Spat on Vietnam Veterans? I think we were lied to on The Guy James Show.

[JanMichael]

He, the caller, says it at 02:24:22 of the show. The caller started at around 02:20:00 or thereabouts. Listen to it yourself here: mms://66.40.9.62/theguyjamesshow.com/GJ111503.mp3

Was it a lie, did he catch some spit? Did this happen to him and others? My take is NO. Or, if it's true, at the very most an anomoly when taking in to account the approximately 2,700,000 Americans that served there? Or is it a made-up mantra repeated incessently in America for the last 30 years to falsely blemish the Peace Movement that the poor soul now believes even though it never happened?

Here's a nifty rebuttal: http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3600

Here's a Vietnam Vet saying the same thing: http://www.theithacajournal.com/news/stories/20030507/opinion/253194.html

Here's a guy that's actually written about the spit myth: http://www.rlg.org/annmtg/lembcke99.html

"My search for evidence turned up a couple of claims which, if interpreted generously, could have been construed to suggest that veterans or servicemen in uniform may have been spat on. But I also found research done by other scholars that showed quite convincingly that acts of hostility against veterans by protesters were almost nonexistent. No researchers cited reports that veterans were spat on (Beamish, Molotch, and Flacks, 1995)."

I am SO tired of this nonsense, it diminishes EVERYONE involved...

[stevedeshazer]

1. There's a DUer here

Who insists this happened to his dad. I've never seen or heard any other evidence that corroborates the story.

It's an interesting point. I'll take some time to read your links.

[JanMichael]

2. If it happened it was very rare.

Yet it gets repeated incessently.

It needs to get put in it's place...Ie. the dust bin.

[JanMichael]

3. Must I add that he ended with "God bless you, God bless America and God...

...bless the pResident"???

[Kathy in Cambridge]

4. It may have happened, but it's grown into a myth

Several of my uncles served in Vietnam (One didn't return). They were never spat upon. They didn't know anyone who was. I'm sure it happened-just not as often as people mythologize.

[proud patriot]

5. When confronted with this statement I respond thusly

"That offends me as much as it does you ,
the new anti-war movement supports our
soldiers as much as you say you do."

[Red State Rebel]

6. I remember hearing about this a lot....

Back in those days the soldiers were reviled as baby killers by those protesting the war. It was Very contentious! Many soldiers were treated badly when they came home and couldn't wait to get out of uniform and put the whole experience behind them.

[JanMichael]

7. Are you saying you believe that it happened regularly?

EDIT~ What I'm asking is that you be more clear in what "badly" is,l thanks...

"Many soldiers were treated badly when they came home"

Hmm. It seems that this gut impulse claim has been exagerrated.

"couldn't wait to get out of uniform and put the whole experience behind them."

Vietnam? No joke, I don't blame those poor bastards...

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Remember that this was the era of

Cointelpro, red squads, agents provocateur, etc. The DIA was actively infiltrating the peace movement in order to sabotage the efforts within the anti-war movement to build alliances and support networks with GIs - coffee houses and Conscientious Objector counseling services and underground newspapers, etc. I find it quite credible that military intelligence agencies operatives (at that time each service had their own squads) would have carried out such acts as part of their mission. But the fact that there is no documentation of this at the times such acts were alleged to have occurred, as would have been expected given the general pro-war attitudes of the majority and especially the elite including newspaper owners, is pretty good evidence that nothing much happened. Were some small number of anti-war folks actually simple-minded sanctimonious shit-heads capable of such misdirected venom? Probably, but none I knew. I read one very credible account of such an instance here, but the use of such a tale to smear the anti-war movement as a whole is a Very Big Lie.

[JanMichael]

9. Very, very, true. Cointelpro may have staged a couple but...

...even those mysterious events don't exist in the records!

Amazing, really.

"I read one very credible account of such an instance here, but the use of such a tale to smear the anti-war movement as a whole is a Very Big Lie."

It is, for the most part, a VERY BIG LIE!

[tinanator]

42. this IS the era of cointelpro, terrorist squads and moonie news networks

Other than that contextual error, youre absolutely right to question that old saw, even if there is some limited or metaphorical truth, the essence is psych op. In the same vein, a local crippled and clearly (typically) mentally unstable freeper was shown on the local news the day of Bush's visit, when hundreds showed to protest, and he and his small handful of hillbilly kinfolk were given the opportunity to spew lies and hate in the news coverage. he claimed he was spit upon by protestors. Protestors by and large representing a number of organizations who had ALL signed a non violence agreement, and who were ALL beautifully behaved and wonderful to be with. If, ANYTHING, especially a spitting incident had gone down, It would have quickly become common knowledge. This whack job gets face time to LIE this same old lie, and the news crew felt NO obligation to pursue the veracity or provide counterpoint from organizers. That is exactly the role of spat on veterans is meant to play. A buzzlie. Meant to smear the anti-war peace seekers as hate filled sociopaths.

