Dismantling the Empire_ America's Last Best Hope - Chalmers Johnson [63]
According to Cunningham himself, his most important lifetime achievement is his twenty years of service as a naval aviator, including aerial combat over Vietnam in which he shot down three communist jets in one day (overall, a total of five during the war) and was himself brought down by a surface-to-air missile. On May 10, 1972, he was rescued by a helicopter from the South China Sea. Cunningham has exploited this record into what one commentator calls “hero inflation” and Shakespeare’s Henry V called “remembering with advantages.” He now claims to have been a military hero deserving of the Congressional Medal of Honor (which he didn’t get), even though he acknowledges that his aerial dogfighting had little effect on the course of the war. Cunningham has created a company called Top Gun Enterprises that sells lithographs of himself in his pilot’s outfit and books he has written about his Navy exploits. His company’s website claims that the 1986 film Top Gun starring Tom Cruise was actually about Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
Cunningham’s comments in the Congressional Record dwell heavily on his Vietnam role and the military. For example, on April 22, 2004, he said to the House of Representatives: “Mr. Speaker, I was shot down over North Vietnam. I can remember the anger and the disparaging remarks that John Kerry made about our service. I remember the rage in all of us from his slander. . . . Even today, John Kerry votes against defense, the military, veterans, and intelligence bills that would enforce the safe return of our men and women. We do not need someone that would vote like a Jane Fonda as commander in chief.”
He persisted in such attacks on the patriotism of Kerry, notably in an interview with Rush Limbaugh on August 17, 2004. Here’s an excerpt:
DUKE: It’s not about Vietnam. It’s about what he did in 1971, bad-mouthing all of us, calling us war criminals. It’s his votes since he’s been in the Senate, he ran on cutting defense and intel, after the first Trade Center bombing, he tried to cut intelligence $9 billion. And it’s about who is going to protect my family, my daughters, my son, my wife in the next few years, and to me, it’s not Senator Kerry. Rush, if Senator Kerry was a Republican running, I would oppose him.
RUSH: Congressman, thanks very much for the call. It really is an honor to hear from you. I know your history and I’ve been very impressed with it, and you’re one of the guys still taking a lot of shots because of who you are in Washington. You stand up to ’em and we all appreciate it, we honor your service here. Thanks very much.
DUKE: Life is good, Rush.
RUSH: It is. That’s Duke Cunningham, congressman from California, the first fighter ace in Vietnam, five MiGs shot down.
Cunningham’s most famous naval exploit actually occurred after he left the Navy and was a freshman congressman. In 1991, Cunningham was a member of the board of directors of the Tailhook Association, a private group of active duty, reserve, and retired Navy and Marine Corps aviators, defense contractors, and their supporters. (The name “Tailhook” comes from the device that halts aircraft when they land on aircraft carriers.) The Navy used to provide free office space for the association at San Diego’s Miramar Naval Air Station, and lent out its fleet of passenger aircraft to fly attendees to Tailhook’s yearly meetings in Las Vegas. At the 35th Annual Tailhook Symposium (September 5–7, 1991) at the Las Vegas Hilton, a meeting that Cunningham attended in an official capacity, drunken fliers, joined by the secretary of the Navy, groped,