Help again, the pro war goups are coming back with the Nam myths about the

[mrcheerful]

anti war movement abusing the Nam soldiers returning from Nam. Outside of a bunch of chicken hawk web sites I fond this one that disproves what is being said. How much truth is there about this and how come I don't remember reading it in the news. But remember that Rambo brought back the myths. BTW, I disagree with the writters asertion that PSTD isn't a real mental health affliction, but the fact remains that the anti war movement was about getting the Nam soldiers out of Nam.








http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam is a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran Jerry Lembcke, which argues that the common claim that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by anti-war protesters, upon returning home from the Vietnam War is little more than an urban legend and that posttraumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was more political invention rather than any real mental health affliction.

One of Lembcke's conclusion in Spitting Image is that there was not even a single media report to support the claims. Lembcke claims that the reported "spitting on soldiers" was a mythical projection of those who felt "spat-upon" and was meant to discredit future antiwar activism. He suggests the image of pro-war antipathy against anti-war protestors helped contribute to the image. Lembcke argues that memories of being verbally and physically assaulted by anti-war protesters were largely socially constructed, noting that not even one case could be documented

[gratuitous]

1. The standard response to an unsupported assertion

"Prove it." Not your brother's wife's cousin's friend, not your mechanic's dad's poker buddy, but who? First person, contemporaneous account, please. Who, when, where? Specific incident, reported at the time. Show me the soldier who was spat on, and show me the person who spat on the soldier. With all the stories out there about this, there should be hundreds, if not thousands of incidents to choose from. Show me one.

[sarge43]

8. Good answer

Another is that Nam vets were not treated with contempt upon their return. Far worse, they were treated with indifference, usually by their government.

[patrice]

2. People can and do lie about this sort of thing.

On both sides, but the motivation to lie would be much higher amongst those who needed something to justify what they had been involved in in Viet Nam.

Some Viet Nam vets are capable of letting their behavior stand on its own merits or de-merits, others would NEED to solicit support any way possible.

And then there are those who get high off of the sheer hostility of it all, like that guy who spat on Jane Fonda when she came to K.C.

My apologies from K.C. to Jane Fonda.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Can these prowar people provide a single, solitary report...

of this happening?

This "Sptting Image" book is not the first time I've read that researchers are unable to find any evidence in news reports of soldiers being spat upon.

[The Deacon]

4. I Never Bought This Urban Legend

We had nothing against the soldiers (with obvious exceptions - Lt. Calley & Capt. Medina and all those POW hacks the Pentagon sent around) it was Nixon & Nixon's policies we protested (too young when it was Lyndon's War.)

[mrcheerful]

5. A freeper said it happened to her husband when he was getting off the

plane after serving a tour of duty. But surprise, surprise, surprise, he went back for another tour and was killed in combat. Its funny how after 40 year the chicken hawks are still going after the anti war protestors from Nam.

[stepnw1f]

6. Because It Gives Them A Righteous Reason to Hate Us

When in reality it's a lie. That's why it's so important for them to defend the lie. They have NOTHING else.

[patrice]

7. That's an example of the sort of person who NEEDS something

to justify what happened to her husband.

[mrcheerful]

9. I do remember when a cousin came back from Nam after his tour was up

that said there were all kids of wild stories about how returning soldiers were being treatd.But it was seen as the military trying to get soldiers to sign up for another tour of duty. They were being told they could'nt wear their uniforms state side because groups of hippies where waiting to ambush them, lol.

[sarge43]

10. If all the Freeps who claim they or a significant other were actually in

Nam, we probably would have had enough boots on the ground to win the thing.

[Sinti]

11. I remember MIA bracelets local hippies wore - praying they'd get the guy

back home. They wanted our soldiers (some of them being their friends) to come home alive. I seriously doubt the spitting claim. PTSD on the other hand, I would just love to be able to force Lembcke to live a day with PTSD... Standing in line minding your own business, then all of a sudden you're in another place (where you've been before), in a life threatening situation - then bam, back to reality - where am I again? It's a political invention, no doubt.

[mrcheerful]

12. Yeah my cousin still has those moments in time where

one minute your talking to him, then he yells get down incoming.Incoming what? E-mail attack? I know its not funny when you are the one suffering, but since he put his guns away its gotten amusing.

[klyon]

14. I remember that too

I also remember personally being hassled and roughed up by people that didn't like us protesting.

Many vets joined our side and stood and took the abuse that protesters were forced to endure. Many vets were also given flowers by hippies when they got home.

Unless to complete story of those days is told one small incident can be used and blown all out of proportion to confuse the facts and misled people.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. I've known several Vietnam vets and none of them has ever

said anything about any mistreatment from protestors or anyone else when they returned home. One thing that most of them share, however, is a reluctance to talk about their tours of duty in Vietnam. They might tell you where they served in Vietnam, but very little actual information about what happened to them while they were there, even if they are questioned about it.

