The Jane Fonda of the Far Right: Yeagley's Attacks on Veterans, Especially Vietnam Vets and Native Vets

In a conversation on Indianz.com, I received this request to take a look at an article of Yeagley's. The poster asked me, is Yeagley bashing veterans?

"Ok I want your input on this as a doctor of history, so let get it on...

I ask you this now doesnt this post look like some one, who used the illusion of having a so called american indian site...give me your feedback. Either say yes or no to what I call a last ditch effort on CON-manche to what defend himself, by attacking, in what he thinks a so smart way...Nam vets or any Vets, so if he thinks I am with you or you think I am with him I am not...

I am and will be a Nam vet so if you are a VET (I am not doubting this due to I have checked it out,being a so called lawman, retired). So as a Vet you tell me if this so called enrolled breed is still using, or as you say getting Vets to dance for his own uses.

Now again I want an objective view and use your ED. I was defending Ms. Elk due to her father and I served together, and as a VET do you understand that? I want this from you some objective feedback on what I am saying is an attack on VETS, by a person who never served...

Al as a Vet can you really understand what I am asking for, or maybe since your own Father was a career man, you can understand...I give you this You have served your country and are a VET...

I am a Vet, who came back to crap, do you understand that?

...I am again saying to you, give me a objective insight, on what I think is a non-vet trying to defend himself and still not getting it. He is just dissing all VETS, can you see that?"

The article was:
One Upmanship—Injun Style
By David Yeagley

Here's my response to the post at Indianz.com. Quotes from Yeagley's articles have arrows:

"I agree with you. There's no doubt Yeagley is attacking both NDN vets and all vets, Vietnam vets especially, as bad as or worse than anything Jane Fonda did.

He's been criticized repeatedly by vets, so this is his way of saying he doesn't care and going on to smear them as mentally ill unstable bullies.

He does this not just once but repeatedly:

>>>military service is hard to top. Yet, at this point, we have to ask, is it really worthy?<<<

He's saying your experience doesn't count for much of anything, doesn't make you special.

>>>A veteran can talk about what he went through in the war, particularly the Vietnam conflict, as though it gives him the last word on anyone and anything. Some Nam vets come to expect it.<<<

Here he's singling out Vietnam vets.

>>>But, if unique experience is the basis of special authority, then many people qualify. Lots of people have suffered long, agonizing pain and anxiety—without purpose, without sympathy, and without honor. Many people have faced death, repeatedly, in the privacy of their own homes, in the quiet of the night. No, not on battlefields where bullets and bombs come at them, but death comes, just as assuredly. There are many kinds of horror. Who’s to say which is worst, or which will render the sufferer the last word?<<<

Again, saying that combat vets suffering doesn't give them any kind of insight. He also comes close to saying they don't deserve any respect.

That's nonsense. If someone suffers and they don't learn anything from it, there is something seriously wrong with them.

>>>But the [combat veteran] has lost all sense of social propriety. He interrupts important wedding guests, on their way to the ceremony. He insists on ruining their purpose, as if this would prove that his personal experience is more important that theirs. He insists on his, over and against theirs. It’s a simple case of one-upmanship.<<<

Here he's basically saying it's time for vets to just SHUT UP. He's saying he does not want to know about your experience and sees it as just "one upmanship."

>>>The sufferer becomes self-absorbed. He can see none but his own experience, and his mission is to tell it to everyone—especially those who have not suffered, who are in fact anticipating great joy in life. Nasty old man, this [combat veteran]?<<<

Calling combat vets nasty and self absorbed. Yeagley is going beyond criticism to make all kinds of vicous generalizations.

Keep in mind that Yeagley was eligible to serve in both the last stages of Vietnam and the Gulf War, but did not.

>>>He definitely wants attention, and special attention—the kind you can only get when you rudely interrupt someone who has urgent and joyful obligations.<<<

And accusing combat vets of just wanting attention and being rude.

How clueless he be? Some combat veterans are trying to explain what they've been through because it's a part of the healing process.

And many combat veterans who've suffered through war are generally trying to make sure people understand just exactly what they're getting into before going off to war again. This includes veterans of all political backgrounds.

>>>Some people were insecure bullies before they ever suffered on the battlefield. War didn’t change them.<<<

Calling combat vets insecure bullies. Yeagley's getting worse and is completely unable to see that HE is the one engaged in bullying veterans by his cheap smear tactics.

>>>They had personality problems before they went in and they had the same when they came out. The military service then becomes a justification, a medal, for all that is ill and faulty in them, excusing every flaw?<<<

Now he's accusing combat vets of being drawn to service by mental illness.

>>>I just know that there are men who suffered greatly on the battlefield, and come back to breathe nary a word of it.<<<

He's as clueless as they come. A lot of vets can't talk about what they went through, it's too painful.

>>>Others, who never saw the battlefield, never had a shot fired at them, can talk endlessly about their great accomplishments.<<<

Well, here I wonder if he's talking about Tall "soldier", who pretends to be a Gulf War Airborne vet when he was a clerk stateside, or about himself, who avoided serving in two wars.

>>>Men tend to be braggarts. That’s the long and short of it.<<<

And ending the whole hateful rant by calling combat vets full of themselves.

It's painfully obvious with everything he says that Yeagley has never been around NDN people, and his forum is mostly non NDNs. In an NDN forum he'd be called out on not understanding a damn thing about vets right away.