Swanky Conservative

Burkett and Whitley’s book, “Stolen Valor,” cracked the facade of the Myth of the Vietnam Vet. This myth holds that the American Soldier, once a veritable Boy Scout, or a poor colored American with nowhere else to go but the Army, was forced by the cruel American War Machine to commit acts of unspeakable atrocities from My Lai to Laos. Upon returning home a broken, drug-addicted shell of a man, he was plagued by medical problems and mental conditions. He may have been born on the Fourth of July, but he was raped and beaten by the winter of 1971, when he gathered with enlightened celebrities and other vets just like him and began telling the sordid tale that was Vietnam.

There were some doubts as to the veracity of these stories, and even the veracity of some of the vets. 1971, though, was the heyday of the one-way media. People read their newspapers and watched Cronkite on CBS and largely believed what they were told. Why wouldn’t they believe the educated John Kerry, Navy veteran officer of Vietnam, when he testified to Congress:

It unfortunately took decades for this facade to crumble away. B.G. Burkett and Glenna Whitley published “Stolen Valor” in 1998, a generation removed from Vietnam. It wasn’t until Senator John Kerry ran for president in 2004, “reporting for duty,” as it were, that people began examining the actions of Kerry and others involved in the Winter Soldiers and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The facade began to crumble, but not before a new one was being built. This one involves today’s veterans, fresh returned from the war in Iraq. Enter the Iraq Veterans Against the War.

This time, though, there are media forces at work unlike any from thirty years ago. Bloggers, largely, many members of the military - milbloggers.

So when someone like Jesse (Jessie) Macbeth comes along and claims not only to be a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but one who committed war crimes and atrocities by the dozen, people are ready and willing to verify his words. It’s been less than a day since macbeth’s video popped up on milbloggers’ radar and the would-be Winter Soldier has been discredited thoroughly.

In the larger context of a media war, Macbeth was the pointman for the antiwar Left. The next one that comes along will have a tighter story. The actions of the Winter Soldiers and the peaceniks of Vietnam still echo among us. The Mainstream Media and Hollywood still cling to the Myth of the Vietnam Vet. Jarhead (even though it was about Operation Desert Shield/Storm) and Over There typify the attempt by those legacy establishments to paint today’s wars in the pallet of Vietnam. So much was gained by the Left for them to change their playbook right now. There will be (if there already aren’t) more Macbeths to come. We’re in the start of the 2006/2008 campaign season and the Left feels it has gained ground due to the President’s low poll numbers. (Despite the numbers being low due to dissatisfaction among the conservative base, not due to the actions of the Left.) It is up to the milbloggers and others in the blogosphere (Is anyone in DOD public relations awake?) to thwart the plans of these “clamorous harbingers of blood and death.”

My son and possibly, over time, my grandkids should be proud of my service. I shouldn’t have to explain how everything they read and heard about servicemen in the time of OIF/GWOT was wrong. Are we going to let them make a new Myth?