'At The OK Corral'

[Drayton Calhoun]

One sherrif in a town of thousands
gonna get a little rough,when some start carousin
there will be a toe or two,that get stepped on
when the lawdog hollers"Git Gone"

Just another day in the town of Tombstone
the man wearin the badge,has brothers and they've been honed
things quiet for now,but there is stench of cow~~~~~~
      ~In the air~
Then it all breaks loose,by a  drunked up cayuse,
to late to take flight,they're all gonna die a ridin high in this rodeo hoardin louse, today with thier pals~~~~~~

At the Gunfight behind Fly's Photo Studio and Boarding House near the OK Corral."~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gee, thanks Rick, now I have to try to get the coffee out of my keyboard.........

[Ugly Elmer]

Shotgun, I must stand in opposition to your position sir. I would guess, by your definition, I am also a self-proclaimed historian based on the fact that I have a passion for research and exploration for those yet to be discovered facts which might cast new light on current theories. I certainly hope that amateur and professional scholars continue to hash and rehash facts from every aspect of our world history. To ask others to, "let it go", or simply disassociate themselves from their interests because you feel that it has been over-written would simply stifle intellectual pursuit. I agree that there has been much written in regard to this topic (including this author), however I don't tire reading and respecting others opinions including yours.

[Shotgun Franklin]

I guess you miss the point. Study the event, rehash the characters, debate the effect or affect but it's time to allow the name of the event to stand.

[ColonelFlashman]

 Except for "Tin Cup" and "Field of Dreams" Costner ruins for me every movie he is in.  It's his beach boy voice that destroys it.  Wyatt I'm sure had a deep, throaty voice.  Costner just squeeks.  I think that movie looks pretty good and Quaid IS Doc Holliday.  

According to everything I've come across, mainly the Hollywood crowd of the Silent Era that worked w/ him as a Technical Adviser, W.E. had a Tenor voice.

[Curley Cole]

Col. Flash...

Why how are you??? haven't heard or seen you in a hounds age.....what is goin on with you?

Hope to see ya some time down the road...

curley

[Harley Starr]

"Young Guns" would have been just as good, or even better, if they had shown the Regulators as they were.

I second that Dead I.

[Wild Horse Hans]

You can't tell a man by his voice. Gen. Patton sounded like a sissy that is why you never hear recordings of his speeches. My father served under him and they could hardly keep from laughing when he started cursing and talking about killing Germans all the while sounding like he was a hairdresser.
So Earp may have had the voice you would like to think a man like him would have, but he may have sounded like a 10 year old boy for all we know.

[pistol1911]

General Patton would have loved to have George C. Scott's voice.

[St. George]

Indeed.

My Dad listened to him during the 'Louisiana Maneuvers' - even saw the 'Green Hornet' tanker suit with the gold helmet.

He had an almost pre-pubescent voice.

Didn't keep him from being one helluva combat Armor commander, though.

Wanting our heroes to sound 'heroic' is all well and good, I suppose - but foolish, in and of itself, since reality often brings us a whole different tenor to things that doesn't mate up with perception.

If Costner has a fault - it lies in his desire to 'tell a story' and in so doing, he's forcing folks to pay attention to details, as opposed to getting swept up in action and drama.

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[Fox Creek Kid]

Hollywood does not equal reality. Sort of why a scrawny little runt like Audie Murphy is a real hero and John "my career is too important to join" Wayne made movies during the war.   

[ColonelFlashman]

Hollywood does not equal reality. Sort of why a scrawny little runt like Audie Murphy is a real hero and John "my career is too important to join" Wayne made movies during the war.   

The "Duke" went down to the Hollywood Recruiting Center & attempted to Enlist.
He was Baldly told by the Commanding Generl of the District, after he arrived when informed what the "Duke" trying to do, that he was needed more as part of the Propaganda Machine making movies, than as a Soldier.

[Delmonico]

The "Duke" went down to the Hollywood Recruiting Center & attempted to Enlist.
He was Baldly told by the Commanding Generl of the District, after he arrived when informed what the "Duke" trying to do, that he was needed more as part of the Propaganda Machine making movies, than as a Soldier.

That's the way I heard it also. 

