SwiftVets.com

[jim_nyc]

I’m assuming most have seen this movie. It’s one of the only positive portrayals of a Vietnam veteran in a major motion picture that I’m aware of. Sure Forest may not have been the sharpest tack but he was honest and innocent and he answered the call to duty and preformed heroically. And when he came home he was not ashamed of himself and he wasn’t suffering from PTSD. He brought the spirit of his fallen friend home with him and he went about his life and became quite successful on many levels.

I bring it up because there is a scene that takes place on the Mall in DC with a huge anti-war rally and the anti-war activist is not sympathetically portrayed. It’s the first time I ever saw that angle also.

I’m wondering if the author Winston Groom, who is himself a Vietnam veteran, based that character on a real person. Wouldn’t it be perfect if it were Kerry and we could get him to say that in an ad?

Regardless, the real point of this is to say, the duplicity of the character in this movie is what is most repellent. Pretending to be for peace and violent with his girl treating her like a possession. It’s the duplicity that Kerry projects that offends me most. I’ve heard it told that he stayed in a Georgetown mansion or town home while the other protestors stayed up all night on the mall in DC. Living large while the others ate saltines.

If we can juxtapose the phony fatigue wearing anti-war activist Kerry as represented by his membership in VVAW with the blue blood Kerry, the political opportunist Kerry. And show how he even played the anti-war movement people against themselves. Claims of quitting it’s leadership while still running for office as a representative of it. I mean how many of them must be repelled by him casting himself as the war hero not the anti-war activist?

Anyway, I’m just thinking out loud.

Maybe we could just encourage Forest Gump parties or encourage TV stations to start playing it more often. It’s not my favorite movie I just think it is appropriate for this time and the confrontation between Forest and the anti-war activist is powerful.

[SangRun Hunter]

That's very interesting as far as the comparison of the protest leader.

You have to remember that a older officer pulled the microphone plugs out too and I would think that some would say that was the establishment.

Besides all that...

I wonder what some of his people from back then feel about him? Knowing that he was using them for his purposes. He lied to them about where he was and what he was up too.

One can assume that most of those people don't care since they are still on his side today, but I bet there are more that might come out like Pitkin and the other guy.
_________________
Mad as Hell!