Morning, y’all, Jebediah Murphy here on another beautiful White Trash Wednesday. And, poor Joan Beaz is not going to be allowed to sing at Walter Reed for those loser troops
Folk singer and anti-war activist Joan Baez says she doesn’t know why she was not allowed to perform for recovering soldiers recently at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as she planned.
In a letter to The Washington Post published Wednesday, she said rocker John Mellencamp had asked her to perform with him last Friday and that she accepted his invitation.
"I have always been an advocate for nonviolence and I have stood as firmly against the Iraq war as I did the Vietnam War 40 years ago," she wrote. "I realize now that I might have contributed to a better welcome home for those soldiers fresh from Vietnam. Maybe that’s why I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation to sing for those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, four days before the concert, I was not ‘approved’ by the Army to take part. Strange irony."
Yes, she might well have treated the troops returning from Vietnam much better. I reckon I won’t dig bag and find some of the things she said back then. Of course, she might want to understand why Walter Reed wouldn’t want someone such as her showing up and possibly preaching to wounded US soldiers, though Walter Reed was polite enough not to say.
You know, it might be because she made her stand with anti-Operation Iraqi Freedom nut job Cindy Sheehan. It might be because of her appearing at an Operation Ceasefire concert. It could be because her last musical release is "all dark," Baez said of the CD’s mood. "I think it reflects the times. " That would cheer the troops up, eh?
I still haven’t recovered from “The night they drove Old Dixie down…”