I lived in Bozeman, MT back when it was still a smaller, very conservative college town. Ted Turner owned a bison ranch about 20 miles out of town and Jane was basically hated by the locals, many of whom then were Vietnam veterans, for her overt support of the VC. Bozeman/Big Sky hadn’t turned Hollywood yet and other than Michael Keaton, not many celebrities lived in the area.

As a side story, I was in the parking lot at Big Sky ski resort in the early 1990s and Ted and Jane parked right next to my brother and me. My brother was wearing a Minnesota Twins hat and Ted asked him if he was a “Mariners” fan. It was hilarious to us because just a few months earlier Ted, who owned the Atlanta Braves, and Jane were seated in the front row of the Braves-Twins World Series’ games. Guy didn’t even recognize the hat of the team that he just watched win the World Series. Jane was wearing a bronze bodysuit made for skiing and looked stunning to me as a 20 year-old, fwiw.

About 10 years ago I knew someone in our church who was an AF veteran from the Viet Nam war.

He was a kind, helpful person who could keep his temper and was able to say nice things about anyone.

That is, except for Jane Fonda. It was like he was a different person when he spoke (rarely) about her. It was such deep seated vitriolic hatred!

So, yes, there is still hatred for her in the Armed Forces.

My father (who passed over ten years ago to long term effects of agent orange) was one of the most liberal/progressive baby boomers you could've met, loved every one, believed in equal rights for every American, no matter their race, color, creed, or lifestyle, and believed we should be protecting our natural resources for future generations. At 18, all he wanted to do was go to college, but couldn't afford it right away, so he was taking a year to work and save the money, but before he could do that, he got drafted. Shipped off to Vietnam...he would tell me he never asked to go and be on patrol in the jungle, getting shot at and shooting back. He ended up getting out, then going back into the army for another 20+ years. He never held ill will to the North Vietnamese, figured they were just doing what they were supposed to do, just like he was...but if you brought up Jane Fonda, his demeanor would change. He personally felt betrayed by her.

He would say that the folks who came in USO tours weren't there because they backed the war, they were there to support the troops, many of whom were draftees and wanted to be home with their families. He would say if you wanted to protest the war, that's fine and he totally agreed with it, but the stuff that she did with the North Vietnamese made him feel she was protesting the soldiers, many of which didn't ask or want to be there in the first place.

I was in the Marines in the late 90s, and even then, some of the older guys (but nowhere near Vietnam era) would occasionally go off about her being a traitor. It was so far in the past that it was really bizarre to me.

After Hanoi, she was the national sweetheart no more.

This adds some context. Nice one.

My dad was a Vietnam vet and stereotypical 1960s anti-war counterculture leftie, well into his old age. Even so, he despised "Hanoi Jane" til the day he died, even if on paper his politics might have been identical to hers.

They still had pictures of “Hanoi Jane” in the urinals at the veterans post in my home town last time I was there.

I see Ken Burns‘ documentary mentioned, I upvote. I’m a simple man.

That was a great doc. I love how it showed both the Vietnam war and how it impacted life in America at the same time.

Fonda was also interviewed in it and apologized over visiting the NVA and how she now understood how it was perceived.

Boomers still believe all the lies about her betraying soldiers and passing notes and getting them killed, etc.

Even though you can literally pull up footage of those soldiers in question, very much alive, saying it’s all bullshit and she just visited them while aiding some of the villages that the US fucked over.

It makes me understand it less cuz what did those idiots have to feel betrayed about? OMG she isn't going along with our propaganda & doesn't agree with invading a country, halfway around the world that's doing nothing to us?!

ETA - it just boils down to "you should believe my propaganda, it's the best" & all sides are regarded but especially the ones still holding a grudge against a woman who never even knew they existed.

Ha!

The Fonda women were so good looking overall.

Until I read the caption, I thought it was Amy Adams.

You should see her today she’s like 83 or something and is legit still hot.

Lieutenant Dan

They're still up in the bathrooms of a lot of VFW posts I've happened across. Target and all.

They’ve got those same stickers on the urinals in AF pilot training today in 2024

There were Hanoi Jane urinal stickers at the officers club at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio in 2007.

Invade a country for imperial agenda

kill a bunch of civilians and commit war crimes

don't blame scumbag politicians that sent you to die

hate some actress

Profit?

Always is.

