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.)
Thanks. I came to FR because Clinton had violated my senses so much when he decided to run for the Presidency. I was outraged because it felt like a slap in the face to my brother, husband, dad, uncle, great uncles and all the others who had fought for the Flag and our Country. I am so ashamed of so many of our generation. My dad had died in 1989 and it meant so much to have his coffin draped with honor beneath the Flag. That so many in our generation have fought for the right to burn that Flag angers me so much! Clinton was bad, but he was just the tip of this huge iceberg.
Solace can be taken in the fact that in the intervening years alcohol, drugs and STD's have thinned those original A**bags numbers...
I'll never forget wearing my uniform during that time, very proud as a returning vet. I wore it only that one day. I folded it up, packed it into my seabag and never wore it again. The insults, dirty looks, cursing and accusations were just too much. I was separated from active Oct. 31, 1968.
Nam Vet
One returning GI was shot as he deplaned in New Mexico. But the perfesser's right. He wasn't spit upon.
Anxious to see the pictures! I am so glad they are working things out for her. I do pray for her. My Lisa is doing much better. She had an infection in her neck after the cancer surgery but it finally got taken care of and she is enjoying the baby so much! Life sure does have challenges!
I was never spit on, but name calling, and general dissing was not at all uncommon when I returned to the USA in 71. And I was in the south!
It is not a Myth! I was spit on in July 1974 as new paratrooper in the Atlanta Airport and called a baby killer by three teenagers (like myself). I immediately dropped my duffle bag and did the "Pitch Fork" lift shaking it and telling them that this was what it looked like when you got a live one. This was after they spit and started blocking my path. Needless to say, they were horrified and bolted away quickly.
All you say is true, Misty...
Your brother and mine, are not cut from that cloth...
They had a higher sense of purpose..
Something only they could understand...
The deepest love, the bravest heart,
fight for fools and Sages alike...
So deep is their love...
Ms.B
>Alia:
"This author gives not two farthings for fact or truth, and his research is obviously only limited to perusing those who agree with his own worldview.
His full intent is bluster, to provoke. The author is cocking a snook, and spinning an agenda.
I read his article, and I see an old, tired, boring, cowardly man sitting on his toilet writing an article. Were he not tenured, he'd be at Park Square on a little box, screaming his rant at those busy on their way to and from work; and hoping you'd be putting some tin or bucks into his little cup.
Just because he has been accorded the title "professor" should in no way serve to empower his article, or his anti-military sentiment running like poison through this attempt at "intellectual" ponderings.
The scholar needs the warrior more than the warrior needs the scholar, at moment. Perhaps he's just feeling... BLUE."<
- Well said, Alia... that was even poetic! Too bad you had to waste such wonderful prose on such a blowhard as this professor.
I'm glad that Lisa is doing good. I'm sure the baby helped a lot!
It's time for this old cowboy to find the bunkhouse.
See you tomorrow!
Funny thing is, (if you can call it funny) was, she was a "stealth" spitter..
She was about 16 or 17, nicely dressed in a skirt and blouse, long brown hair, sort of the "girl next door", very good looking..
She walked up, smiling, no shouting or cursing.. I saw her coming and turned, said "yes ma'am, can I help you?
Then she spit in my face, and almost coo'ed, "baby killer", quickly turned, and walked, almost ran, back to a group of "freinds".. some were applauding, others were in shock..
I know I was..
I heard the same stuff others have noted.. "it's not worth it", you'll only get in trouble, just walk away, and quite frankly, they probably saved me from some jail time and a courts-martial..
Since I was in from '71 through '80, I had plenty of oppurtunity to experience a few other idiots over the years, in various capacities..
But that one was the first, and because of that, the most shocking..
To be accused of being some sort of sadistic murderer by a complete stranger, especially when I considered it an honor to be serving my country..
Like I said, It doesn't bother me anymore. I'm over it.. (sarcasm)
Just as long as I don't run into some socialist punk(ette) pulling that crap on one of today's vets coming back from Iraq..
Because HE or SHE won't have to worry about that soldier retaliating..
I'll take care of it for them.. In Spades..
It's payback time..
247 - "My father still wont' talk about Viet Nam, or his return home, very much, and quite frankly he snapped some time after coming home, "
So sorry. Thank your father, from the rest of us. A lot of us didn't make it, and many are still suffering from the aftermath.
BINGO LZ. Right on the money about these leftists who are out to "infect" our youth with their hate-the-military mindset.
David Horowitz would echo your words.
I googled this f@rt, and it seems others have also.
Found this interesting article Swimming Uphill: A Decade in Politics and Government. Looks like this jerk couldn't even make it in politics so he's been hiding in acadame for the past few decades. Politics, hell! If you read this whiny collection of sentences and paragraphs, you'll see why he now analyses "coach speak."
Also, if you google him you'll see his other forte is to go on radio programs to analyze how coaches speak, both pre-game and post-game. Sez he's spent the last 20 years studying this. WATTA GUY!
His picture looks like a rather cleaned up Michael Moore with blond/grey hair. I don't know whose butt he had to kiss to be considered an "expert witness" but the fool has no idea what he is talking about regarding the current subject.
I wish I could say what I really wanted to say -- my wife even told me to shut up. So I'll leave it with:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY USMC -- Best wises and prayers to all our Vets, POW/MIA'S, and warriors in harm's way, this Veterans Day -- and God Bless you all!
Shades of "Why can't we just get along?" Just ignore it and be happy.
Typical material from a leftist anus.
Maybe this issue will be dropped when people quit asking for reparations for slavery. Then again, maybe not.
Not sure if we have ever corresponded but I wanted to be sure to tell you
Welcome home!
My brother was a student and gave up his deferment to enlist. My husband also enlisted when he was 17 yrs old. There were a lot of guys who felt they could help their country and asked to go to Vietnam. Bless them all. Those who were enlisted and faced the call too. They are all heros during that awful time in our history.
The baby is trying to walk! :) She is 9 mo. old now!
I also need to sleep. This political stuff takes a lot out of me! I just want to go out and shake sense into some of these fools!
See ya tomorrow! :)
The other day I pulled Radical Son out of the bookcase to read again. I would recommend that EVERYONE read that book. Thanks for mentioning it.
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