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[This was originally run last year, on John Wayne's 98th
birthday. We will run it every May 26
in his honor.]
Today is John Wayne's 99th birthday. He was born on May 26, 1907 in Winterset,
Iowa, weighing 13 pounds. His
birthplace is a museum, and a few years ago I took my son Brandon to visit it. There was a guest book, opened to a page
with the entry, in the entrant's handwriting,
Name: Ronald Reagan. Address:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington DC.
To celebrate the birthday of a truly great American, let me
tell you how John Wayne saved the Marine Corps.
In the aftermath of World War II, the psychological letdown
after years of war and bloodshed, the huge demobilization of servicemen, the
desire to slash military spending, and the antipathy towards the military by
left-wingers in the Democrat Party all combined in a call by a number of
Senators and Congressmen to abolish the Marine Corps.
In this, they were supported by the Doolittle Board, created
by the Truman Administration, which called for the Marine Corps to be
"disbanded" as a separate military force, and "unified" with the Army (yes, the
board was headed by an Army general, Jimmy Doolittle).
A group of enterprising Marines - you can always depend on
Marines to be enterprising - with Hollywood connections thought a movie made
around the most famous picture of World War II, Joe Rosenthal's of the Marines
raising the flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, could help sway public opinion
against their disbandment.
They approached legendary director Allan Dwan, who agreed to
commission a script. The movie was to
be called "The Sands of Iwo Jima," and everybody agreed there was only one man
who could play the lead role of Sergeant Stryker: John Wayne.
To their great surprise, Wayne turned it down. He didn't like the script, and he wasn't
enamored of the character of Stryker.
The Marines came to the rescue again.
The Marine Corps Commandant, General Clifton B. Cates, got on an
airplane and flew from Washington to California to personally request Wayne
make the picture.
When General Cates explained the stakes involved - the very
existence of the Marine Corps - Wayne immediately changed his mind, promising
the general he would do everything in his power to have the movie be a success.
The
Sands of Iwo Jima was released in 1949 and quickly
became a runaway blockbuster, with millions of moviegoers packing every theatre
showing it. Wayne was nominated for a
Best Actor Oscar, establishing him as Hollywood's Number One box-office
star. The Doolittle Board folded its
tent, and no politician on Capitol Hill ever again said a word about disbanding
the Marines.
So let's all say "Semper Fi" to the memory of John
Wayne.
To further celebrate his birthday, here's a treat and some
advice. The treat is this link: A Biography of John Wayne written
by Ronald Reagan, in the October 1979 Reader's Digest.
The advice is this:
Don't ever trust a man who doesn't like John Wayne. A man's opinion of John Wayne is a good
rule-of-thumb test of his character and moral values. To admire John Wayne is to admire the heroic and the morally
noble. To sneer at John Wayne is to
admire the opposite.
It's revealing that you find very few liberals among the
former, and very few conservatives among the latter.
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