An Open Letter to Val Kilmer

Dear Val,

Can I call you Val?  Asshat just seems a little hostile this early in a letter! 

I want to congratulate you on your thoughts about tossing your hat (or tights and cape) into the Gubernatorial race in New Mexico.  I know it is not a done deal yet, you are still in the contemplation stage, but I think you are an excellent example of both Hollywood and the left.

A couple of thoughts…I read your interview with Chuck Klosterman in Esquire back in July of 2005.  And I have to tell you Val, it left me scratching my head.  Just a reminder of what you said in case the method preparation for The Doors burned too many brain cells:

 [Klosterman]: You mean you think you literally had the same experience as Doc Holliday?

Kilmer: Oh, sure. It’s not like I believed that I shot somebody, but I absolutely know what it feels like to pull the trigger and take someone’s life.

[Klosterman:] You understand how it feels to shoot someone as much as a person who has actually committed a murder?

[Kilmer] I understand it more. It’s an actor’s job. A guy who’s lived through the horror of Vietnam has not spent his life preparing his mind for it. He’s some punk. Most guys were borderline criminal or poor, and that’s why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn’t get on the football team, couldn’t finagle a scholarship. They didn’t have the emotional equipment to handle that experience. But this is what an actor trains to do. I can more effectively represent that kid in Vietnam than a guy who was there.

Am I getting your thought process down correctly?  Though you have “people” to drive you, feed you and train that doughy body of yours, “method” acting gives you more street cred than someone who has slept in the mud, fought for his Country and watched his friends die?

Perhaps we have a failure to communicate….I think that the men and women who fought for our Country in Vietnam are heroes, role models and National treasures while you are a paunchy actor who runs around in tights and blathers on about things he knows nothing about.  You are aware that you are in a profession in which you are paid to be ANYONE other than who you actually are?

My step-father served in Vietnam.  He is a hero. He is not poor, a punk, a wretched kid who was beat up by his father, a football wanna be or too dumb to get a scholarship.  He is a patriot who was called upon by his Country and he answered that call. 

Can you imagine a conservative actor getting away with such an obnoxious and egregious statement about, oh, I don’t know, black civil rights activists in the 1960’s?

Picture this exchange Val:

Reporter: So, because you played a civil rights activist in your movie, you think you have a better feel for the experiences?

Republican Actor:  Of course.  I mean, Rosa Parks and those involved in the movement…well they were really poor and a lot of them were not well educated…they didn’t have college scholarships to lean on…they just weren’t emotionally or intellectually equipped to really face the deeper meaning and ramifications of the battle for civil rights.  But me?  I drove through the Bronx for, like, 5 straight days!  Myself!  I didn’t even have a driver.  I have been totally wrapping my head around the whole “racial divide” thing…preparing for it for a lifetime really.  I mean, back in 5^th grade, there was this time that  I wasn’t allowed to join one of the afterschool clubs so trust me, I GET discrimination brother.  And to get it, you have to have the life experience and the emotional equipment to really dig deep and face it. 

Yeah…that would manage to stay buried in an interview and not haunt a Republican forever.

I have an idea.  What do you say you come to the Annual Rolling Thunder Ride for Freedom in May in Washington, DC.  Don’t worry…I’ll stay with you.  I’d like you to test your theories and assessment of those Vets up close and personal with them.  I’d like to hear what they have to say about your “method” acting and your views on who they are.  I have a super cool first aid kit…I’ll make sure it is well stocked!

Look forward to hearing from you!

Katie

ps...Order Jack Marino's film Forgotten Heroes ...throw back the cape, peel off the tights and watch a film by people who get it.

Comments

[Mike]

He had another interview in Rolling Stone where he's talking about an "advisor" that was supposedly special ops doing illegal missions for the government and how they know they have [zero percent chance of coming home from these missions alive] and that [they all know that they're going to die]but they do it anyway. I've got a paycheck that says that either:

a) this guy may have been spec ops but was yanking his chain or
b) (more likely) the guy was a wannabe that padded his resume and knew about as much about black ops as Michael Moore knows about Marine Corps physical fitness training.

What a douche bag.

