CBS Evening News for Monday, Dec 27, 1971
Headline: Vietnam Veteran
Abstract: (Studio) January, 1971, report on medics in Vietnam recalled; retd. medic featured.
REPORTER: Charles Collingwood
Quote:
(Manhattan, Kansas) Delmar Pickett, Junior, hero, returns from Vietnam, finds US indifferent to war; vets' unemployment high; returns to school at Kansas State University as better student than before Vietnam experience.
[Student Gwyn STEERE - speaks of Pickett's modesty.]
[Vietnam film from earlier feature shown.]
Pickett home is in Olsburg, Kansas.
[PICKETT - tells of being spit on in Seattle, WA.]
Disillusioned but not downed by Vietnam experience.
[PICKETT - tells of experience as medic in Vietnam.]
[Father Delmar PICKETT, Senior - says son more settled.]
[MOTHER - says son a much better student than formerly.]
Drugs no problem for Pickett.
2 1/2 million Vietnam vets.
>"And, oh, by the way, there is not one confirmed
>case, not one, of Americans spitting on veterans
>returning from Vietnam."
>
If you read autobiography of the times, there are plenty of mentions of being spat upon, insulted.
When you have citizens of the United States actually collaborating with the NVA intelligence services, to confirm information revealed under torture from downed US airmen in the Hanoi Hilton I think it is safe to expect that something like spitting at returning servicemen is not beyond them
--
"And then I realized...like I was shot...Like I was shot with a diamond...a diamond bullet right through my forehead...And I thought: My God...the genius of that."