Bo Gritz and Mormons Gone Mad--MUST we claim him?

As I was meandering about last fall at the Vietnam War conference at the University of Kentucky, I began chatting with a historian about his work on POWs and how non-state actors came to play a role in U.S. foreign policy in the post Vietnam War era. Normally, this would be another airy conversation that academics do for a living. Just then (and not coincidentally, given the topic material), I had a flashback.

(insert dream sequence)
As a youth, a man tells me he's voting for a man named Bo Gritz.

"Sir, why are you voting for him?"

"Because he believes in liberty, my boy! And he's a Mormon."

I never forgot that name...

(Imagine me reading alone in a library...subtly creepy music playing in background...the kind you might hear on Bourne Identity):

The name lingered among the articles. I learned that after serving in Vietnam, he embarked on a "Save the POWs" campaign that consumed a goodly part of a lifetime. He organized big big time, big show commando expeditions into Burma and Laos to save former POWs in Laos and North Vietnam. One counterterrorist Delta Force coordinator noted that they were geared to launch POW rescue missions until Bo Gritz would come onto the scene and make some major announcement.

It gets more bizarre. According to Gritz's account,William Shatner, Clint Eastwood, and Ronald Reagan had joined in planning of the rescue operations in Laos. Shatner and Eastwood saw the makings of good movie material, you see...so they agreed to pay for the mission provided that they get the copyrights for making a movie. Reagan supposedly even told Gritz that he would "start World War III to get them out." The story gets fuzzy around here, as the story goes that Gritz was ambushed by anti-communist militia. Did these hardened anti-communists (probably leftovers of the Hmong mercenaries) just let Gritz walk away after he kindly explained that he was just trying to be Rambo? It's very hard to say.

Gritz went on to live in a grand netherworld of Christian militantism and the hard right-wing: "Guns, God, and Gritz" was his campaign slogan in 1992 (when my father voted for him). He had a legitimate achievement...he helped to negotiate an end to the Randy Weaver stand off in Ruby Ridge, Idaho (Weaver was another hard-right winger who was basically armed to the teeth...let's just say the FBI was getting suspicious). He made a name for himself by insisting that the CIA was selling drugs to fund its in Laos (old news btw...that charge had been made by Alfred McCoy in 1973). He began teaching paramilitary tactics in a program called SPIKE (Specially Prepared Individuals for Key Events) on his utopian ranch called, "Almost Heaven" (also armed to the teeth with weaponry). After all, the U.S. was on the verge of moral and economic collapse.

And he, my friends, was one of our own...he later left the Church. The precise reasons are not clear...the rumors range from a refusal to pay taxes and therefore the Church's withholding of a recommend to the Church's stance against his paramilitary activities. I think an all of the above would fit well...the gospel net is wide indeed.

(Snapping back into reality)

"So," I ask the historian, "you talk to manyveterans/POW activists" (remember, activists by their nature try to jar you a little).

"Quite a few, yes."

"Have you ever talked to Bo Gritz?"

"No way, dude," says he. "He's scary"