[Angus]

What a colossal jack ass! I don’t know how you dug and or remembered that interview with Esquire … but if that is a representative sample of what this knuckle head really thinks then I think that the voters of New Mexico deserve to have video footage of Val and his experience at the Rolling Thunder Ride in DC. Yes … it would be fun to see those real veterans give Val a true demonstration of what it actually feels like to be in fear for your life. It would be even more illuminating to hear him try and justify his comments in the face of some of the stories that those men could tell!

What the hell qualifies Val for this job anyway. Has he held an administrative position in the screen actors guild? Or was he on the zoning commission in some suburb of Santa Fe? I can’t wait to see his justification.

[WhatBubbaKnows]

Yea, just what are your qualifications, Val? You make your living pretending to be other people, real and fictional, you're arrogant and you're an idiot. So, I just answered my own question, you sound like the perfect candidate for a political job. At least, if the last election is to be used to define qualifications. However, we need to point out the one glaring hole in your moonbat resume - you havnt kissed the ass of a terrorist, dictator or tyrant. Make a quick dash down to Venezuela, elbow Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Kevin Spacey out of the way so you can kiss the Chavez ass.
Then you will be qualified to run the state of New Mexico.
Good luck, ya puss.

[Eva]

Hold up just a minute here. The first 3 Val Kilmer qualifications I could think of were:

1) He dated Cher.

So what, you say, lots of people did. But I say that automatically relegates him to the B or C list.

2) Kilmer also attempted a sympathetic portrayal of porno star John Holmes, after he had set up a bunch of his friends to be slaughtered by drug dealers. It was a true story, and Holmes fled from the police across country after the murders. However, Kilmer played it as though he was a misguided victim of circumstance.

Was that the best work he could get? Really?

3) Kilmer is bragging about having the support of Bill Richardson, who is currently under investigation for a pay-to-play scheme and holds the distinction of being the 1st scandal of the Obama's cabinet appointments.

There's a knock out record to brag about. Oh yeah Val, that record is way superior to men who have bravely lived their convictions heroically fought for their their country. Not.

Poor taste and moral bankruptcy. That's what the record shows Val Kilmer 'finagled'.

[katie]

Wow Eva...you had good scoop on that clown! And I am even more grossed out!

[Eva]

Thanks Katie, but I think that's a little unfair to clowns.

Clowns actually entertain people.

[beansimple]

He's going to have a hard time explaining to the surgeon how he came to have a full size Harley fat boy installed sideways in his rectum but I'm sure he'll wrap his mind around the concept and come up with something.

[Jack Marino]

Hey Val you loser, you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. THis is the exact perception I have been fighting with my film FORGOTTEN HEROES for the past 25 years. THis nitwit hasn't done one spec of research on the quality of the kids that went to Vietnam and fought communism. What you describe here Val are all the hippie, drug infested maggots that crawled out of the mud in Woodstock. You were 10 years old in 69 it is obvious you weren't paying too much attention at that age and by the time you were 20 you were probably a reefer head. So you got your education by watching Deer Hunter, and Casualties of War.

This is the mind set that is all through hollywood and this is why my film FORGOTTEN HEROES was shut out by these clowns. You can't make a film that honors the Vietnam Vets because they want all of us to believe their version of that war when we all know the truth.

Hey Val, check out my site and read some fact you jack off and then apologize to the 8.3 million vietnam era veterans who you couldn't wipe their asses with video instructions.

http://www.warriorfilmmakers.com/veterans/veterans2.html

Read the above link and weep.

www.forgottenheroesthemovie.com
Help honor our vets by buying my DVD so we can change this thinking from these mad dog liberals.

