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

News and Observer ^ | Nov 10, 2004 | JOHN LLEWELLYN

[boxerblues]

rising blood pressure ping

[stylin19a]

Did spitting on returning servicemen happen ?
Yes.
Did it happen a lot ? It was the exception, not the rule
I think the story was spread with a broad brush.

Much like JfnKerry painted all vets as baby killers etc...
Did that happen ? sure
Did it happen a lot ? I think not. It was the exception, not the rule.

[BraveMan]

Get a load of this guy . . .

[PhilipFreneau]

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?

"Dr." John Llewellyn is a left-wing fool. I wonder if he every thought that just maybe those dirty hippies traveled in packs, like wild dogs.

[andy58-in-nh]

20 years from now, I suspect that it will be considered an "Urban Myth" that Republican campaign offices were shot at and had their windows broken in 2004.

[tet68]

I can't say that I was spit on but I saw friendlier
looks on the faces of the Vietnamese people, than I saw
in LAX. Cold, hard stares, tight lips. The best part was when a WW II veteran took me into the bar and bought me a beer, that made up for the rest.

Isn't it interesting, this guy is willing to call all this
an urban legend and justifies it by saying "you can't prove
a negative", yet there is no refutation of Kerry's lies
and slanders, negatives for which were WAS no proof.

[kellynla]

In 1968 there was a Marine standing in his dress greens at the corner of Katella and St. College in Anaheim, CA. Anyone who has ever been to Disneyland knows the corner.

That evening this Marine was on a weekend liberty on his way to Viet Nam. As he was standing at the corner waiting with others for the traffic signal to change so he could cross the street to go to Disneyland there was an automobile with several people inside. As the car was making a right turn in front of the Marine and other pedestrians, a person in the back seat of the car leaned out and spat at the Marine but because of the Marine's excellent reflexes, he missed the spittle.

I know this story is accurate because I was that Marine.

Happy Birthday to all my fellow Marines alive and passed.

Semper Fi,
Kelly

[ArrogantBustard]

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.

This ... individual ... is an idiot. The question simply asked those who had been maltreated by hippies to "come forward" and "tell their stories". Last time I checked, leftists encouraged people to do that. I guess the leftist welcome mat gets rolled up when "their stories" reveal that naked truth that hippies in particular and leftists in general are evil. I'm shocked

[joesnuffy]

Yeah this guy is full of it...

Sept 1969 San Francisco Int'l Airport

The rioters through crap at us and spit at us...while sitting in the airport waiting for a military standby to Chicago to open up...a pretty hippy chick came up to me and a Marine I was traveling with..stood in front of us and asked us if we had fought in Vietnam..when we both said yes she started calling us 'baby killers' spit at both of us .from about a foot away...missed me and hit him in the face...he hauled back to belt her one..I was able to keep him from killing her..even though I wanted to kill her myself..then she began screaming obscenities at us which got plenty of attention...

The cops weren't far away and it didn't take long for a bunch of them to head over in our direction and I did not want to go to jail...I just wanted to get home to my small town away from all these a holes...

The cops were very good to us...we told them what happened and just hauled her sorry butt off...she was kicking and screaming obscenities at all of us by that time..

A little while longer and we both able to catch a military standby on the same flight..
It was pretty neat because the airlines threw a couple of college hippies off the flight and gave us their seats....in first class

The hippies were pretty upset and starting bitching about us but the passengers in first class
(business class) booed them and applauded us...it was pretty neat...quite a few of them offered to buy us drinks..which we took them up on I am pretty sure...

True story...I don't care what this a hole says about it being an 'urban myth' the only urban myth here is the one he just created.. about these events...he is just another propagandizing left wing apologist liar

IMO

[Fiddlstix]

Note to Mr Llewellyn:

You are full of it,a$$hole. STFU!
Many of my Vietnam vet friends were spat upon and things even worse than that.
(Myself, I wasn't in Vietnam. I was a tad too old. However, My veteran friends are not liars)
You, Mr Llewellyn, Go To Hell and Burn!

[Ed_in_NJ]

I hope bsome of you trhat had the experience will CALL this jerk and demand he retract his statement in writing.

[Ed_in_NJ]

Ouch! My apologies for the typing!

[xm177e2]

If such a confrontation had occurred, would that combat-hardened soldier have just ignored the insult?

Yeah, soldiers are out-of-control wild beasts. Of course they lack any self-control or desire not to get into fights. They are like animals. I look down on them. I would spit on them, but that's just an urban legend </sarcasm>

[LakeLady]

This is a total aberration of the truth. I saw our soldiers treated this way. I had friends return and tell me tales of their treatment. If I wasn't trying so desperately trying to remain in "Lady" mode, I'd be banned from FR for life because of my language.

I am pi$$ed!!

[LowNslow]

November 4, 1969 was my first time, in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel. Having just returned from Vietnam, I was wearing dress blues attending a formal dinner with my new wife, my parents, and family friends. After spitting, the individual made few profane remarks about me and my medals before he was abruptly removed by two WWII vets.

[isthisnickcool]

If this penish head want to see an urban legend. No, not an urban legend, a planetwide legend he can read this garbage said by a wimpy a$$wipe some years back:

"They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

Kerry's lies were worse than being spit on. The vets coming home could wipe away the spit. They could not wipe away the lies listed above until recently. After 30 years they have just begun to wipe away what Kerry threw on them! And in those 30 years many Vietnam Vets dies with this lie hanging around their shoulders.

Few posts really make me angry. This is one of them.

We need to have a very big, very loud and very televised THANK YOU for all the Vietnam Vets!

[PeterPrinciple]

"I have studied urban legends for nearly 20 years and have been certified as an expert on the subject in the federal courts."

What stupid organization certifies stuff like that?????

[cgk]

Oh boy. I was only a baby in Vietnam but I know this is a load of ----.

[GOPmomof3inNC]

I'm trying to compose a well worded answer without sinking to this pompous, arrogant, deluded, piece of garbage's level. The most heroic thing he probably ever did was cut in line at the buffet.

I had two uncles that served in Vietnam. My husband has many friends that served in Vietnam. My grandmother's two brothers served in WWII and because of her love and respect for our soldiers she always attended welcome home parades for the troops - until she saw the leftists in action.

I know from three different sources that this man is more full of ca ca than a Christmas turkey on the Fourth of July. People that had no motive or reason to lie to me or color their stories about what they saw or experienced.

I had a person on a message board trot out this 'that was an urban legend' crap when our troops went into Iraq. Allegedly her husband served in Vietnam and was an anti war protester when he came home so naturally he knew that it was a 'urban legend'. I challenged her and hubby to come and tell my uncles and my grandmother and my husband and his friends that they 'imagined' what happened when our brave men came home from that war - to our collective faces. She vanished - like most liberals do when confronted with facts. It's like throwing water on the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz.

Liberals like this guy really believe if they tell the same lie long enough it will become accepted as truth.

Words cannot express how angry this makes me. But at the same time I'm smiling because their world has spun off it's axis. They cannot comprehend that they are the minority - that their views are out of step - not ours. It's becoming obvious to them that they are - in the grand scheme of things - becoming irrelevant. That they are the intolerant, the narrow minded, the hate filled - not us.

[Paulus Invictus]

Oh really? In 1968 in Chicago, I watched a Marine Corp unit parading downtown. Hundreds of people lines the streets and actually booed them. I was the only one applauding and I got lots of dirty looks from other people around me. In San Francisco, it was not a good idea to wear a uniform for fear of liberal attacks.