# Any truth to the story that John Wayne was booed by wounded veterans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 26, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940 "2016-09-26T16:32:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/1 "2016-09-26T16:32:26Z")
I’ve read the same account in two books, in William Manchester’s memoir “Good Bye Darkness” and in Studs Terkel’s “The Good War” though I’m unsure if that was just an excerpt from William Manchester’s own work. The whole thing just seems way too self-congratulatory as written by himself. Here’s the full story directly from Manchester himself. > [@](#): > > “Once we polled a rifle company, asking each man why he had joined the Marines. A majority cited ‘To the Shores of Tripoli,’ a marshmallow of a movie starring John Payne, Randolph Scott and Maureen O’Hara. Throughout the film the uniform of the day was dress blues; requests for liberty were always granted. The implication was that combat would be a lark, and when you returned, spangled with decorations, a Navy nurse like Maureen O’Hara would be waiting in your sack. It was peacetime again when John Wayne appeared on the silver screen as Sergeant Stryker in ‘Sands of Iwo Jima,’ but that film underscores the point; I went to see it with another ex-Marine, and we were asked to leave the theater because we couldn’t stop laughing. > > “After my evacuation from Okinawa, I had the enormous pleasure of seeing Wayne humiliated in person at Aiea Heights Naval Hospital in Hawaii. Only the most gravely wounded, the litter cases, were sent there. The hospital was packed, the halls lined with beds. Between Iwo Jima and Okinawa, the Marine Corps was being bled white. > > “Each evening, Navy corpsmen would carry litters down to the hospital theater so the men could watch a movie. One night they had a surprise for us. Before the film the curtains parted and out stepped John Wayne, wearing a cowboy outfit – 10-gallon hat, bandanna, checkered shirt, two pistols, chaps, boots and spurs. He grinned his aw-shucks grin, passed a hand over his face and said, ‘Hi ya, guys!’ He was greeted by a stony silence. Then somebody booed. Suddenly everyone was booing. > > “This man was a symbol of the fake machismo we had come to hate, and we weren’t going to listen to him. He tried and tried to make himself heard, but we drowned him out, and eventually he quit and left. If you liked ‘Sands of Iwo Jima,’ I suggest you be careful. Don’t tell it to the Marines.” The reason why I cast doubt on it despite being from a memoir is because it runs contrary to every single report I’ve seen from soldiers, wounded, veteran, or not interacting with celebrity guests. In World War 2, Vietnam, or the Iraq Wars anytime a celebrity would show up to a base it was always a major event no matter how D-list or obscure they were. They were all just happy to see somebody to break up the monotony of their normal days. Even hospital visits to badly wounded veterans from other non-celebrities didn’t illicit boos like in this style. Does anyone know of any other incidents like this with other celebrities or if anyone else has reported this? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/2 "2016-09-26T17:11:39Z")
Bob Hope ran into trouble in Vietnam. > **[When Comedy Met Combat](https://www.emmys.com/news/features/when-comedy-met-combat)** > > When Comedy Met Combat > [@](#): > > Yet the outburst clearly took Hope by surprise. “It threw Bob, because I don’t think he had ever experienced anything like that,” said Stevens. “And I think that was a rude awakening for him.” When the booing incident was reported, Hope was infuriated. “A few kids, about five, went ‘Boo!’ which they will do, you know?” he said. “If you say, ‘Second Lieutenant,’ they go ‘Boo!’” > > Yet in an account of the episode in his 1974 memoir The Last Christmas Show , Hope conceded that he had problems with the crowd that day at Lai Khe, calling it “the coldest, most unresponsive audience my show had ever played to.” > > He found out later that many of the soldiers “were in a state of shock” because they had come to the show directly after a fierce morning of fighting, in which many of their friends had been killed. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/3 "2016-09-26T17:14:38Z")
Manchester also retells the story in a NY Times article and I would hope that the Times did some fact-checking before printing it–though of course given the Jayson Blair scandal in 2003 one never knows > **[THE BLOODIEST BATTLE OF ALL (Published 1987)](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/14/magazine/the-bloodiest-battle-of-all.html?pagewanted=all)** Yahoo answers has some posts on this: > **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com/)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! And here’s a blog post on John Wayne being a draft dodger: > **[The Truth About John Wayne](http://jamillerrampant.blogspot.com/2007/05/truth-about-john-wayne.html)** > > The screen "hero" of such epics as The Sands of Iwo Jima deliberately avoided all combat in the Second World War. The story is here , cour... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/4 "2016-09-26T23:29:12Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > Manchester also retells the story in a NY Times article and I would hope that the Times did some fact-checking before printing it–though of course given the Jayson Blair scandal in 2003 one never knows Name a news source in all of history that has never printed anything false. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/5 "2016-09-27T00:12:45Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > And here’s a blog post on John Wayne being a draft dodger: > [J. Miller Rampant!: The Truth About John Wayne](http://jamillerrampant.blogspot.com/2007/05/truth-about-john-wayne.html) He wasn’t a draft dodger. For a brief time men in his age range were eligible to be drafted but by 1942 he was over the age range that was set by executive order. He was also classified 3-A which is a family deferment. He could have volunteered and it seems like he regretted not volunteering but he was by no definition a draft dodger. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/6 "2016-09-27T00:18:40Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Name a news source in all of history that has never printed anything false. And it’s a New York Times Magazine article not a news article. That article is part memoir and part opinion piece. What kind of fact checking could be done? ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/7 "2016-09-27T00:44:34Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Name a news source in all of history that has never printed anything false. The usual alibiing and excuise liberals make when they are caught lying, to push their racist policies of giving jobs to unqualified people. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@Troy\_McClure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/8 "2016-09-27T01:28:27Z")