[DemoTex]

10. Are you kidding? I got spat upon. I've posted that here before.

I had come into Travis AFB from my 365-days in the 'Nam, caught the bus into downtown San Francisco with a bud whose sister lived there and took us out to eat. We were in our tropical khaki's with all our battle ribbons. Downtown San Francisco. Bad deal.

[JanMichael]

11. Did you read the links? I also have said that anomolies may have happened.

But it's become a goddamned mantra.

Not saying that it didn't happen to YOU but people cite shit that simply isn't TRUE in the media constantly.

It's a myth, IMO, that this was a regular occurance.

[Classical_Liberal]

12. You know these threads just create more

anonymous testamony. The sector of the democratic party that still wants to run away from McGovern is also invested in this, because their whole stick is apologizing for the excesses of liberalism.

[JanMichael]

14. Perhaps. But I don't like being LIED to!

Not DemoTex but the guty on the GJS. If you listened to it he quickly muttered that out when trying to covertly attack us.

I hate that shit. And it's recorded too.

One, two, one hundred, individual accounts doesn't mean that the 2,700,000 Vets were ALL treated that way!

STOP THE LIES!

[Classical_Liberal]

16. That is why I don't listen to talk radio or cspan

. it is so easy for people lie about themselves on call in shows.

[Mountainman]

17. Who ever said that 2,700,000 were treated that way ?

We were called baby killers, we had a hard time getting a job if we said we were Vietnam vets and this was in 1968.

It happened to me and nothing you say can make it untrue.

[Classical_Liberal]

21. In using the term we, you are making the generalization

actually. My father, a Viet Nam Vet had a good job for McDonald Douglas, and a nice NEW 3 bedroom suburban home, a wife and 1 yr old child(me) in 1968, and he was never spat on.

[JanMichael]

24. That must mean that none were.

This is my point.

[Classical_Liberal]

26. Didn't say that either

but I suspect you needed some sort of sarcasm smiley.

[JanMichael]

31. <drat> I forgot the sarcasm thingy!

But I think you get my drift.

[JanMichael]

23. You just did.

You asked the question:

"Who ever said that 2,700,000 were treated that way ?"

Then you implied a Royal "We". Who am I to assume "We" is?:

"We were called baby killers, we had a hard time getting a job if we said we were Vietnam vets"

You, each one of you, were call a baby killer?

You, each one of you, were spat upon?

I know both are false statements. The "Each one of you" or "We", does that.

It creates a mantra, a cultural virus that's being used against the Peace Movement today.

PS~ The empoyment comment makes wonder why y'all aren't Socialists now:-)

[Mountainman]

34. I did not say we meaning 2,700,000 people

I mean the guys that got out of the service around the same time I did. I got out in March of 1968.

By we I mean the people I knew then and that was no where near 2,700,000.

You are making more out of this than anyone here.

[dreissig]

22. Why We Lost Vietnam

A lot of people are heavily invested in the idea that we didn't really lose Vietnam, we just lost the will to see the war through. This is practically an article of faith with some people - they refuse to believe that the American military was defeated. The legend of the veteran's poor reception at home is part of the overall picture.

Reports of returning GI's being spat on didn't surface until some number of years after the war was over. The Sylvester Stallone movie help spread the myth, too.

[DemoTex]

28. Myth?

Did you return from RVN through SFO? If not, cork it!

[Classical_Liberal]

38. So I guess non veterens don't have a right to oppose this one

either?

[submerged99]

27. It's not just spit that goes into the narrative

Before the invasion of Iraq, I was listening to a radio program called Native American Callin. This is a nationally broadcast hourly program that airs 5 days of the week.

A Lakota man called in and said that he was against the invasion of Iraq because he felt that Bush was only after Iraqi oil. He also stated that he felt that the troops would be sacrificed for oil money and that they would be stimatized upon their return to the states Then he added that he was a Vietnam combat veteran. He said that after he returned from Vietnam, someone tossed feces on him while he was walking in the airport and restaurants refused to serve him.

