Maryland Public Television is going to produce a three-hour documentary film for 2016 featuring Free State men and women who served during the Vietnam War ("Saluting Vietnam veterans," Nov. 10). On May 13, some of us have been invited to take part in a "listening session" at MPT's Owings Mills site for an unrecorded discourse in which our experiences may be heard to determine who will be shown on air and who will not be. Listening to our comments will be the show's producer "and, of course ... the small group of a dozen or so of your fellow veterans who'll be participating," according to MPT.
I expect that at least part of the reason for that is to weed out the phony "vets" who have tried to invent false Vietnam War resumes in the past. This has become known as "stolen valor." This process is flawed, however, and will allow this "small group" to pass judgment on whether the experiences of other vets are somehow "valid" or not. The result will be a collective "accepted" story that is agreed upon, therefore, by this small group. In my view, that is even worse than the mindset that got us into the war in the first place!
I find it incredible that MPT would be involved in what amounts to an Orwellian groupthink — "1984" in 2015 — about what really happened during 1946-1975. This to me is nothing but yet another attempt to rewrite history yet again and this after the fully five decades it has taken MPT to finally get around to recognize that we Vietnam veterans even exist!
Thus, I call upon Gov. Larry Hogan to step in and use his authorized power over state-supported MPT and halt this historical travesty that is about to be committed against all Marylanders and history on May 13 via controlling the conversation in this way from the very outset.
Stop the suppression of recollection and let freedom of expression ring! After all, Maryland is the Free State — or was anyway.
Blaine Taylor, Towson