[mulsh]

15. as one of those protesters

I must point out that most of us boys knew we could be shipped over to Viet Nam right after boot camp. All of us guys under and between the ages of 18-35 expected to be drafted. Most all of us had friends or relatives who were over there at the time, many of them never made it back. those are the reasons I've always called bullshit when ever some one brings up the "spitting on vets" meme and most of the other urban legends surrounding the treatment of returning Viet Nam vets. like the poster above pointed out those vets were met with indiferance, mostly from our government.

[sgxnk]

16. the spitting thang

as i understand it, the spitting thing is mostly a myth. this is not to say that many people did not treat them with contempt

but the spitting thing, etc. is bogus

also, the whole every soldier is a wacked out PTSD suffering mess is another myth. berke breathed very successfully played on that myth in his bloom county cartoons iirc


also, the spat upon/physically assaulted thing doesn't pass the smell test. i'm supposed to believe that these salty vets were physically assaulted by a bunch of war protestors? yea, right. the protestors woulda gotten their azzes kicked

[Greyhound]

17. As the offspring of real live, honest-to-god, hippies, I can vouch for

this. I wouldn't be surprised if someone could dig up an instance or two of spitting, but I never saw it, there were, however, more than a few "hippies" that did give the returning soldiers a hard time, which I'm proud to say, my parents fought against at every opportunity saying essentially that these guys were the victims and we should be welcoming them home and congratulating them for surviving that holocaust.

As for PTSD being bogus, that is total and utter bullshit, it has been around and thoroughly documented forever, they change the name every few wars, but it is absofuckinglutely real! The idea that we can send a kid into a fire zone where he is required to commit, or participate in, multiple homicides for months and years, without him being traumatized is simply insane. Everybody that has been in a war returns twisted in one way or another and is forever changed, to claim otherwise is asinine (I suppose an exception would be if he was already homicidal to begin with, but even then he will be changed for the worse).

:cry: For all of the victims of this obscenity

[sgxnk]

20. the PTSD is bogus in this respect

yes, some soldiers were seriously psychologically affected to the extent of mental disorder, which is what PTSD is

the vast majority were not

the majority, for that matter, did not even FACE combat, and never fired their weapon apart from training

i am not saying it didn't happen. it has happened in EVERY war. i am saying the extent of it was way overblown

PTSD is a disorder. it is characterized in both a quantity, as well as quality manner. similarly, if one is bummed out sometimes that does not make on clinically depressed

same concept

most armed force members did not suffer from PTSD

and that is why bloom county was so spot on in this regards

[Greyhound]

21. I suppose if you put enough qualifiers on it, you can "accurately"

say that up is down and day is night, it still doesn't make it true.

Everybody, without exception, that has seen or been in combat is adversely effected by it, period.

I don't know your background, but here's a little of mine. I am the sole male member of my family to not serve in the British or American Navies in well over 400 years, so I grew up surrounded by military men, most of whom were in combat in one of our many, many, wars and actions. As you know from my previous reply, my parents were died-in-the-wool hippies and the main reason for my Dad's conversion was his intimate knowledge of the horrors of war.

I have several very close friends that were in combat from Vietnam, through the raygun crimes, both reported and still classified, as well as dozens of acquaintances, all of whom are drastically changed by their experiences, many of whom will go to their death beds denying it. And lest we forget the outlandishly disproportionate number of our homeless that were combat veterans. No, they were shipped back and dumped, to be forgotten by our society.

The labeling as gold-brickers, by the military, are infamous, because they know that if normal people knew the reality of war, they'd never get to fight another one. So excuse me if I'm skeptical of those that poo-poo the very real consequences of war.

[sgxnk]

24. it's not

it's not a matter of qualifiers

it's a matter of FIRST OF ALL, understanding what PTSD means. it's a psychological disorder. realizing that the definition of disorders are of course somewhat subjective and fuzzy, psychologists come to consensus and the result is the DSM (for most disorders, a handy reference guide)

my background is somewhat irrelevant since we are talking facts about psychological disorders and the rates of incidence in a given population (vienam vets)

the tenor of your post is FILLED with political conclusions which tends to make me think you are more concerned with the evils of reagan, the vietnam war, etc. vs. an issue that is detached from one's particular views about same, but is in fact related to actual incidents of psychological disorder

regardless, as to my "background", i have never fought in the military, but i have been in gun battles, and i did spend a year in grad school where i did get a few training sessions (both practical and academic) into the study of psychological disorders

the claims as to incidences of PTSD are OF COURSE coloured by people's politics. just like so many other subjects where politics and science intersect, the latter usually takes a back seat to the former