[Deadeye Dick]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

Scroll down to "Military Service Controversy". Not sure if this is true or not, but more info on the subject.
Deadeye Dick

[Trailrider]

So far as the Duke's military situation is concerned, it is true that he was 34 and was a family man, and thus could be exempted from the draft.  On the other hand, my late father was 36, and prior to December 7, 1941, had volunteered to go on active duty, dispite being married.  He held a reserve commission as a captain in the field artillery. He had bad eyes and wore glasses. In prior physicals he had memorized the eye chart without the glasses. They switched charts on him and he busted the physical. It took him several months to find a U.S. senator who persuaded the Army to let him retake the physical (the ONLY time he ever used political influence in the military).  This time he made sure he got the right chart, and passed. He went on active duty and was overseas when I was born in '42.  Why did he do it? He felt he owed something to America, and didn't want all his training to go to waste.

I had also read or heard (can't recall where, however) that John Wayne had broken his ankle playing football in college, which was why he wound up working as a "grip" in the movies until John Ford discovered him.  That might have been a reason for physical disqualification...or not.  Did the Duke's on-screen military performances do any good? Well, I know several 'kids" that got somewhat inspired by his roles in "They Were Expendible", "Flying Leathernecks" and "The Green Berets".  Maybe not their only reasons for joining the military (in my case I wanted to fly and become an astronaut, which didn't happen...but Dad also inspired me), but maybe it helped.

With the Duke now gone, he can't clarify any of the rumors/stories, etc.  I'll take the Duke's image and actions at face value until documentation comes up that says otherwise.

[Shotgun Franklin]

Years ago, like maybe 20, I read a biography that didn't seem to smooth over the warts. Talked about his multiple marriages, including one to a hooker. Anyway it was pointed out that Wayne was 34, had kids, was married and couldn't pass the physical because of a bad back. Somebody could research this if they wanted to, it's all open/public record.

[Fox Creek Kid]

Let's get the facts about the "Duke":

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1055/was-john-wayne-a-draft-dodger

[Delmonico]

Let's get the facts about the "Duke":

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1055/was-john-wayne-a-draft-dodger

Cool another site on the internet like Snoops or Wiki, (I ain't going to get excited either way about an actor at this point.)

Hard to tell which is a paraphrase of the other with out a scrip.


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.

The real question is why he never did so. Wayne cranked out thirteen movies during the war, many with war-related themes. Most of the films were enormously successful and within a short time the Duke was one of America's most popular stars. His bankability now firmly established, he could have joined the military, secure in the knowledge that Hollywood would welcome him back later. He even made a half-hearted effort to sign up, sending in the paperwork to enlist in the naval photography unit commanded by a good friend, director John Ford.

But he didn't follow through. Nobody really knows why; Wayne didn't like to talk about it. A guy who prided himself on doing his own stunts, he doesn't seem to have lacked physical courage. One suspects he just found it was a lot more fun being a Hollywood hero than the real kind. Many movie star-soldiers had enlisted in the first flush of patriotism after Pearl Harbor. As the war ground on, slogging it out in the trenches seemed a lot less exciting. The movies, on the other hand, had put Wayne well on the way to becoming a legend. "Wayne increasingly came to embody the American fighting man," Wills writes. In late 1943 and early 1944 he entertained the troops in the Pacific theater as part of a USO tour. An intelligence bigshot asked him to give his impression of Douglas MacArthur. He was fawned over by the press when he got back. Meanwhile, he was having a torrid affair with a beautiful Mexican woman. How could military service compare with that?

In 1944, Wayne received a 2-A classification, "deferred in support of [the] national . . . interest." A month later the Selective Service decided to revoke many previous deferments and reclassified him 1-A. But Wayne's studio appealed and got his 2-A status reinstated until after the war ended.

People who knew Wayne say he felt bad about not having served. (During the war he'd gotten into a few fights with servicemen who wondered why he wasn't in uniform.) Some think his guilty conscience was one reason he became such a superpatriot later. The fact remains that the man who came to symbolize American patriotism and pride had a chance to do more than just act the part, and he let it pass.


...



America's entry into World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from all sectors of society, and Hollywood was no exception. Many established stars rushed to sign up for military service.

