John Wayne reconsidered

Ron in front of The Duke's birthplace

 Even though I grew up in Creston, Iowa, a town less than an hour from John Wayne's birthplace in Winterset, I hadn't visited this landmark until Labor Day this year. The fact that Ron's father is a big John Wayne fan and coming close to running out of things for Ron to do on long trips to and from Creston made me decide that the time was right to visit the John Wayne birthplace.

When I was growing up John Wayne had long since become a caricature of The Great American Cowboy, starring in movies such as True Grit, The Cowboys and The Shootist. He also happened to be an outspoken conservative, supporting the Vietnam War and to me he represented many of the things that I felt were wrong with the US.

In 1968, he was the driving force for and starred in The Green Berets, a movie which was criticized for glorifying the Vietnam War. My brother Jon had the album which featured a former Green Beret speaking (not singing) the title song for the movie. In part the lyrics were:
"Back at home a young wife waits/ Her Green Beret has met his fate/ He has died for those oppressed/ Leaving her this last request.

Put silver wings on my son's chest/ Make him one of America's best/ He'll be a man they'll test one day/ Have him win the Green Beret."

Stirring? Well, not really, at least not to me. Although the song was hugely popular, I couldn't really get behind it (of course I didn't like The Carpenters either). It seemed a little too sentimental and extremely manipulative.  I had very little love in my heart for John Wayne.

But that didn't seem to matter last week when we visited the birthplace. There was a gift shop where you could buy pretty much everything John Wayne including beef jerky, thermometers, memorial plates and cookie jars. We got Ron's father a coffee cup featuring The Duke's mug and the immortal saying "A man's got to do what a man's got to do" (supposedly said by Wayne in Stagecoach or Hondo, but regrettably unconfirmed by our tour guide).

Abbie Hoffman

Wayne is long since dead (he passed away in 1979) and my days of being a fuzzy-headed liberal have been diluted by almost 25 years of marriage to a Republican. So the John Wayne birthplace was kind of a blast from the past. The years have gifted me with moderation and respect for the character of individual even if they don't agree with me politically. Like Abbie Hoffman said "I like Wayne's wholeness, his style. As for his politics, well — I suppose even cavemen felt a little admiration for the dinosaurs that were trying to gobble them up."
Well said.