Now that was very hard for me to believe. A soldier returns home from vietnam and encounters someone that just happens to be carrying around a bag of feces in an airport. What are the odds of that? Also, why would anyone refuse to serve a person in uniform? He didn't say that he was in uniform, but he would have to be if the reason he was being ignored was because he was a veteran.

I thought it was more likely that he was out of uniform and was refused service in a south dakota cafe, due to the fact that he was indian. not because he was a veteran.

[DemoTex]

19. It was probably not a regular occurance.

But it happened to me. Ergo, it happened to others. So it happened to 3.5%. Maybe 10%. Who knows? I disagree that it is a mantra. Having experienced it, I'd say that it happened more than you could ever know. Again, were you there? Eh? I was.

[stevedeshazer]

29. If it happened to you

and even if you were the only one, it is one too many.

[DemoTex]

33. Right mate!

One too many. That's what pissed me off. If it happend to me, it happened to the true hero. That sucks. Kind of like the Christian concept that anyone might be Jesus. Anyone might be a hero (or not be, as Jesica has shown).

[JanMichael]

30. 3.5%? Maybe 10%? <sigh>

No media, or police, reports substantiate that social phenomena.

I guess those 270,000 soldiers all just took it and didn't break a nose?

I know I would.

Once again: Not challenging the veracity of your claim.

[dreissig]

39. 270,000 Soldiers

The real implausibility is the vagueness of the reports. Were they concentrated in a few West Coast airports, or were they distributed across the country? If the spitting incidents were mostly at San Francisco Airport, it seems likely that somebody would have made note of it.

[JanMichael]

40. That's my point. And I don't want to belabor the subject either.

I'm just tired of the Bushite fuckwits using that as a cultural Meme against us, especially when that asshole Dubya was a goddamned deserter.

[Classical_Liberal]

41. and you can only help such memes along in this environment

where we can't verify anything.

[dreissig]

52. It's Still Worth Refuting

The burden of proof is still on the people who are claiming that GI's returned home to a bad welcome. The reason there aren't any contemporary records of these spitting incidents is that these incidents didn't happen in significant numbers.

I don't have to disprove these statements. I lived through that period of time, and I remember it. If returning GI's were getting spit on, enough to affect the morale of the fighting force, I would have known about it.

This is a far-fetched story told by a few isolated individuals for some uncertain purpose.

[Mountainman]

15. We have talked about this many times before I was spat on too

No matter how much you look for evidence, you will not find much because as in my case, I did not do anything about it because I was warned that I was still subject to the UCMJ for 72 hours after I was discharged. Also I never talked about it to anyone until I heard about the book that the guy wrote about it.

To me what happened was an isolated incident and there was no way it could have ever been reported.

The author of the book said, he can't prove it happened but he also can't prove it didn't.

I have not reason to attack the anti war movement because even in Nam I was agaist the war.

[JanMichael]

18. The absence of evidence isn't evidence of existance:-)

All kidding aside I would guess that out of the 2,700,000 people that served in Vietnam a few, maybe a thousand(!), had "wet" altercations. That's not a "Norm" or a "trend", it's a few anomolies.

That's my issue, it's a mantra used today against us, which I gather you understand:-)

[Mountainman]

32. I understand and I think it is way out of hand

I don't recall anyone saying it to have anything against the anti-war movement.

But I think you have to admit that just because you take the right side in a just cause doesn't redeem you of your other sins.

Many people in 1968 treated us like we were dangerous criminals for having been in the war. And that is the honest to God's truth.

[dreissig]

49. Dangerous Criminals

I remember 1968 well. I doubt that there's much evidence for your statement that many people thought Vietnam veterans were dangerous criminals. No question that some people thought that, but My Lai had a lot to do with creating that perception.

[Classical_Liberal]

37. My dad used to complain about VFW and Bircher types

who blamed the hippy Viet Nam era vets for losing the war. Is it possible they were the ones that turned you down for jobs?

[PaDUer]

20. DemoTex. right you are...

we know all about it..
DU'ers, Yes, it's true...sad to say..

[DemoTex]

25. Thanks PaDUer!

Though I was going nuts for a minute there. How could anyone deny that we experienced that when it is one of the main things driving us crazy? Get a life folks, it happened!

[PaDUer]

36. It's something you can't

forget..maybe some members might want to take a trip to their VA if they're still open in their area and talk w/ some of the others who experienced this...

