Posted on 11/10/2004 3:35:05 PM PST by 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.)
My email to Mr. Llewellyn
Dear John,
I sincerely spit on you.
katnip
P.s. I wonder how much of your snail mail will be spit on before sending? Be sure to wash your hands.
More like this jerk will emerge from the woodwork.
The left can't lash out against President Bush
They WILL continue to attack Viet Nam Vets
because they know we caused Hanoi Kerry to lose.
BRING IT ON!
Excellent!
Glad to hear you "got some"!
you dont want to know the ones I used either....just got thru sending it....
why the HECK is it HIS business anyways?
Lying coward liberal trashy Kerry clone....
Exactly,and you're experience was not unique.
Heck, I was born and raised in San Diego, and
I vididly recall how shabbily the military was
treated by the anti-war, JFKerry type creepy
dirty, longhair, beads, and sandals traitors.
how much you wanna bet this guy did his share of spitting
PLEASE folks!!
take 5 minutes and tell my local LIBERAL newspaper what you think of this guy and his so called "editorial" ... how the HELL does he know what happened with VVets.....
heres the links.. one is the newsroom, one is the editor..
please FReep BOTH!!.....and be sure and say its in reference to the article they choose to put in the paper without ANY MERIT ...or investigation other than one goofs opinion!
https://miva.nando.com/contact_us/letter_editor.html
https://miva.nando.com/contact_us/newsroom_feedback.html
Since there are a lot of vets on his thread....I will take the opportunity to say THANK YOU and WELCOME HOME......enjoy your day tomorrow and relect on those who have fallen.....Lest We Forget..
Know that corner well because I have lived it this area my whole life
I remember 68 and what the times were like all to well...
I was 12 at the time and even then was a Conservative and I remember well how the "love children" were
That splitter might well have been my phyco hippie 20 year old cousin... he was just that out there at the time and would be his norm back then(and was the area he ran in)
I was riding with him in a car one night during the same time frame when all he could talk about was getting his guns (he was already well armed for the revolution) and "go kill some pigs" and he was stone cold serious
Funny thing is the same hippie cousin of mine went the typical route, drugs, alcoholic, a little jail time..then when he hit bottom in the mid 70,s went to AA, got born again, became a deacon in his church, got marry had kids built a career...
Now he's a hard core Conservative Republican... and will tell anyone what a useless piece of crap he and his hippie love children friends where at that time
That's my guess.
Sounds like he's related to the a$$hole L. ODonnell
Good work!
In May, 1973 following discharge from Letterman Army Medical Center, Presidio of San Francisco, California I transited to Ft, Monmouth, NJ for training in a new MOS. Still in some pain and uncomfortable from the cross country flight I was waiting near the Port Authority in NY to see if I could hook up with a couple of GIs to try to split the cab fare to Ft, Monmouth. In uniform, with only my duffel bag, I was passed by a group of about 5 or 6 Kerry types. When they passed behind me, I heard the typical insults about, heard one of them spit and felt it hit my back. I didn't see which one did it, but they were all laughing loudly and "slapping each other some skin" as the disappeared around the corner.
My Brother and his buddies were spit at and cursed by a pack of dirty hippies/war protesters as They came out the main gate at Travis AFB in 1974.
He spent two weeks drunk, And another two years wandering
around North America. He's doing OK . Wife,Kids,Mortgage,
Etc.. I can get him to talk a little about Nam when we're
by ourselves, But he never talks about coming back to the states.
The pencil neck mythbuster who put out this "Study" can go straight to Hell.
There is no justice for the 58,000 + Names on the Viet Nam Wall
There is no justice for the Brothers and Sisters
who's lives were ruined when they did come home.
My days in downtown Chicago in Sept 69, after I came home,
are as vivid now, as then.
I worked across the street from the Chicago 7 trial (Oct 69)
I witnessed the 1st major Viet Nam War protest (Oct 69)
I saw the daily anti war protests at Dailey Plaza
I was refused admission to Northwestern University (Oct 69)
because I was a Viet Nam Vet
(I would "upset" the other students)
I can't wait for the Hanoi Kerry and Dims Nov 11th
suprise for Viet Nam Vets
I'll be in my gun mount rather than at any parades tomorrow.
The dirty hippies who were doing the spitting didn't forget that. I have no doubt, this John was one of those dirty hippies.
This is great! Now we have documented proof! If you don't still have the arrest record, the municipality will still have them (you didn't say city or county). You need to get this proof and write a rebuttal to this guy so that all the world can see what a self-righteous clymer this guy is. If you're not inerested in that, post the place, date, and names of the folks involved and surely someone on this board will be more than happy to step up to the plate.
Well, in support of John, I guess, Viet Vets only cut off ears, cut off heads and razed villages reminiscent of Genghis Khan according to John Kerry in front of the U.S. Senate. There was no evidence of foul smelling hippies spitting on vets........ /sarcasm
Looks like this guy forgot about the likes of Kerry, Clinton and every other left wing maggot in history. They have done nothing but disrespect all our veterans.
Growing up in the 60's and 70's and then serving during Desert Storm, I can truly say many service members were surprised at the outpouring of support after the war. I know it gave me hope for this country — and so did last Tuesday!
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