[Bruce Obermeyer]

Quite an indictment against 3.5 million members of the U.S. military who served with honor in combat during the Vietnam war from a man who makes his living speaking lines written by someone else and who lives in a world of fantasy. My undergraduate degree is in Physics, I have an MBA, I have an Airline Transport Pilot's License and a Flight Engineer's Certificate, and I have worked in the field of Aerospace engineering for almost 40 years. Neither John Kerry nor GW Bush nor I, for that matter, had any say in whether we would be assigned duty in Vietnam unless we volunteered. Some of us did volunteer. Of course one could petition for four educational deferments and a fifth to spend a year in Paris studying French, as John Forbes Kerry did, being rich and a prodigy of John F. Kennedy. If one received 3 Purple Hearts, he could ask to come home, even after just 3 or 4 months, and even if the wounds didn't cost him any downtime, as John Kerry did. The only ways to guarantee we would not be assigned to Vietnam would be to desert or dodge the draft, like Bill Clinton and many of the "Vietnam Veterans Against the War", or petition for status change to "Conscientious Objector" prior to receiving orders, or obtain an educational or family deferment, as millions of Americans did.

During my 12 month tour (actually 366 days), more than half the pilots with whom I flew my 100+ missions in Vietnam were Reservists, like me, and Air Guardsmen. John Kerry equated Guardsmen with draft dodgers. Now, Mr. Kilmer equates us all with "punks" and "borderline criminal or poor, and that's why they got sent to Vietnam. It was all the poor, wretched kids who got beat up by their dads, guys who didn't get on the football team, couldn't finagle a scholarship." I pitched four no-hitters my Senior year in High School, and our American Legion baseball team won the state championship two consecutive years. My scholarship offers included MIT, Cal Tech, and a number of other equally prestigious colleges and universities. What was your GPA, Mr. Kilmer? The majority of members of the Guard and Reserves are former Active Duty military. Chances are the next time you get on a commercial airliner, the flight crew will be former military and may even be current members of the Reserves or Guard. Do you know the military background of the pilot who recently made a miracle dead stick landing in the Hudson River?

I often wondered how many names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall are of National Guardsmen and Reservists. One hundred and forty Medal of Honor recipients were in the National Guard. Six thousand seventy-seven members of the National Guard or Reserves died in Vietnam.

No, Mr. Kilmer, you don't have a clue who we are, and you will never be one of us. My conduct and the conduct of my peers was and continues to this day to be slandered by envious Hollywood loser wannabes like yourself and politicians and the media. Sadly, they have again been joined by both the ignorant and the unpatriotic and encouraged by enemies and traitors to undermine the efforts of those new military heroes now proudly serving our country. Military veterans are a brotherhood of unique individuals, melded together in the crucible of wars past and present and bonded by duty, honor, sacrifice, blood, and love of country. More so than through any other fraternity, the associations and friendships formed through the military and law enforcement and firefighters and other emergency service providing units are lifelong, and we mourn the loss of our comrades until we rejoin them again someday in formation in Heaven. Sadly, envious Hollywood loser wannabes, politicians, and historians do not understand, let alone share, our code of conduct and ethics. Perhaps someday they will learn if they have the courage and integrity to recognize our accomplishments and the will to seek the truth and report it honestly and accurately.

No, Mr. Kilmer, you don't have a clue who we are, and you will never be one of us. Visit my website and learn something.

http://www.opaobie.com/promisekept.php

[katie]

Bruce...well said...thank you for your service!

[Bruce Obermeyer]

You're quite welcome, Katie.

I alerted "Sgt Josh" (as Mark Levin refers to him) serving in Afghanistan and asked him to spread the word, especially among the New Mexico troops. I asked him to ask them if they would like to see Kilmer as their Governor AND as the Commander in Chief of their New Mexico National Guard. Keep firing for effect.

[Janet]

Katie,

Great letter! And some great responses.

I've had quite a few comments from irate vets that your readers might enjoy, at http://www.military-money-matters.com/val-kilmer.html .

Today, I received a response from the Iceman himself. You and your readers can find it at http://www.military-money-matters.com/val-kilmer-responds.html .

I've also attempted to contact Chuck Klosterman, who wrote the original Esquire article, for his response. Hopefully, he'll be interested in "setting the record straight."

Stay tuned . . .

[Pierre E. Pelletier]

With your comments on a Vietnam Vet you have lost a hugh vote from the powerful Veterans organizations. Mark my word!

[mary burton]

always liked his films but his ignorance is something else it was not a choice of if your poor you go to war.We dont need a out of touch man for Govenor go back to making movies Val Kilmer

[mar]

hi i´m mar and i´m 26 years and i want to meet you! a kiss Val!