Eight War Weenies

At the outset let me say that I pass no judgment on a person’s character based on their service record or lack of same. Among the former EightSails staff, one never contemplated enlisting at all, one served for several years in the Navy and the third made it most of the way through MEPS before the Army finally admitted that it didn’t have any openings in the MOS the recruiter implied he could sign up for. And of course we all have family and friends who’ve served with distinction and others who actively protested the Vietnam War. From this we’ve learned that it takes all kinds.

One kind that we wish it didn’t take, however, is the War Weenie, the jerk who won’t do any significant military service himself but has no problem at all making a ton of money playing super-macho commandos in movies that help convince others to enlist and place themselves in harm’s way. This talk talking without walk walking is frankly shameful. These eight really ought to take every penny they’ve made from pro-war media and donate it all to veterans’ organizations.

John Wayne – If they gave a medal for this particular brand of hypocrisy, it would be named “The Three M” after Marion Mitchell Morrison. There’s some dispute about the circumstances that kept Wayne out of the draft during World War Two, but the fact remains that he never served a day. The closest he ever came was a publicity tour of the South Pacific. William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, the head of the OSS, asked Wayne to do a little intelligence gathering while he was there, but even at this simple task he didn’t meet with much success. Not exactly the hero of The Sands of Iwo Jima and The Green Berets.

Sylvester Stallone – The closest Stallone ever came to the Army was getting sent to military school as a kid. Despite being desperate enough for money to do a porn movie in the early 70s, enlistment apparently wasn’t in the cards for him. But then he went on to rake in the bucks for playing Green Beret John Rambo. If he’d left off after First Blood, I wouldn’t be picking on him; that one was a reasonably sensitive portrayal of some of the injustices faced by Vietnam veterans trying to return to civilian life. Oh, but then he made the Reagan-era sequel, cashing in on the POW-MIA issue and pontificating heavily along the way. Two more similar sequels and a host of other military roles thoroughly brand him as a war weenie.

Arnold Schwarzenegger – Unlike the rest of the mooks on this list, Schwarzenegger at least technically served in the military. Of course a year of military service was compulsory for all young Austrian men, so it isn’t like he had a choice. But before he even finished basic training he spent time in the lock-up for going AWOL to participate in a bodybuilding competition. Later he was involved in taking a joy ride with a tank, complete with infantry clinging on for their lives. Not exactly the level of dedication to duty – however vile – shown by his father, SA volunteer Gustav Schwarzenegger.

Steven Seagal – Unlike some other Hollywood action movie stars, Seagal actually is a legitimate martial artist. Though we’d never dispute his skill at Aikido, he has no military record at all. So when he plays former Special Forces guys in movies such as Above the Law and Under Siege, well, maybe he should just stick to kicking bad guys’ asses without incorporating a lot of back story.

Tom Cruise – Top Gun is arguably the greatest piece of movie propaganda ever made outside the Soviet Union. Further, Cruise got his acting career underway playing an ultra-fanatical cadet in Taps. And as of this writing he’s on his umpteenth go-around as super special operative Ethan Hunt. Do I even have to tell you he never spent a second in the military?

Mark Wahlberg – Marky Mark doesn’t specialize exclusively in military roles, but he’s made a buck or two from such parts over the years (particularly Three Kings and Shooter). But if he’d wanted to enlist, his prospects wouldn’t have been great. Even during a downturn in recruitment, the services would have struggled with the jail time he did for committing a hate crime. Oh, and the drug abuse.

Lee Greenwood – There ain’t no doubt, he loves this land. Just not enough to enlist. So we’re clear, let me repeat that it’s perfectly possible to be a patriot without being a current or former member of the military. But Greenwood’s made a tidy sum since Gulf War One as the unofficial balladeer of ventures that place our soldiers and sailors in harm’s way with murky objectives and nonexistent exit strategies. That money hasn’t ever been anywhere near his mouth.

Toby Keith – In addition to singing songs about going out lynching, Keith penned a little ditty called “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” Now, I’ll freely grant the man the right to be royally pissed about the Sept. 11 attacks. But for all his bluster, the boot that gets twisted off in terrorism’s collective ass won’t be on his foot. His dad was a soldier, but not him.

Eight Surprising War Heroes

A lot of celebrity résumés include military service of one kind or another. In many cases, actors have used their military experience to help them play roles. For example, it will surprise precisely nobody to learn that R. Lee Ermey was a former Marine Corps drill sergeant. Even some less obvious veterans aren’t big surprises. If you’ve seen Henry Fonda’s excellent work in the title role of Mister Roberts, you have no problem imagining him deliberately avoiding service behind the lines (or not serving at all) and opting for combat duty. Which is exactly what he did in real life. Saying “I don’t want to be in a fake war in a studio,” he volunteered for duty aboard a destroyer, which eventually earned him the Bronze Star.

However, wartime service calls people from all walks of life, even folks who don’t seem like the military type. Such as these eight:

Julia Child – After being declared too tall to serve in the WACs or WAVES, Child signed up to work for the OSS. At first she was stuck with typing duty, but thanks to her intelligence and education she was swiftly promoted to top secret research. She worked directly for William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan for awhile, then aided in the development of repellent to keep sharks from setting off mines designed to deter U-boats. Eventually she was sent into the field, serving in Ceylon and China. She earned an Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service for her efforts to coordinate secret communications.