[ConsAreLiars]

53. Who did this?

Not "the antiwar protesters" as a whole, for sure. Some fundie-type zealot or military intelligence operative? Could be either, but it certainly served the interests of the latter. happily, we now see a (very) few cases now where soldiers are blamed for the decisions of their commanders.

[submerged99]

13. I always found the spitting story to be dubious

I know that it's possible that someone spit on a military veteran but I can't think of very many scenarios in which it might have happened.

I can't imagine some peace activist spitting on a military combat veteran without the veteran causing some sort of scene. I'm not a veteran but I personally wouldn't hang my head and walk away if someone spit on me. I would physically assault them and probably end up in jail. There would be a record of my arrest or at least a record of the other person's hospital admission. Or an arrest of the other person and my hospital admission, depending on whoever was the better fighter. The point being that the resulting clash would be sufficient to generate some sort of record of events.

So I don't understand how so many combat veterans were supposedly spit upon and there is no record of it anywhere. The only scenario that seems plausible is if a veteran were to confront a parade of anti-war activist in a confrontation that escalates past heated words into threats and spitting. That seems more likely than a pacifist spitting upon a soldier in an airport, after which, they both continue on their merry way.

[DemoTex]

43. OK Jack, where were you on 9/30/71? Quick, slick!

I was in downtown San Francisco, in my class "A-s" with my full battle ribbons from my just finished tour in deepest hell. I was with a guy from my flight school class who I had not seen for over a year until we boarded the same Boeing 707 at Saigon for Travis. We were with his family, looking for a Thai restaurant when we were approached and spat upon by two slimebags. They were probably homeless, in today's vernacular, but very vocal anti-war in that part of SFO. That's the way it was. Several hours later I was on a red-eye to Atlanta. My grateful parents picked me up there, so glad that they had not had to deal with a body-bag. If you weren't there, you will never understand. Sorry. It's a 'Nam thing.

[dreissig]

46. A Random Incident

There's no way you can conclude that your experience was at all typical. One soldier out of three million. And you haven't established that the homeless dude had any political motive at all.

[dreissig]

44. Absence of Documentation

If there were really something here it would not be difficult to find documentation for it. An airport is a really public place, and a repeated disturbance of this nature would attract press attention. There would have been news stories, police reports, and various other kinds of documentation. We would not have to rely on the personal testimony of a handful of guys who insist it happened to them.

But the first reports that returning veterans were spit on didn't surface in the press until long after the war was over. It's something that was invented after the fact, to explain why our soldiers were so disillusioned and disheartened that they lost the war.

This is an urban legend.

[DemoTex]

45. Where were you?

I was there. Living your "urban legend." You don't have a fucking clue my friend. Not a clue. Get a life.

BTW: It happened in downtown SFO, not the airport. These creeps did not lurk the airports back then. How old are you, child?

[dreissig]

47. No Evidence

I'll take your word for it that somebody spit on you in San Francisco. However, you are just one out of many thousands of soldiers who tour San Francisco every year. There's no evidence that what happened to you was politically motivated.

[w4rma]

35. Remember that alot of Republicans opposed the Vietnam War.

LBJ was a Democrat. Nixon said he had a "a secret plan to end the war."

[ShaneGR]

48. Are you calling my father a liar??????????????????????????????????????????

He was spit on in California at a Greyhound Bus Station in Los Angeles. He returned to the US from Vietnam in October of 1969. My father has never been known to exagerate anything. Actually, he's the most humble quiet man I've ever met. He simply doesn't have a reason to make up stories, and I resent the inference that he, and others like him, are liars.

It happened. People got spit on, attacked, and verbally assaulted over nothing more than going to a war they were DRAFTED into. If the the far left during that period would have embraced the safety of those soldiers, instead of calling them killers (and sporadically spitting, yelling, and otherwise humiliating them)then Vietnam would have been over a LOT quicker. I recognize it was a small minority, but the damage was done.

That is why I react with such disdain for some of my fellow leftists (A FEW, not many) who choose to attack the troops, rather than the policy.

[dreissig]

50. Your Father's Experience

Your father's experience was not typical. If it had been typical, we would have heard about it before 1980, the time when these spitting incidents were first reported in the press. There were no reports of spitting incidents at the time they were said to be happening, and that fact says a lot. If this were the significant event it's said to be, there would have been contemporary records of it.

There were a few incidents, not a lot. Certainly not enough to have swayed history, which is the real claim being made here. We didn't lose the Vietnam war because GI's came home to a bad reception.

