The California State Assembly’s Democratic leadership refused to allow a Vietnam war hero and former U.S. senator to join in a 4th-of-July ceremony, citing “separation of church and state” concerns and his political views, according to Assemblyman John Campbell.
 Jeremiah Denton at Clark Air Force Base in 1973 after 8 years in a North Vietnamese prison. |
After hearing about the rejection, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger offered his meeting room Monday for a ceremony with retired Adm. Jeremiah Denton, which was packed to overflowing.
Campbell said the Assembly has arranged for many “celebrations” on the floor orchestrated by Democrats, with singing and dancing, including Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day and Chinese New Year’s Day.
“But never once have we celebrated America’s Independence Day, the 4th of July,” he said.
So this year, Republican Assemblyman Jay LaSuer of San Diego arranged for Denton to come to California to participate in an Independence Day ceremony.
A memo from the Democratic speaker’s office, however, said “problems have arisen both with regards to the spirit, content and participation of various individuals with regard to the ceremony.”
The Democrats said Denton did not believe in the “separation of church and state,” and they didn’t like the policies he supported as a senator.
 Jeremiah Denton meeting with President Reagan during Senate service in the 1980s. |
Denton was a Navy pilot who spent eight years in a Vietnamese prison after being shot down during the war. In 1966 while in prison, he was interviewed by North Vietnamese television in Hanoi after being tortured in an attempt to make him “respond properly.”
During the interview, Denton blinked his eyes in Morse code to spell out the word “torture.”
He was asked about his support for the war in Vietnam, to which he replied, “I don’t know what is happening now in Vietnam, because the only news sources I have are Vietnamese. But whatever the position of my government is, I believe in it, I support it, and I will support it as long as I live.”
Four of his eight years in prison were spent in solitary confinement, which he later recounted in his book, “When Hell was in Session.”
When Denton stepped off a plane after being released from prison in 1973, he said, “We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country in difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our commander-in-chief for this day. God bless America.”
He later was elected to the U.S. Senate from his home state of Alabama, becoming the first retired admiral ever elected to that body.
“Suffice it to say,” Campbell said, “Jeremiah Denton is unquestionably an American hero.”
Campbell said the Assembly had a 20-minute ceremony during its session Monday, but it was to celebrate the career of a retiring Los Angeles Times reporter. Democrats universally praised the reporter as being “balanced,” Campbell said, and he was allowed to speak for about 10 minutes.
“Four years of Cinco De Mayo and not one recognition of the 4th of July,” Campbell said. “An L.A. Times reporter praised, and the very person whose sacrifice allows him to express his opinion is banned. It is perverse. It is wrong. And it is disrespectful to all the men and women in uniform who have stared death in the face and to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the American people.”
Campbell said Democrats are “always railing about intolerance and discrimination,” but “in practice, it is they who engage in regular state-sanctioned discrimination and who are intolerant of the presentation of other views. Maybe they are worried that people will listen.”
Meanwhile, in Gov. Schwarzenegger’s meeting room Monday, Campbell said, Denton “gave a very moving speech about the 4th of July and about the undeniable commitment of our Founding Fathers’ to their faith in God.”
Denton said he fears partisan attacks on the U.S. mission and troops in Iraq and Afghanistan sound too familiar to what he experienced in Vietnam.
After his speech, attended by only one elected Democrat, Schwarzenegger came out to spend time with Denton, Campbell said.
