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.)

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/10151361.htm?1c

A MORE WELCOME HOME

DAVID PERLMUTT | STAFF WRITER

Tom Seuberling, an ex-Green Beret who grew up in Greensboro, survived three tours in Vietnam, but after his combat was over in 1971 received a harsh homecoming. In a United Airlines hangar in San Francisco, Seuberling stood in line waiting to board a plane home when he was cornered by a group of "peace activists."
"They spit on me and called me names like `baby killer,' " he recalled. "I couldn't take it and just cold-cocked one of them. During Vietnam, the military prepared us for nothing for returning home.
"They just thanked us for our service ... gave us a ticket and sent us home."
On this Veterans Day, the nation's latest combat veterans are finding a vastly different transition from the battlefield to civilian or noncombat lives.
Seuberling knows. A command sergeant major in the Charlotte-based 812th Transportation Battalion, his unit of Army reservists just returned from eight months of running supplies along a 900-mile front from Kuwait to northern Iraq.
They are finding a military that learned lessons from Vietnam and anxious to make sure this homecoming is smooth and painless -- not only for the troops, but their families.
Even before the unit left Kuwait late last month, each reservist was given a card with questions to answer.
Did you see combat?
Are you returning to marital problems?
Do you have any pent-up anger?
Do you sleep well?
"The cards provided a snapshot of what each reservist went through," said Seuberling, who commanded more than 1,700 reservists.
When the unit reached Fort Stewart in Georgia, they were met with a band-playing "Welcome Home" ceremony with speeches, and drinks and snacks.
Each reservist then met with a social worker, who used the cards to start a discussion on needs and problems they might be experiencing.
Next month, the military is sending Seuberling and his wife to meet with other returned veterans and spouses for a weekend of counseling.
"It's all a process of readjusting to civilian life," he said. "Everybody has been really nice and welcoming. People I don't even know shook my hand in the airport. A man at a Panthers game came up, slapped me on the back and thanked me for my service.
"That never happened after Vietnam."
Learning from hindsight
The military is operating from 20-20 hindsight, with military doctors, psychologists and chaplains buried in the work of unwrinkling the lives of troops who are on the battlefield one week and home with spouses and children the next.The transition is especially hard for reservists and National Guard members. Once they are home and their active duty ends, they have little support from comrades and neighbors who don't understand what they've experienced.
Military doctors are finding the wounds inflicted in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't just physical.
Earlier this year, a study by Army doctors showed that nearly 17 percent of returning Iraq veterans suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or anxiety.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said that fewer than half have sought mental health care.
Military officials say they are taking the report seriously and are dispensing more services for Iraq and Afghanistan vets than for veterans of any other conflict.
"The military is concerned about these issues," said Lt. Cmdr. Breck Bregel, a Navy chaplain at Camp Lejeune. "When you fly someone out of the combat zone and four days later you're with your spouse, there's bound to be problems."
Counseling services
The Department of Veterans Affairs offers a range of counseling services for returning veterans -- including six months of counseling for reservists and National Guard members. The Department of Defense formed a Seamless Transition Task Force to identify veterans suffering from disorders triggered by combat.
The military is helping departing active duty troops with résumés and techniques to find jobs.
The programs are offshoots from the ones started during late stages of the Vietnam War as a crush of troops returned with drug problems and battle fatigue and stress disorders -- and little help available.
The Marine Corps enlisted the Navy's chaplain corps to help drug-addicted veterans. The program remains, renamed Chaplain Religious Enrichment Development Operation.
Bregel has spent recent months helping returning Marines find stability through a spiritual grounding.
He urges them to seek support from other Marines.
"The best way to transition back is just to be able to get together with your own buddies and talk in your own groups," he said. "No matter what kind of combat you saw, or if you were just over there, there's going to be at least some anxiety. But 99 percent of all combat vets can heal from combat stress and fatigue given the proper tools.
"We provide them with the symptoms everyone who goes through combat feels. They can't sleep. Wake up in cold sweats. They're anxious. And we tell them not to come back and unload everything on their spouse or friends. They won't understand."
90 days to relax
Seuberling knows from his post-Vietnam experiences -- he couldn't keep a job or a girlfriend and kept mostly to himself -- that many of the troops he commanded in Iraq are feeling some of the same stresses.
The 812th saw considerable action, running 1,200 convoys that moved everything from water to ammunition along the most dangerous routes through the war zone.
Snipers shot at them. Highway booby traps hindered their travel, and they encountered an Easter Day ambush that left 40 insurgents dead and five U.S. soldiers wounded.
"We had some bad nights," said Seuberling, who was badly wounded in Vietnam. "We had a lot of injuries and a lot of guys who saw some combat."
The unit has been given 90 days to relax before members have to report to the Charlotte base.
Seuberling plans to meet with each member.
"I just want to make sure they're doing fine," he said. "If some aren't, I will make sure they get the services they need. That's really critical."
ON HOMECOMING IN 2004
"We tell them not to come back and unload everything on their spouse or friends." TOM SEUBERLING SERVED IN VIETNAM AND IN OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM MORE COVERAGE
PARADE SATURDAY
2B | Uptown Charlotte will host its annual Veterans Day parade Saturday. Details inside.
VETERANS DAY CLOSINGS
2A | How local institutions will observe the holiday today.
ARTIFACTS OF WAR
8A | Smithsonian exhibit goes beyond 'great man' image.
VETERANS DAY PROGRAMMING
1D | WSOC-TV decides not to show "Saving Private Ryan."