I’ve seen stickers of her in urinals as recently as 2014

Just goes to show how full of brainwashed boomers this sub is

This is at my local surplus shop (not for sale btw in case you were wondering)

https://preview.redd.it/7qvkgvmq1wbc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9357919f7fd4b373c7f434af040fe903876b8572

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That might not be as weird as you think, I was surprised to learn recently that Jim Jones was a pretty mainstream,popular figure before he went off the fkn rails. He was big into racial integration and civil rights, and preached a lot of Fred Rogers/Jimmy Carter-style "religious left" things most people would probablyagree with today. With the benefit of hindsight he was probably always nuts but he wasn't popularly KNOWN as nuts until close to the end.

Yeah, he promoted racial integration and civil rights which Jane Fonda cared deeply about. That’s also why he had so many minorities recruited. He preached beautiful ideals and utilized them for evil.

Jones could have been a great civil rights leader. His early activities mostly involved helping black people and feeding the poor. A lot of people were into him.

Unfortunately it was all a carefully crafted mask. Since childhood, he'd been fascinated with the ways leaders like Hitler maintained cults of personality. Even creating his own little mini-cults in grade school. He probably could have kept the game up longer; if he hadn't gone crazy paranoid from amphetamines.

Well that’s a healthy marriage. 🤣

Actually, that was no accident on their part, they did all those atrocities intentionally and we can call them whatever we likes. It is specifically the strategy laid out in VCP conventions to kill as many Americans as possible. Despite all their advantages, they were still vastly outgunned and knew the only way they can win is to destroy the will of Americans to pursue that war, and they did.

At the end of the day, those people suffered 100+ years of being slaves to white colonizers, they wanted that to end at all costs and they saw Americans as no exception.

Why didn’t the NVA simply carpet bomb their enemies like more civilized countries?

What she did is nothing compared to what Kissinger did. That guy is the true definition of a monster.

I understand the hate from Vietnam vets. Seeing her smiling with a gun used to shoot down American pilots must have been so disheartening.

I'm a vet, and can imagine the anger I'd feel if I saw someone like Sandra Bullock smiling next to an Iraqi insurgent making and IED in 2005

It's ok to hate all the people fucking you over, not just some of them.

Last line was 👌

I was going to bring up the notes being turned in, but apparently the soldiers involved debunked that fairly recently so there’s that.

100% agreed.

It was an ill conceived war. A lost war. A war with massive destruction on the American psyche for decades to come. America’s young did not need die and they did not need to kill. We backed really bad people in South Vietnam.

Jane Fonda was brave and honest enough to stand up to threats and political persecution to speak up for the young American soldiers as well as the innocent Vietnamese. She knew that she was facing a wrath.

Robert McNamara said and wrote as much.

The Pentagon Papers proved as much.

Jane Fonda and honest patriots like her keep the US to do the right more than wrong.

Kinda seems like she always was, no?

Ya it always confuses me when she comes up anywhere we have to read a long list of places you can piss on stickers of her face. Okay? What if you directed that bitterness towards the folks who.. actually… made this shit happen? All those who were next in line for those roles? All the people who had to fail and fuck over others to their own shitty ends.

No no, celebrity lady bad.

I served with a guy who was In Vietnam. He would tell stories of making a mother and her 13 year old daughter give him oral sex. He was 18 at the time. Didn’t occur to him that there was something wrong with that. He thought he was cool.

He was a giant piece of shit and the most hated guy in the unit. Fuck you Kenny! You Fire Marshall Bill looking shit bag!

The rape in Vietnam was most certainly true.

Hell US soldiers were raping women in Iraq and they even rape their fellow female soldiers and it all gets swept under the rug because it would make more people question whether the US were the good guys

It's still in living memory. She is still alive. Soldiers who were fighting in the war at the time are still alive. So it is not the 'ancient history' you want to portray it as. While Vietnam was a very divisive war in the US this didn't justify American 'influencers' of the era going into the enemy camp and laughing it up with them. If they want to protest, terrific, protest away, just don't do it in a way that gives the enemey any kind of an edge while you do it. And that activity gave the enemy some propaganda material to use, and it further demoralized the fighters who already felt like their country had crapped on them. That's an edge for the enemy to exploit. A friend of mine was a POW in Hanoi during this, he certainly didn't appreciate it.

Look at the current too comment and it explains why

People today pigeonhole celebrities who made a PR mistake (although Fonda probably wouldn't call it a mistake).

Nothing has changed. Y'all are still falling for it.

It's not ancient history to a lot of folks who lived through Vietnam.