RE: ART & LIFE: Another reader, goes beyond Apocalypse Now re: Kerry:
I saw something interesting in another movie recently, “In Harm’s Way” (1965). I think the title of the film is pretty ironic, too. There is a brief scene where two naval officers are having a discussion about being sent to hostile waters. One of the officers is a secondary character, Commander Owynn, who has a political career in mind after the war. He’s not too keen on being shipped out to a danger zone, so the other officer consoles him by saying (and I’m paraphrasing) “Some combat would be good for your political career, a purple heart might be worth half a million votes.”
Now I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but given the year of the movie’s release and the fact that it contained scenes with PT -boats, perhaps a young college student bent on emulating JFK would have seen the movie and drawn some inspiration. At any rate, that scene sort of jumped out at me, and my sick twisted mind instantly thought, “Hmm, 3 Purple hearts would be worth 1.5 million votes.” I think I’m being overloaded with campaign coverage.