filmBeing John Malkovich.

We plowed forward for months and months - all by mail. She'd have an idea - I'd think it was terrific. I'd come up with something and she'd know exactly where it belonged. It was just about the most fun I'd ever had. It was an extremely satisfying process.

Meanwhile, I had gotten another job and, although determined to make this one work, my heart and soul remained in Loon. Despite honest effort, I was again shown the door a year later.

That summer, as my second daughter was being married, my editor and I knew that we were close to a finished product. She would send new comments every couple of months for my review. I'd throw them in my car and head to the Outer Banks where a Vietnam buddy had given me the use of his beach house in which to write. Many stories emerged from this editing period that taught me much about myself both as a person and as a writer.

Midway through my tour in Vietnam, for example, I was given 5 days of R&R in Singapore. I wrote detailed pages about the days leading up to it and the first several hours. I then skipped ahead three days to write about a newspaper story I'd seen. I then skipped to the flight back to Vietnam. The comment that came back from Indiana about this chapter?

"Your public AND your editor want to know exactly what happened during those first three days!"

Ouch. Why go there? Doesn't the reader have an imagination?

But, as usual, she was right. I sat down and wrote about the first three days in detail and soon found myself laughing out loud at my memories. Her suggestion ignited some of my very best writing.

Among the casualties of the editing process were my letters home. On the first pass, some were removed and others severely edited. As time went on, however, most disappeared and were replaced by prose. Although the letters were excellent source documents, my editor was clear that the reader would want more of my current writing. The manuscript that began with over 100 letters, now had but four, with three written by others.

By the end of 2007, we agreed that the manuscript was ready again for my agent. I took it to New York in January. The change from that which she had first seen exactly two years prior was palpable. She thought that there might now be a market, although Vietnam remained far off the national literary radar screen.

For the first time, Loon was out of my hands and into the marketplace. All involved agreed that it was a good story. All involved also agreed that it was very well written. It was now up to the market.

I had no job, was living full time above a friend's garage on the Outer Banks, but was at peace with both my accomplishment and my life.

Happiness is...

Having Sarah, Margaret, and John miss their Hong Kong connection from Maine and, thereby, be stranded here in 5B for a day!

Wonderful!

Here is a paparazzi shot of the happy trio returning from the requisite early morning visit to Gordberg's Bagels, caught walking across the Walgreens parking lot.