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 for this ping, Misty.
This so-called 'educater' shows us once again the absolute stupidity of these people.
It makes my blood boil to hear/read this stuff!
The only thing I want to hear from them is apologies for their behavior against our Vets.
This is a patriotic love I feel for all the VN Vets...I had no loved ones in the service until 1973, when my oldest son voluteered for the peacetime Navy.
He was 17 years old, and the Navy made a wonderful man out of him.
NAS Millington? I was discharged there on 17 Oct '68. One fine day when I got off work early, I went shopping for a college in Claremont. I was in uniform. No spit, no garbage, just hard looks and bad words. And yes, a couple of people called me a baby killer.
I saw for myself on "Stolen Valor" which I watched on the internet, and this guy can, too. It was heartbreaking how horribly "protesters" treated returning vets. Disgusting.
and i got SPIT ON & had a beer dumped on me at LAX in 71.
NOT an urban myth.
free dixie,sw
I send the "doctor" a link to this thread.
LOL
Thanks for the ping - GRRRRR! He's certifiable alright...
And me also my friend. Me also. In the Atlanta airport. For this jackassed SOB, the date was February 11, 1972. That is no urban anything. It is real!
*****************
Excellent idea.
RE:Those that can do.
Those that can't teach!
Don't spam me all you
Teachers this was
for the good prof.
Considering that our culture is nowhere near the way it was in the 60s and 70s (thank heavens), I don't find this unbelievable in the least.
The mistreatment of Vietnam Vets, Vietnam era vets, and active duty personnel up until the unveiling of "The Wall" memorial in Washinton,D.C., was a national disgrace. Were "spitting" the only manifestation of the ingratitude and hatred engendered by the vile propaganda of the American left, it would have been bad enough. Unfortunately, the disrespect was apparent in employment, depiction of vets in films, popular music, and books, social shunning by peers, disparaging remarks of infinite variety, and overt public demonstrations akin to "spitting", which , by the way, occurred as a planned tactic for humiliating troops returning from Vietnam duty at specific terminals. Among these include: refusing service to uniformed military personnel at restaraunts, bars, and hotels; flinging various foul objects like blood, garbage and excrement at vets and active duty people; mocking and denouncing students with military style haircuts in college classrooms under the assumption they were recent returnees, harassment of ROTC people and other reservists on their civilian jobs and in academic settings. The list of shameful dishonor heaped upon these fine men and woman is horribly long. Now, thanks to apologist John Llewellyn, one more stroke of the lash has been meted out. Like the saying goes, "It don't mean nothing", because we all know these things occurred. Llewellyn's revisionism deserves the harsh repudiation it invites. Pour it on! Semper Fi.
I know at least one former Navy Seal that would refute this idiot.
Also, I got spit one day at SJSU when I was going through ROTC there. I was wearing my uniform and some wanna-be 19yr-old hippie had 60's flash-back. He missed. In fact, most of it dribbled down his chin. This was in 1986.
I am so angry right now I could ring this guy's neck. I called and left a message for him. I encourage others to do the same even if you didn't serve in Nam or didn't serve at all. This is a crapload of leftist propaganda aimed at rewriting history and discrediting those who dare to speak the truth.
talk about adding insult to injury!!!!!
free dixie,sw
Haha! I was wondering where you were. Thanks for the ping; it's good to get "both sides" of this story ya know?
free dixie,sw
Damn fogged up glasses....
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