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

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

[RaceBannon]

whew, blood pressure down a bit here...

Yes, It was a WONDERFUL thing for the swift boat vets and other Vietnam Vets to come out.

For the first time, the honest truth came out about these brave men and women who served.

So did the truth about the treason of the Jane Fondas and John Kerrys.

[RaceBannon]

I remember it in 1978, they changed the orders around Cherry Point to read something like, "Due to the change in the political climate, the wearing of the uniform during off base hours is to be only for formal events" or something like that, then we got the word about wearing Cammies to the local food mart and how that was illegal...

[UltraKonservativen]

When I was stationed at the Oakland Army base (main processing center for going and coming back from Nam) we had a few riots with protesters and had to guard the gates.
I was not spit on but a chunk of brick bounced off my helmet. That was a real brick not a "urban legend".
It took all my will power not to break ranks and go bust that protesting idiot in the mouth with the "unloaded" M-14 I was holding.
I have always remember the feeling. It is amazing that when a brick hits you on the head, all the politics disappear and it becomes a very personal thing between you and the SOB that threw the brick.

[js1138]

I was treated pretty well on My return in January of 1969. Two things: Most of my flying was done late at night on the cheapest standby flights. The airports were nearly deserted. Also, LBJ was still president. Wars in general are bad only when Republicans are running them.

[RaceBannon]

Outstanding, Soldier!

Great Job!

[Triple]

The author is a malicious idiot.

[Alia]

It was easy to write: the man inspires sharp prose in response to his inanities. Perhaps this is also his teaching method: get up in front of the class, show his vapidness, and the class feels instantly "better educated" (than the professor). :)

You've got some superb cites in your pofile, FBD.

[UltraKonservativen]

WELL THIS IS NOT SPITTING, IT"S ONLY TREASON.....

[Triple]

Thank you.

After serving in wartime to have to face that crap from hippies at home is just too much. Thanks to all veterans as well.

[Alia]

And I, was in the San Francisco Bay Area to see first-hand how the activity duty and vets were treated by the hostiles. It was ugly. And hidious. And those of us who supported our military men were treated ill too by the hostiles.

[USMCVet]

I sent Mr. Llewellyn the following e-mail:

Hi Mr. Llewellyn -

I just read an article purported to have been written by you claiming that the spitting on returning Vietnam Veterans was untrue, an "urban legend". It's probably not coincidental that it was republished on Veteran's Day but I'll bite and respond..

Just exactly whom did you speak to, to arrive at that conclusion? I was one of those spat upon and I received other abuse as well after my return from Vietnam.

I will be more than happy to discuss what our return was like if you have the time and I will do my best to document the occasions of spitting and abuse I encountered back then.

I served in Vietnam with the 1st Marine Division from January 1966 to May 1967 and spent another seven months at the Camp Pendleton Naval Hospital recovering from wounds. The first incident occurred when I got my first liberty from the hospital and I wanted to go visit my parents in the San Fernando Valley. I didn't have a car, so I hitchhiked from the Oceanside gate north on Highway 95 - except I had a lot of trouble getting a ride. Car after car would pass me as I stood there in uniform and crutches with my thumb out, and they would flash the two-fingered "peace sign", then the single-fingered version. Eventually, a young man my age stopped with an MGB and I fumbled my way into the car (I had a steel leg brace that did not allow any bending of my right knee - I don't know how familiar you are with the MGB, but I'm sure that you will understand that it was a struggle to get into that small car, crutches and all). We drove rapidly north towards Santa Ana without talking but after we had gone about half an hour, the driver asked me how I'd been injured. I told him that I'd been shot. He asked "where" - so I pointed to the center of my thigh. He said "No, what country?" and I told him "Vietnam". He pulled that MG directly over the edge of the freeway, stopped and said Get out". I was numb with disbelief, but got out there on the edge of the freeway and he drove off. I was stuck there, miles from any offramps with crutches and a very sore leg and had to slowly make my way back to an area where I could get back to the hospital - I wasn't in any shape by then to go home.

I was discharged in 1969 and started school at California State University at Northridge (originally San Fernando Valley State College) that fall. I also started back to work at my old job at J.C. Penneys in Granada Hills California. Until that time I had stayed on the Marine bases at Camp Pendleton and MCAS Tustin and had not mingled all that much with the civilians at home.

On one of the first weeks at Cal State, they held a very large demonstration on campus against the war and I went to watch. While I was standing on the periphery, one of the young men confronted me about a hat I was wearing (one of the so-called Boonie hats) and became angry and loud when I told him I'd been to Vietnam. During the discussion I told him that we liked the Vietnamese and that they deserved to be protected from the VC. He became much angrier and said "If you liked the Vietnamese so much, why didn't you stay there?" I told him that I couldn't, I was wounded and sent home. He said "well isn't that too bad" and shoved me to try to knock me down. The group he was with became more hostile yet and I had classes to go to, so I left.