your strawman aside (i am not "poo-poo" ing the consequences of war... i am saying the CLAIMS of very high rates of PTSD ex post the vietnam war are OVERSTATED... all wars have seen higher incidents of PTSD among the warriors (and many support personnel like corpsmen) than among the general population

that is tangential to my claim that the myth of vast #'s military personnel returning with PTSD is just that ... a myth.. much like the whole spat upon thang (which was also largely a myth)

i would like to divorce the FACTS of this discussion from the politics. because they are largely unrelated. the civil war was (imo) undoubtedly justified. yet, it was far more horrific in almost every respect as compared to vietnam war (or most of our wars for that matter).

so, these issues are pretty much unrelated

and yes, i also have plenty of friends that went through combat, but i would prefer to speak more to the overall statistics and such than relatively narrow personal experience

[blm]

22. The spitting on soldiers came from Bush1's re-election efforts back in 91

because he was under the gun from the POW-MIA crowd. So, to divert their wrath to the Democratic contenders, some of who had been against the Vietnam War, the story emerged about the leftist protestors and hippies spitting on soldiers.

Before 91, you never heard about this happening, but Bush1's campaign knew they could use the adulation of the Gulf War returning soldiers to bemoan the "treatment" of the returning Vienam vets.

It also served to stir up anger at war protestors as symbolized then by John Kerry who had Bush1 on the ropes throughout his term, due to his dogged pursuit of IranContra and BCCI.

The concern for the soldiers being spit upon was a complete RNC dog and pony show, with the myths still getting play today.

[Greyhound]

18. Kick

[TahitiNut]

19. (Fuck!! Not again!) It happened, and it happened to me.

Why do some people want to open these old wounds? Why does this get resurrected on DU 2-3 times each year?

While there're quite a few archived threads on this, read ...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/3
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/TahitiNut/11

[Greyhound]

23. I'm sorry man, I'm done with this thread.

It's just when this shit starts it gets my blood boiling, and I forget that there are many here that don't need this brought back.

Again, I'm sorry.

[mrcheerful]

25. The original topic was about how Iraq vets returning home were not

finding good jobs or low pay part time work. Then some air head brought up the fact that Viet Nam vets faced worse as there were all kinds of hippies lined up at the air ports nation wide waiting to throw garbage and spit on the returning vets. I wanted to put things in perspective by pointing out that it was not all anti war protesters doing things like that. The only site I could find that wasn't a right wing chicken hawk backed site was this one.

If I remember right, these kind of things started after the Mai Lei village massacre and the Kent State massacre. The youth of america reacted negatively to the soldiers because they felt betrayed by the soldiers who they were trying to stop the war for and bring them home alive. Also the war hawks would send instigators in with the protesters to stir up trouble and discredit the protesters. Viet Nam will never die down or be forgotten, we can't let it be. Thats the real problem today with Iraq, The Viet Nam vet vowed to never let another Viet Nam happen, yet where are we today. Meanwhile the chicken hawks are dragging all the dirt up about anti war protesters in order to stop them before they can stop this war.

[patrice]

26. I am sorry! to hear that.

I hope my posts didn't imply that it didn't happen to anyone. I think it did happen to some.

I think it has also been lied about a lot. But, I also know from holding my anti-Bush's War signs downtown with my friends that people do hideous things quite casually all of the time.

[killbotfactory]

27. What about the "We could have won Nam, if only..." people?

3 millions deaths just wasn't enough. 4 million would have probably done it, though...

[UTUSN]

28. & the myth that GIs who told about atrocities were liars and traitors

I've emailed this to the a-hole who is currently Swiftbotting MURTHA, one Craig MINNICK [email protected] for forwarding to KERRY's swiftbotter, O'NEILL.

**********QUOTE*********
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-vietnam6aug06,0,6350517.story?coll=la-home-headlines

VIETNAM: THE WAR CRIMES FILES
Civilian Killings Went Unpunished

Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities went far beyond My Lai.

By Nick Turse and Deborah Nelson, Special to The Times
August 6, 2006

.... Moments later, the 19 villagers lay dead or dying.

Back home in California, Henry published an account of the slaughter and held a news conference to air his allegations. Yet he and other Vietnam veterans who spoke out about war crimes were branded traitors and fabricators. No one was ever prosecuted for the massacre.

Now, nearly 40 years later, declassified Army files show that Henry was telling the truth — about the Feb. 8 killings and a series of other atrocities by the men of B Company.

The files are part of a once-secret archive, assembled by a Pentagon task force in the early 1970s, that shows that confirmed atrocities by U.S. forces in Vietnam were more extensive than was previously known. ....

**********UNQUOTE***********