The Meaning of "Honor"

        Honesty trumps convenience when Viet POWs defend Jane Fonda

The search for strong and decent leadership in America today suggests the need for a closer examination of what each of us can do to restore the respect for "Honor" in our national culture. Many today would single out Honor as the value most likely to make a difference in our national leadership. Many also are determined to forestall a repeat of our American leadership's recent past, particularly at the dawn of the 21st century with the world more divided than anyone alive today can remember.....

An e-mail hoax currently making the rounds through the Internet might serve to make the point. The message has already been distributed to an unknown, but certainly enormous, number of computer users throughout the English-speaking world. Dubbed "Less We Forget," the message was purportedly originated by former American fighter pilots. It expresses outrage at the recent decision by editors at Ladies Home Journal to include Jane Fonda as one of the "100 Most Important Women of the Century." Fonda, of course, has already been castigated by Vietnam vets as "Hanoi Jane" for her 1972 Hanoi trip in which she called American POWs "war criminals." Her statements at that time were broadcast in a series of propaganda announcements by Hanoi Radio into the "Hanoi Hilton," the prison compound holding the POWs, and throughout North Vietnam......

Michael J. Stedman is President of BINS, Inc., Business Intelligence Network Systems, networking people and mining data, at 781-239-9845 or cointell@mediaone.net.