[ShaneGR]

51. Sighs

The point of this thread wasn't about losing or winning Vietnam. We were going to lose eventually anyways. It was the thread authors assertion that the spitting stories were all lies, and anyone who says it happened to them is a liar.

That, is simply, BULLSHIT.

And whether or not it was sporadic is irrelevant, it DID happen to my father. And it DID happen to a LOT of other vets too.

It's important to recognize that it happened, because it shows that the anti-war movement can change.

[Misinformed01]

54. No, dear, that is not what the post said

Read it again...Michael said that it did not happen with the frequency that most Americans have been lead to believe that it did.

I am very sorry for what happened to Demotex (one of my favorite DUers) and your Dad..but, the media took the spitting stories and ran with them to the point that the frequency has become an urban legend.

[ShaneGR]

60. I like your reply, I will accept it

Good job, I understand what you are saying....

[dreissig]

56. What You Were Told

You admit quite openly that you have no personal knowledge of the Vietnam period. You are dependent on other people to tell you what they thought or saw. Your father isn't necessarily a liar when he says he was spat on. I don't agree that he's correct if he tells you that the reception he got was typical.

This is the point at which you have to dig up more evidence than just your father's say-so. If you are claiming that a "lot" of veterans were spit on, I won't take your word for it. I lived through that period and you didn't. I'll go by my recollection of events because you don't have any personal recollection at all.

The point here is that this story was invented because it fits into a latter-day interpretation of the Vietnam War, the one that says we could have won it except for the anti-war movement. That is certainly a misreading of history.

[Classical_Liberal]

55. The protesters are responsible for the war?

come on!

[dreissig]

57. War Protesters

We lost Vietnam in the field. We'd send out patrols, sometimes we'd encounter Viet Cong, sometimes we didn't. The war was "scored" like a sporting event - by body count. The Viet Cong didn't see the war on our terms, however. They figured that there was a fixed, maximum number of U.S. casualties.

Our method of scoring the war didn't induce the Viet Cong to surrender. Nixon tried some other approaches, including bombing the populated areas of North Vietnam. But even that didn't get them to quit.

We withdrew in disgrace in the early 70's. By 1980, however, the right wing had come up with a revision of history that put the blame on the antiwar movement. This revision has been repeated to the point that a lot of people believe it. However, the Vietnam War was lost in Vietnam, not in the United States.

[JanMichael]

62. No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christ...My wife already explained it here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=718693&mesg_id=719525&page=

I suppose I should stop using words like "anomoly"...:shrug:

[jonnyblitz]

58. a book was written about this by a Holy Cross professor

who was also a Vietnam Vet. His name is Jerry Lembcke and the book is called "The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam"


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814751474/qid=1049681923/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-0042855-0704759

[dreissig]

61. Status of the Debate

The people who say that Vietnam veterans as a group were spit on when they returned don't have any evidence of that. Instead they have reports of random, isolated incidents. These incidents collectively don't establish the claim that they are making.

Sociologist Jerry Lembcke did an extensive search for contemporary newspaper accounts and police reports at the time the spitting incidents are said to have occurred. He found that these incidents weren't reported until long after they occurred .... giving him reason to suspect that they hadn't actually happened but that they fill a need that didn't exist until 1980.

Nobody can refute the claims of individual soldiers claiming to have been spit on. But their claim to represent the entire three million returning veterans has not been established. The burden of proof is on the myth-makers here. If there's some evidence, they should produce it.

[RandomKoolzip]

59. My father was an antiwar protestor in the late sixties/early seventies

and he had nothing but sympathy for the returning vets, because during the war, he was in the army and lucked out of actually serving in country, and was assigned to work at a VA hospital in Denver. My father saw more than his share of young men like himself come back from Vietnam in body bags. This experience and others radicalized my dad and turned him into a dedicated pacifist antiwar activist. He told me stories of how some clueless bastards did indeed call returning vets "babykillers" and the like, but on the whole, the antiwar groups he was involved in knew that the returning vets were just young men like themselves who had been dragged unwillingly or otherwise into hell and desrved to be treated with respect on their way back. He was always adamnat on this point: the peace movement groups he knew treated vets with respect and sympathy- the vets were victims of US imperialism.

My apologies on behalf of pacifist nonvets everywhere to vets like DEmotex everywhere: please understand that we understand you were treated as cannon fodder by our government and certain gutless punks who didn't know better, and thus are due our admiration and sympathy. We thank you for serving.