John Wayne Thought Jane Fonda Should Be ‘Ashamed’ – Questioned How She Could ‘Sleep At Night’

Unlike the vast majority of stars that are working in Hollywood today, the legendary John Wayne was a proud patriot who was unapologetic about his love for America.

That’s why it should come as no surprise that he was unafraid to speak out against the radically liberal actress Jane Fonda, who earned herself the nickname “Hanoi Jane” back in 1972 after she gleefully posed while straddling an anti-aircraft gun in Hanoi that was used to kill American soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Wayne Rips Fonda

After the photo of Fonda posing on the anti-aircraft gun came out, Wayne slammed both her and her activist then-husband Tom Hayden, who she was married to from 1973 until they divorced in 1990.

“I would think somebody like Jane Fonda and her idiot husband would be terribly ashamed and saddened that they were a part of causing us to stop helping the South Vietnamese,” Wayne said, according to Cheat Sheet.

“Now look what’s happening. They’re getting killed by the millions,” he added. “Murdered by the millions. How the hell can she and her husband sleep at night?”

Related: Jane Fonda, 85, Defiantly Says She’ll Never Stop Protesting – ‘It’s All Hands On Deck’

Wayne Traveled To Vietnam To Support American Troops

Unlike Fonda, Wayne did everything he could to support American troops during the Vietnam War. In the summer of 1966, Wayne travelled to Vietnam as part of a tour that was co-sponsored by the USO’s Hollywood Overseas Committee and the U.S. Department of Defense. This ended up being a profound experience for Wayne, and his time with the young troops was something that he never forgot.

Two years later, Wayne received a letter from an Ohio couple who told him that their son, a Special Forces member who The Duke had met in Vietnam two years earlier, had been killed in action. Wayne did not hesitate to write back to the grieving parents to express his condolences.

“It’s most difficult to find the right words (if there are any) of sympathy and comfort,” he wrote. “But, as one parent to another, I am sure the fact that your son, in these days of irresponsibility on the part of so many young people, voluntarily joined the Special Forces, volunteered to do what he did, and did it very well apparently, must give you great pride.”

“The weeks and months I spent in Vietnam and at Fort Benning filming the picture, The Green Berets, and working with many Green Beret trainees and veterans, brought me very close to them,” Wayne added. “They, like your son, are men whom all of us should be very proud.”

Related: Angie Dickinson Reveals Why Working With John Wayne ‘Was Heaven’ – ‘He Was So Respectful’

Fonda Tries To Backtrack From ‘Hanoi Jane’ Scandal

As for Fonda, who is now 86 years-old, she’s tried to distance herself from her “Hanoi Jane” controversy over the years.

“I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft [gun], which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes,” Fonda told Oprah Winfrey back in 2000, according to Far Out Magazine. “It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.”

“It is possible that the Vietnamese had it all planned,” she later added in a 2006 memoir. “I will never know. If they did, can I really blame them? The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake, and I have paid and continue to pay a heavy price for it.”

Unfortunately for Fonda, however, millions of Americans have never forgiven her for what she did during the Vietnam War, as they rightfully view her actions as unforgivable.

Good for Wayne for having the guts to give Hanoi Jane a piece of his mind back in the day, and for standing up for American military members everywhere!