Dr. Ruth Westheimer – The teeny (four feet seven inches) lady who makes a living dispensing sex advice in books and on talk shows? Well, everyone has a past. Hers includes losing both parents in the Holocaust. After the war she emigrated to Palestine, where she joined the Haganah, the paramilitary force that would become the Israel Defense Forces after the country gained independence. Because of her height, she was trained as a sniper and scout. She was seriously injured by an explosion during the War of Independence in 1948, and after she recovered she emigrated to France and later to the United States.

Russell Johnson – The Professor from Gilligan’s Island was a war hero? Yep. During World War Two he served as a bombardier in B-25s. In March 1945 his plane was shot down during a low-level bombing run against Japanese targets in the Philippines. Johnson broke both ankles, and the radioman next to him was killed. He received the Purple Heart and several other medals. After the war he enlisted in the Army Reserve and used the G.I. Bill to help pay for acting school.

Alan Alda – The star of M*A*S*H, the most stridently anti-war show in broadcast television history, got his start after college in the Army Reserve. His enlistment included a six-month tour of duty as a gunnery officer during the Korean War.

Mel Brooks – As a comedic actor, writer and director, Brooks comes across as one of the world’s most harmless individuals. But during World War Two he was a corporal in the Army. He saw combat during the Battle of the Bulge and for awhile specialized in defusing land mines (which no doubt contributed to his sharp sense of humor).

Ted Knight – Sitcom fans everywhere remember Knight as semi-lovable doofus Ted Baxter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (or possibly as the grouchy dad on Too Close for Comfort). But before his acting career got underway, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the Army. Serving in the Combat Engineers, he saw enough action in Europe to earn five battle stars.

Donald Pleasance – He’s famous as nervous, non-macho Dr. Loomis in a handful of the Halloween movies, or perhaps for playing creepy bad guys ranging from Heinrich Himmler to Bond nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Though he started World War Two as a conscientious objector, he later changed his mind and enlisted in the RAF. He served as a tail gunner for a Lancaster bomber until his plane was shot down and the Germans took him prisoner. Rumor has it that during the shooting of The Great Escape (in which he played Flight Lt. Colin Blythe), Pleasance made a remark to director John Sturges about how one of his scenes should be played. Sturges was in the process of giving him a lecture about actors knowing their places when someone in the crew broke in and mentioned that Pleasance might know what he was talking about because he’d actually been in a POW camp.

Christopher Lee – Though he’s best known today for playing Dracula and other horror roles in Hammer movies, Lee did some scary duty in the Second World War. He enlisted early on and was part of a British force sent to help Finland defend against Soviet invasion in 1939. He went on to serve in several intelligence jobs, including the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa and the Special Operations Executive. In general he’s been reluctant to say much about the experience in interviews.

And here’s a bit of behind-the-scenes trivia about putting this list together. One of the leads I followed up was an old rumor that beloved, mild-mannered kiddie show host Fred Rogers was a sniper in Vietnam and always wore long-sleeved shirts or sweaters on his show to hide his military tattoos. No truth to it. Rogers was a lifelong pacifist, vegetarian and Presbyterian minister. However, rumors often prove to be facts confused in the retelling. So I checked into the backgrounds of some other well-known kids' show personalities to see if any of them were secret combat veterans.

The most logical place to start was Captain Kangaroo, what with his rank and all. This led to another rumor: supposedly Lee Marvin claimed in a Tonight Show interview that he served alongside Bob Keeshan at Iwo Jima. Wrong on both counts (or all three, as Marvin never made the claim). Keeshan was in the Army during World War Two, but he enlisted too late to see service overseas. For Marvin’s part, he couldn’t have been on Iwo Jima because he was in the hospital after being wounded in fighting on Saipan. Hugh “Mr. Greenjeans” Brannum was in the Marine Corps, but he served in the band rather than on the front lines.

I kinda hoped that one of the “gentle souls” on Sesame Street was secretly the rumored sniper. But again no. The closest any of the cast ever came to combat was Will “Mr. Hooper” Lee, who served in the Army’s entertainment division during the Second World War putting on plays and teaching acting in Manila and Australia. On the other hand, later he stood up to the House Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted for his trouble, not bravery under gunfire but bravery nonetheless.

The closest anyone in the kiddie show business comes to “war hero” is Bob Bell, who played Bozo the Clown for more than two decades. He couldn’t have been a sniper, at least in part because of vision loss in his right eye. Indeed, he faked his way through the USMC entrance testing in 1941 by memorizing the eye chart. When the Marines found out they gave him a medical discharge. But he turned around and joined the Navy, serving in the Pacific until 1946.

Fun Fact to Know and Tell 4

Stanley Kubrick, darling of audiences and critics alike, began his directing career making industrial movies. A typical example: The Seafarers, a promotional film for the Seafarer’s International Union.

For more on his movies, see the 8sails Kubrick filmography.

Fun Fact to Know and Tell 3

Angry Birds games have been downloaded more than 500,000,000 times. Estimated total game playing time worldwide currently totals more than 200,000 years.

For more fun stuff about Angry Birds (and gaming in general), check out the Media Survival Guide’s entry.

Fun Fact to Know and Tell 2

In an average 65 days YouTube users add more hours of content than the four major broadcast networks have created in the last 65 years.

For more interesting stuff about YouTube (such as current usage statistics), check out the entry in the Survival Guide.

Fun Fact to Know and Tell

Are you reading this blog via a dial-up modem? If so, take heart. America Online – the world’s largest dial-up service provider – still has 3.5 million customers, even in the age of high-speed connections. That’s down quite a bit from the service’s high water mark of 30 million subscribers, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at.

To learn more about AOL, check out its entry in the 8sails Media Survival Guide.