Proving once again that she is not only smarter than I am, but also much quicker on the draw, my fellow contributor Sister Toldjah, has penned an excellent article regarding leftist attacks on that great American icon, John Wayne—and done so before I could even organize my first paragraph. She does a stellar job describing how the leftists just can’t stop using race as a cudgel, even stooping to excoriate a man long dead. Before you look at my thoughts below, please check out her efforts here.

It’s true that Wayne spoke in terms not socially acceptable today. Got it. He was a product of his era. But looking deeper into what he actually said and how he lived his life—how he actually treated people of all colors and beliefs, much Like Charlton Heston who marched with Dr Martin Luther King, he’s definitely more of a man, more of a civil rights leader than that race profiteer Jesse Jackson ever could hope to be. This latest attack, is merely meant to shiv John Wayne in the back, while as he’s been for decades, unable to defend himself.

Along with my Dad, John Wayne was my lodestar as a young man trying to discover what it meant to be a real man—a real American. Both of these MEN portrayed combat heroes, Wayne on The Silver Screen, my Dad, in actual combat. Although he never served in a war, I imagined Wayne’s portrayals, as a movie about my Father’s heroic achievements in Korea—Bronze Star, with “V” device among others.

I applied to West Point because of both of them. My fervent dream was to command a company in the storied, 82nd Airborne Division, which I eventually did, despite my obvious shortcomings. In the movie, “The Longest Day, ” John Wayne, portrayed LTC Benjamin Vandervoort, Commander of the 2/505 Parachute Infantry Regiment. LTC Vandervoort broke his ankle on the D-Day jump and was forced to hobble around on it until his troops “liberated” a wheelbarrow to truck him around—one tough hombre. A few generations later, I was privileged to command HHC, 3rd Battalion, of that same Regiment. Dream—Achieved.

A small aside: The movie portrayed a technical error. It showed Vandervoort/Wayne launching from the aircraft, with his Static Line unhooked, which would have kept his chute from opening and of course, resulted in his impacting the ground at terminal velocity. Our standing joke among Infantrymen, was that only John Wayne could do that—and live.

Moving forward a few decades, who can forget the final scene in the Green Berets, where the little Vietnamese kid, Ham Chuk, asks after learning that Peter-San (the Scrounger) has died, “But—what will happen to me?” And COL Kirby (John Wayne) responds…”You’re what this is all about!” Even now, I’m choked up, just writing about this scene. Point of fact, there is even a hill at Ft Benning, GA named after him—John Wayne Hill, where the fire base battle was filmed.

Marion Michael Morrison, AKA John Wayne, is a real American icon. From my foxhole, all I can see, is that the leftists can only make progress, real progress, by attacking the pillars that are the foundational underpinnings of our great country—like the Boy Scouts, the Military, our Churches and of course and, in and of himself, that great American Hero, John Wayne. That’s their purpose. They will attack anything to do with Americanism and American Manhood in order to foster their communist beliefs and advance their evil agenda. This attack on John Wayne is just another firefight in the ongoing battle for American Manhood.

Mike Ford is a retired Infantry Officer who writes on Military, Foreign Affairs and occasionally dabbles in Political and Economic matters.

Follow him on Twitter: @MikeFor10394583

You can find his other Red State work here.

https://redstate.com/darth641/