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

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

[Valin]

While I was never spit at, I and the guys I worked with were made to feel unwelcome in certain circles. I liked to ask these people if they were pacifists, if they answered yes I informed them that I wasn't and Uncle Sam spent a lot of money training me to beat the crap out of people and if they didn't shut up I be more than happy to show them, if they answered no I asked them how many people they'd killed and then smiled.

[MistyCA]

I remember the riots at UCSB (Isla Vista) when they burned the Bank of America. My husband was a security policeman in Vietnam and a Policeman for the city when he returned. After the campus riots there were Union riots at BFI. My husband was hurt when he was one of 5 guys told to go in to quiet the crowd! LOL! 5 against hundreds proved to be real dumb. It was a bad time in our history and being spit on while in uniform (any uniform) wasn't surprising.

My husband still has a very old, dirty, tattered flag that he took from some hippies who were dishonoring it. I am not at all proud of a whole lot of our generation.

[TeleStraightShooter]

After browsing the first 100 posts I find the following:

Twelve first hand accounts in posts
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I put in bold the posts that are exemplary in their details.

Apparently the professor's "Urban Myth" is indeed itself a Urban Myth.

[morkfork]

Very similar to an article posted on slate in 2000.

http://slate.msn.com/id/1005224/

Not surprising this academic is pushing this pablum. It matches his political views.

[MistyCA]

I wonder why so many in our generation were/are so stupid.

[stands2reason]

I usually see a couple of servicemen in their camo's every time I go into the grocery store. Most of these incidents seem to be when the vets are on their way home.

So what's your point?

[RaceBannon]

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273 was an expanded version of mine, more detail.

[RaceBannon]

I cant believe it, I am just so angry, I just cannot stand this.

I better go to bed...if I can sleep.

[MistyCA]

Hey, Jojo. My computer had indigestion and I was using my older one. I thought my harddrive had died but it turned out to be a software glitch of some sort. Its the pits going from cable to landline! :)

Yes, I remember the guy from the Toby Keith concert. My stomach literally turns when I think of the ignorance (violence) so many display in the name of "peace".

[MistyCA]

Yes. That person will call every one of us liars.

[MistyCA]

Thanks! :)

[Fatuncle]

And there was no Holocaust, either.

[dsc]

I'm a Vietnam *era* vet, but not a Vietnam vet.

To all you guys who went, profound respect and gratitude.

I never got spat on, but I did have a professor torpedo me on a letter of recommendation. I asked him if he would write it, and he said sure, then wrote that I seemed to be in a "post-Vietnam malaise."

How do I know that? Well, I was working in the admissions office. If you want to call me unethical for looking at my own file, I'll take that hit.

[Delphinium]

I know several men who were spit on and treated terribly when they came home from Vietnam.

And I blame people like her for it.

[Rocky]

Rubbish. I am not a veteran, but I lived through those times, and I remember the disgraceful behavior of the radical war protesters. Yes, they spit and threw things. I can't explain why the author could not find news stories about it. But the stories didn't start 15 years after the war ended, as he says. I remember hearing about it at the time it happened. Was this guy even alive during the war?

The worst thing we can do is to forget the wrongs that were done to our military people. If we forget, then we are liable to let it happen again. Being opposed to the war was one thing, but abusing those who went to war is another. We must not let these Leftists rewrite history. (I assume this guy is a Leftist. If not, then he is playing into their hands.)

[Libertina]

They are crazy with hatred and denial RaceBannon. God bless you and thank you for your courage, patriotism, and protection of our country.

[MistyCA]

You are welcome! :0)

[MistyCA]

You are welcome. My Vietnam Vet brother died last year. In a way, I am glad that he doesn't have to see this stuff. :(

[RaceBannon]

Thank you, but there are men on this site that deserve more accolades for courage, I was never shot at. I did a few things that took a little guts, I did move faster or first compared to the Marines around me, but I was never alone, and got more recognition for the puny lifesaving things we got recognized for than we deserved, and none for the ones we did deserve! :)

Did that come out right?

I just cannot believe, still, 6 or 7 hous later, that people actually will print such a lie like this, something so demonstrably false, with thousands of witnesses still alive, and some people will repeat this pencil pushing geek's lies as the truth!

I just dont know what to say.

I am so upset, the latest Ann Coulter column had absolutely no effect on me...and that shook me!

Funny, that might sound funny, but it is a truth!

[MistyCA]

Big hug to you, Race. I just wish there was something more we could do. I am thinking that the most important thing we can do is keep writing and never let the truth die!!!!!