The spitting incident occurred while I was working at Penney's. I was a department manager for the shoe department and I had a dozen or so high school age employees that I was training and observing during the fall "school rush". While I was standing there a woman in her thirties walked up to me and said "I hear that you've been to Vietnam". I was surprised at the inquiry, since I was growing my hair out and didn't think that I was recognizable as a military anything. I turned towards her and said "yes". She spat a large amount directly into my face and yelled that I was a "murderer that killed innocent women and children" and that I "had no right to interfere in another country's civil war". I think that she went on for a bit more before she turned and walked rapidly away. I stood there for a few seconds, my face dripping and all of my employees and customers watching. I went to the break room, closed the door and laid my head on the table and cried. She had no idea what I had been through or whom I really was but she knew enough to spit into my face in front of everyone. I'd like to say that I recovered from that quickly, but I didn't. I left that job and got another and I stayed away from public jobs for years.

I returned to the Marine Corps in 1973 as an officer and even went back to Vietnam (offshore) in the final weeks of the war. I served for 24 more years as an officer, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1996. There were other incidents beyond these and of course, I wasn't the only returning Vietnam vet I knew that had been abused.

I don't know what methods you used to do your research, but I recommend that you have another look. I am available to discuss our return and I will do my best to give you what supporting evidence that I can of these incidents.

You should not continue to believe that these were "urban legends": these incidents occurred and they were common.

Sincerely,

[Alia]

Thank you for serving, Intolerant in NJ. I arrived with my family in San Francisco in 1965. Lived at the Presidio. I was a kid. I thought I'd landed in a war zone. Yes, the MSM have footage still in archives of how our military was treated -- ill. Did the professor ask the MSM for footage? I seriously doubt the MSM would have destroyed all that footage from the 60s, and how our military was treated by the hostiles.

And you know what movie I hated most!!! "Coming Home" with Jane Fonda and Jon Voight.

[acad1228]

I saw true grace and courage when I saw my father step off the bus in Tulsa in 1972 after serving two tours in Viet Nam. A young woman screamed "baby raper!" at him. He turned to her and said, "I just fought for your right to say that!"

[reagandemo]

First off Bush is not selling us out to Mexico. That is what the MSM wants you to believe. Second, all this pinhead has to do is ask CBS, ABC, NBC for permission to look in their film archives for examples of spitting. He is a lazy academic who hates the military.

[Alia]

You are right.

By the late 60s/early 70s, I was out of San Francisco and living in Marin County. The term "Baby Killers" was graffitied on signs. The recent "UC Berkeley grads" had come to teach in our schools. What I got to see, is not what the libs hoped anyone would notice:

That while the hostiles were screaming "Baby Killers" at the military -- the same Hostiles were promoting real baby killing in America: Abortion. I felt almost buried by the assault on our culture. Most were focused on Vietnam (and all); but few saw the slippage and misuse of the term "Baby Killers" and how it was being red-herringed while something else called "Choice" was being born.. and how did the Hostiles erect "abortion" amid anti-Military epiteths?

Men, particularly, white men are... evil, they oppress women, and they kill babies. Feminists in the SF Bay Area MSM were busy claiming that right to kill babies, for themselves.

I was young. And I saw it come down. I was living in the eye of a storm.

[johnb838]

A dork. A soft, ugly, scraggly-bearded dork. A Moore-on.

[GOPmomof3inNC]

You know what I find disgusting? My Uncle was a Captain in the Army Air Force in WWII and was a Wake Forest graduate. I'm appalled that this scumbag works at his Alma Mater.

Here is what I sent to the 'professor'. I didn't even bother to address him.

You write:
{{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.}}

Contrary to your (and other liberals) opinion and belief repeating a lie often enough does not nor will it ever make it the truth. How horrible for you to symbolically spit on these heroic veterans the day before Veteran's Day. The disdain and mistreatment of the brave soldiers who endured a virtual hell in Vietnam continues and you, sir, are a culprit.

This statement is a 'myth'. I personally know several people this happened to. I am related to two. My husband has at least ten friends that this happened to. All are different sources from different parts of the country. My grandmother - whose two brothers proudly served in World War II - personally told me of witnessing such an incident at a 'Welcome Home' parade for the Veterans. She, nor do any of my other sources, have a reason or desire to embellish or lie about this.

You write:

{{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}}

As a 'scholar' of pompous out of touch windbag professors struggling to justify their relevance and their over inflated salaries I would say you need to relearn how to RESEARCH. Please provide ONE credible source to back up your claims. I have several that would love go on record to prove your 'urban legend' theory exists only in your mind. It happened - you need to learn to deal with it. Projection is an ugly thing.

The Vietnam Veterans have been treated like second rate citizens long enough. It stops now.

Next you'll be writing articles describing Auschwitz as an urban legend.

[GailA]

Good for your dad! I truly hope this lefty POS gets an earfull from Nam Vets. I sent the article and his contact info to the 2 on my email list. Knowing them they will in turn send it on to other Brothers who will in turn send it on to even more.

[Kenton]

It didn't happen to me, but I didn't come home through San Francisco, my ship went back to it's home port. I heard stories about it, but never witnessed it. The baby-killer crap I can attest to, I did hear that invective being shouted at guys in uniform.

AS far as whether or not angy hippies were capable of it? Sure they were. They still are.

Here's a quote I just picked up over on DU, talking about Veterans' Day:

Veterans day being a Vet and noticing that in the past couple years Banks and other institutions are actually closing for observance really pisses me off. Here we have a country that let several war vets to be smeared. To be called traitors. To be called cowards and weak. What was their crime? In true warrior fashion they opposed killing young men and women for the whim of a corrupt administration. For this we became traitors. I spit on your observance! I spit on them! Go to hell you bastards.

Nice folks.