As the majority of male leads left Hollywood to serve overseas, John Wayne saw his just-blossoming stardom at risk. Despite enormous pressure from his inner circle of friends, he put off enlisting. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment). Wayne's secretary recalled making inquiries of military officials on behalf of his interest in enlisting, "but he never really followed up on them."[34] He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to be placed in Ford's military unit, but consistently postponed it until "after he finished one more film." Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing Wayne, especially after the loss of Gene Autry to the Army.

Correspondence between Wayne and Herbert J. Yates (the head of Republic) indicates that Yates threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, though the likelihood of a studio suing its biggest star for going to war was minute. Whether or not the threat was real, Wayne did not test it. Selective Service Records indicate he did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but apparently Republic Pictures intervened directly, requesting his further deferment. In May, 1944, Wayne was reclassified as 1-A (draft eligible), but the studio obtained another 2-A deferment (for "support of national health, safety, or interest"). He remained 2-A until the war's end. Thus, John Wayne did not illegally "dodge" the draft, but he never took direct positive action toward enlistment.

Wayne was in the South Pacific theater of the war for three months in 1943–44, touring U.S. bases and hospitals as well as doing some work for OSS commander William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who "hoped that a celebrity like Wayne could provide information denied his own operatives. Donovan was particularly interested in Wayne's assessment of MacArthur himself. Wayne's mission was only partly successful. He never met MacArthur, and although he filed a report with Donovan when he got back to the States, he had nothing substantial to offer Donovan." Donovan gave him a plaque and commendation for serving with the OSS, but Wayne dismissed it as meaningless.

The foregoing facts influenced the direction of Wayne's later life. By many accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military during World War II was the most painful experience of his life. There were some other stars who, for various reasons, did not enlist. But Wayne, by virtue of becoming a celluloid war hero in several patriotic war films, as well as an outspoken supporter of conservative political causes and the Vietnam War, became the focus of particular disdain from both himself and certain portions of the public, particularly in later years. While some hold Wayne in contempt for the paradox between his early actions and his later attitudes, his widow suggests that Wayne's rampant patriotism in later decades sprang not from hypocrisy but from guilt. Pilar Wayne wrote, "He would become a 'superpatriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."


...


From the same website:

Who is this man called Cecil Adams?

   1. Who is Cecil Adams?

      Cecil Adams is the world's most intelligent human being. We know this because: (1) he knows everything, and (2) he is never wrong.
   2. How do we know that Cecil knows everything and is never wrong?

      Because he said so, and he would never lie to us.
   3. No, really.

      Listen, read the columns. Soon you will agree this is no ordinary man.
   4. What do you mean, "columns"? You're telling me the world's smartest human being works for the newspapers?

      We all gotta eat. Yes, Cecil works for the newspapers. His syndicated weekly column, the Straight Dope, presently appears in more than 30 newspapers throughout the United States and Canada. Ballantine has published five collections of his work, a Straight Dope TV show aired on the Arts & Entertainment cable network, and we'll be starting on the biopic as soon as we can line up Sly Stallone.

Interesting way of introducing yourself.

Also I find this interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Adams

or to check something besides Wiki:

http://www.nndb.com/people/399/000026321/

Course I don't know about them either.

So we don't even know who this Cecil Adams is, interesting. 

[FEATHERS]

Thank you Delmonico,Maybe those who would try to belittle the Duke,should look up how many politicians sons evaded WW2,due to university studies & the like.Did'nt Congress,because of the requests of his friends Maureen O'Hara & Elizabeth Taylor(rip),strike a Medal to honor the Duke,with the John Wayne "AMERICAN".I wonder how many of those,that belittle him have one of those.

[GunClick Rick]

I tried to enlist for Nam i had a tiny pain problem and they sent me away..Other than that i was strong as a Horse ,ok Shetland pony,i'm short.5'5"

[Delmonico]

Thank you Delmonico,Maybe those who would try to belittle the Duke,should look up how many politicians sons evaded WW2,due to university studies & the like.Did'nt Congress,because of the requests of his friends Maureen O'Hara & Elizabeth Taylor(rip),strike a Medal to honor the Duke,with the John Wayne "AMERICAN".I wonder how many of those,that belittle him have one of those.

Like many things about famous folks from the past, the truth will be hard to find, if ever.  I will not pass judgment on the man for WWII as to if he should of, could of served.  I will say later he helped this country when it was popular to put it down.  Perhaps that was the plan for him from above, something that would never have happened if he'd of ended up like Glenn Miller.