It’s been some 20 years since I had to read Goodbye Darkness for a history class, but I remember getting to the Author’s Note at the end and discovering that he hadn’t actually been in most of the battles he described (as best I can recall, he described everything in the first person). That he had actually only fought on Okinawa for a couple of months. And at that point, the whole book became kind of pointless to me, since I wasn’t going to go back and try to figure out which parts were really autobiographical and which were just stories he was retelling, and figure out how much of it was BS. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/9 "2016-09-27T01:39:55Z")
Cecil [Was John Wayne a draft dodger?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1055/was-john-wayne-a-draft-dodger) > [@](#): > > At the time of Pearl Harbor, Wayne was 34 years old. His marriage was on the rocks but he still had four kids to support. His career was taking off, in large part on the strength of his work in the classic western Stagecoach (1939). But he wasn’t rich. Should he chuck it all and enlist? Many of Hollywood’s big names, such as Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, and Clark Gable, did just that. (Fonda, Wills points out, was 37 at the time and had a wife and three kids.) But these were established stars. Wayne knew that if he took a few years off for military service, there was a good chance that by the time he got back he’d be over the hill. > > Besides, he specialized in the kind of movies a nation at war wanted to see, in which a rugged American hero overcame great odds.\*\* Recognizing that Hollywood was an important part of the war effort, Washington had told California draft boards to go easy on actors.\*\* Perhaps rationalizing that he could do more good at home, Wayne obtained 3-A status, “deferred for [family] dependency reasons.” He told friends he’d enlist after he made just one or two more movies. There’s a lot more, read the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/10 "2016-09-27T03:01:06Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > The usual alibiing and excuise liberals make when they are caught lying, to push their racist policies of giving jobs to unqualified people. **Moderator Warning** **Jim’s Son** , you know that political jabs are not allowed in General Questions, since you’ve been warned for it before. Here’s another. Keep it up and your posting privileges will be under discussion. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/11 "2016-09-27T10:15:53Z")
Going on from **running coach** ’s post, I recall reading (sorry, no cite) that in 1939 a number of British actors were told that they would do more for the British war effort by staying in Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/12 "2016-09-27T13:45:18Z")
How’d that work? They’d just be cast as villains anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/13 "2016-09-27T15:19:46Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > How’d that work? They’d just be cast as villains anyway. Remember, this was before _Die Hard_. 😃 Seriously, though, there was a genre of WWII movies set in the UK, like [A Yank In The R.A.F.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Yank_in_the_R.A.F.), [Mrs. Miniver](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Miniver_(film)), and [Forever And A Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_and_a_Day_(1943_film)). ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/14 "2016-09-27T18:44:30Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Going on from **running coach** ’s post, I recall reading (sorry, no cite) that in 1939 a number of British actors were told that they would do more for the British war effort by staying in Hollywood. That didn’t stop David Niven, for one, from returning to England and re-enlisting. That despite the fact that he’d already served a hitch in the British Amy, and wasn’t obliged to serve again. Niven claims he once met Winston Churchill, who told him, “Sir, you did a fine thing.” Then he paused and added, “Mind, if you had NOT done so, you would have been despicable.” ---
**Author:** ![westhou](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f1d935/32.png) [@westhou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/westhou)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/15 "2016-09-27T22:21:00Z")
I agree that John Wayne likely did more for the war effort as an actor than he would have in the military. I remember reading that after TOP GUN, applicants for Naval Aviation went up 500%. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/16 "2016-09-28T12:49:15Z")
"I thought I was applying for Kelly McGillis! ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-truth-to-the-story-that-john-wayne-was-booed-by-wounded-veterans/766940/17 "2016-09-28T18:07:30Z")
> [@westhou](#): > > I agree that John Wayne likely did more for the war effort as an actor than he would have in the military. I remember reading that after TOP GUN, applicants for Naval Aviation went up 500%. What mortal threat was the nation facing in 1986 that Tom Cruise saved us from? 11.5 million men were drafted into the US armed forces during WWII; by 1945 and the actual landing on Iwo Jima even the Marines were taking conscripts.