Reach David Perlmutt: (704) 358-5061; dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com.

I just cannot believe, still, 6 or 7 hous later, that people actually will print such a lie like this, something so demonstrably false, with thousands of witnesses still alive, and some people will repeat this pencil pushing geek's lies as the truth!

While I was not a Vietnam Vet, I distinctly recall seeing TV news of some of the soldiers returning home and being subjected to a gauntlet of abuse... including obvious spitting and being pelted by objects. I spoke to some of my high school classmates (class of 67) who HAD gone and endured that gauntlet. They were all bitter.

These reports DID exist... but that is past tense. Most TV stations of the period reused their tapes because they were so expensive. Once the report was aired, the tape would likely be erased and reused. Very little of this "non-news" (as judged by the liberal editors of the TV station news) was archived. That being said, I still think this idiot did not look very hard.

But there is a very important point that needs to be said:

This academic puke understands something that all the impugned Vets do not.

Someday, all the witnesses WILL BE DEAD AND SILENT! He knows that his "research" and "writings", printed as fact, will outlive the eyewitnesses that can refute his tripe. Other researchers in the future will seek out "authoritative" source material to write history... and they will find HIS work. They will find the work of similar liars that seem to support his contentions as his supportd theirs. This agreement will appear to be consensus... and consensus is awfully hard to deny.

The anacdotal stories of those actually experienced the atrocious "welcomes" of the spitters and abusers WILL NOT BE FOUND because acedemics like him will not have archived those stories. Most of those who experienced it did not write it down, did not file complaints, and like yourself, restrained themselves from newsworthy reprisal attacks on the abusers. What will be found in the libraries are the "carefully" researched negative refutations of those stories written by "professional," "certified" experts whose words can be credited BECAUSE they are professional and certified... and corraborated by other "professional certified experts."

His lies will be "sanctified" by being enshrined in libraries of historical research... to be relied upon by future researchers who WILL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO PRIMARY SOURCES because they are all gone.

You, and your fellow vets, now that successful opposition to Kerry has united you, should continue this battle to regain your stolen honor. Do it by writing YOUR stories of your homecomings and your stories of how you were treated. Publish them. Get them placed on the shelves alongside tripe such as Llewelyn's so that future historians WILL have primary source material, written by the eyewitness and the victims of the leftists to let them SEE the tripe for what it is!

Posting on FreeRepubic is a good start... but the records of your posts on the internet are ephermeral. They need to be written in book form. Collect these stories, have those who tell them write them in first person and document what can be documented, AND PUBLISH IT. I bet there is a market for such a book. Regnery would probably publish it.

Good Luck

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Semper Fidelis all my Brothers and Sisters!

Strength & Honor

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