When Vietnam vets came home (Soldiers being spit on is just an urban myth)

News and Observer ^ | Nov 10, 2004 | JOHN LLEWELLYN

[mykdsmom]

WINSTON-SALEM -- Last week voters went to the polls to select a vision for the future. Now Americans must find a way forward together. This week, as we honor service and sacrifice on Veterans Day, an image from this political season must be put to rest.

The presidential campaign featured the resurgence of a myth from the early 1990s. That myth is that soldiers returning from Vietnam were spit upon by citizens or war protesters. That claim has been used to turn honest differences of opinion about the war into toxic indictments.

As a scholar of urban legends I am usually involved with accounts of vanishing hitchhikers and involuntary kidney donors. These stories are folklore that harmlessly reveals the public imagination. However, accounts of citizens spitting on returning soldiers -- any nation's soldiers -- are not harmless stories. These tales evoke an emotional firestorm.

I have studied urban legends for nearly 20 years and have been certified as an expert on the subject in the federal courts. Nonetheless, it dawned on me only recently that the spitting story was a rumor that has grown into an urban legend. I never wanted to believe the story but I was afraid to investigate it for fear that it could be true.

Why could I not identify this fiction sooner? The power of the story and the passion of its advocates offer a powerful alchemy of guilt and fear -- emotions not associated with clearheadedness.

Labeling the spitting story an urban legend does not mean that something of this sort did not happen to someone somewhere. You cannot prove the negative -- that something never happened. However, most accounts of spitting emerged in the mid-1980s only after a newspaper columnist asked his readers who were Vietnam vets if they had been spit upon after the war (an odd and leading question to ask a decade after the war's end). The framing of the question seemed to beg for an affirmative answer.

• • •

In 1998 sociologist and Vietnam veteran Jerry Lembcke published "The Spitting Image: Myth, Media and the Legacy of Viet Nam." He recounts a study of 495 news stories on returning veterans published from 1965 to 1971. That study shows only a handful (32) of instances were presented as in any way antagonistic to the soldiers. There were no instances of spitting on soldiers; what spitting was reported was done by citizens expressing displeasure with protesters.

Opinion polls of the time show no animosity between soldiers and opponents of the war. Only 3 percent of returning soldiers recounted any unfriendly experiences upon their return.

So records from that era offer no support for the spitting stories. Lembcke's research does show that similar spitting rumors arose in Germany after World War I and in France after its Indochina war. One of the persistent markers of urban legends is the re-emergence of certain themes across time and space.

There is also a common-sense method for debunking this urban legend. One frequent test is the story's plausibility: how likely is it that the incident could have happened as described? Do we really believe that a "dirty hippie" would spit upon a fit and trained soldier? If such a confrontation had occurred, would that combat-hardened soldier have just ignored the insult? Would there not be pictures, arrest reports, a trial record or a coroner's report after such an event? Years of research have produced no such records.

Lembcke underscores the enduring significance of the spitting story for this Veterans Day. He observes that as a society we are what we remember. The meaning of Vietnam and any other war is not static but is created through the stories we tell one another. To reinforce the principle that policy disagreements are not personal vendettas we must put this story to rest.

Our first step forward is to recognize that we are not a society that disrespects the sacrifices of our servicemembers. We should ignore anyone who tries to tell us otherwise. Whatever our aspirations for America, those hopes must begin with a clear awareness of who we are not.

(John Llewellyn is an associate professor of communication at Wake Forest University.)

[sneakers]

Last year, when putting up a board with the pictures and names of local men and women serving in the Middle East, I met a man who served in Vietnam. He said "I wish someone had done that for us". And then he cried. And I stood there with my arm around him and cried as well. He told me how he was treated when he got back to the States. He said he was spit upon and bottles thrown at him. I will never forget the pain in his voice!

How DARE the author of that article further impugn our Vietnam vets with the lies therein!
It makes me so angry I'm shaking. Just before the election, I talked to the widow of a man who had served in Vietnam. She told me that she witnessed her husband being spat on when he got off the plane at the Pittsburgh airport. (The old airport back then). She said she was so angry that she started yelling at the creeps who had done the spitting. Her husband restrained her, saying that he was treated the same way at each stop. He just wanted to move on. She also said he always remembered the name "John Kerry", and hated him until the day he died, several years ago!

[soozla]

"Urban Myth" my ever-lovin' @SS!!!! My brother-in-law was spit at while coming home ON LEAVE at O'Hare Airport......

[PeterPrinciple]

"There were no instances of spitting on soldiers; what spitting was reported was done by citizens expressing displeasure with protesters."


Read the article again......it was the protesters who were spit on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[WorkingClassFilth]

And I suppose that Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Tom Hayden, Todd Gitlin and all the other usual suspects urged their band of followers to fling bottles of perfume and bags of flowers at the police and the national guard in 1968?

Up yours, commie dirt bag.

[wardaddy]

I've seen this wanker before somewhere on FR for some other transgression.

