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

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.)

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,

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.

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.

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