WTF is Wake Forest thinking?

He heard from me and I forwarded to a few dozen more

[brazzaville]

Good evening.

SFO was the worst possible transit point. We all passed through San Francisco on our way home and we all remember.

Michael Frazier

[Chad Fairbanks]

Don't even get me started. I was lucky. My experiences while in Uniform, near the tail end of Reagans' administration was nothing but good. I had people buy me drinks on planes, people shaking my hand and thanking me for serving, etc... But then, I was flying from a military town back to my own small town mostly, so that may explain it... and coming back from the gulf in the 90s I didn't have any problems either...

My father still wont' talk about Viet Nam, or his return home, very much, and quite frankly he snapped some time after coming home, and did some jail time for assault. I just can't imagine going through what he went through. I'd probably snap, too, because I don't put up with crap either. Anyone EVER spits on me, for any reason, they'll be eating through a straw. Period.

[TeleStraightShooter]

Ok, so we can conclude that on the whole, the press did not report about stories of 'Nam Vets being spit on.

Evidently the press did report longHairMaggotInfested hippies being "abused"

[JWinNC]

Bump. Someone please keep us posted on this. The N&O must respond. Let's hold their feet to the fire on this.

jw

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

NEVER FORGET


JOHN KERRY came home from Vietnam to call us American Soldiers fighting for Freedom there...

...rapists, terrorists (who cut off heads & ears) and monsters.


The American People responded by treating us like them.


JOHN KERRY = Enemy of Vietnam Vets

http://www.TheAlamoFILM.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1320


NEVER FORGET

.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Hey you leftie scums!

BRING IT ON!

I'm waiting to make your day(s)

[Plutarch]

I ignored the chants, but the spit earned him some extensive dental work and my right boot rearranged his rib cage.

I've wondered whether the spitting story is urban myth, exactly for the reason you relate. Spitting on a 20 year old battle hardened soldier or marine would result more times than not in getting one's ass kicked. How many hippies would want to risk that?

[TeleStraightShooter]

Thanks for your first hand account of history.
What you said about antiWar reporters being on the scene makes sense per my post #248

[TeleStraightShooter]

Our first step forward is to recognize that we are not a society that disrespects the sacrifices of our servicemembers.
We should ignore anyone who tries to tell us otherwise.

Since John Kerry disrespected the sacrifices of Vietnam Vets, I suggest we ignore his version of history.
After throughly debunking it of course.
THANK YOU SWIFT VETS!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[bjcintennessee]

ping

[Freepdonia]

'Twerent a myth my friend. It actually happened.

I know. That's why I put the word myth in quotes.

[Enlightiator]

Llewellyn is making up his own urban legend. Your story is the proof, as well as others in this thread. There is also this book which debunks Llewellyn's false claim that vietnam veterens were not spit on:

Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam by Bob Greene

From Publishers Weekly
Chicago Tribune staffer Greene composed several of his syndicated columns around responses he received from Vietnam vets after he asked whether any of them had been spat upon. Unfortunately, the enormous impact of the columns is lost in their expansion to book form. Some servicemen were spat upon on their return, but more suffered verbal abuse or icy indifference. Many contributors point out that they did what their country asked them to do, and they were stunned by the cruelty, even savagery, of some of the anti-war protesters, many of whom proclaimed belief in love and peace. Some are still not reconciled to the treatment they received, while others welcome the change in the attitude toward them as a chance "to wipe a little spit off our hearts." Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal "Were you ever spat upon when you returned home to the United States?" asked syndicated columnist Greene of the Vietnam veterans among his readership. He received over 1000 letters in reply, many recounting specific details of just such a painfully remembered incident. Evidently this recollection of "hippies" (as they are often called in the letters) spitting on combat veterans has become one of the war's most unpleasant, enduring images. Conversely, other letters describe acts of generosity toward servicemen, from the typical free beers at the bar to a free show. But the over 200 letters excerpted here do more than confirm popular notions. They bring back the incidents of 20 years ago vividly, but not always with bitterness. And they reveal healing solidarity among veterans in response to what for many was not a happy homecoming. Recommended. Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Reviewer: "chazt" (Overland Park, Kansas United States) - See all my reviews
Syndicated columnist Bob Greene heard the stories about anti-war protesters abusing Vietnam veterans, and wondered if they were true. He asked his readers to tell their stories, and then he checked them out. Despite denials from the Left, Greene found that protesters and others did, indeed, spit on and abuse returning veterans. He found the stories so compelling that he compiled them in this fascinating book. I think 'Homecoming' provides valuable perspective on a troubled time in U.S. history.

[RaceBannon]

I was USMC 1977 to 1981, and it wasnt until 1981 that the abuse publically stopped...or at least slowed down so much we didn't notice it anymore.

[MS.BEHAVIN]

Thanks for the heads up, Misty

My brother is a Vietnam Vet

My fury about this "study" immeasurable