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.)
Excellent.
http://www.republicvoices.com/ - another site featuring the Mini-Moore.
TRUTH!
free dixie,sw
My uncle served 3 tours in 'Nam.
They did a psych eval on him when he wanted to stay for the third. He just couldn't come home while others were still in harms way. He didn't want to be 'that guy' as he tells the story.
As a young man, around the age of 16, I was seriously considering my options for the future. I was speaking with my mother and grandfather (A WWII vet, God rest his soul) about military service. Grandpa, a sage man if one ever existed, made sure I understood it was not all pretty uniforms, and fast planes.
'Luckily, things are different now. See, when your Uncle Bud came home, he was expecting a celebration - instead he got tomatoes, eggs, angry words, and ugly signs.'
I looked to my mother - she was crying at the memory - she was there that day - on the walk down tarmac at San Francisco International airport - to meet her brother - to welcome him home. She is the one who offered my uncle her handkerchief to clean the seeds from his Service Dress jacket.
This is no urban legend. It is simply what happened on a foggy day in San Francisco. It was shameful then, and to deny the suffering that those men endured - the mental shock wave that rolled through them when they realized there was no band, no bunting, no parade - the anguish they felt as they carefully cleaned their faces and their uniforms - that denial my friends is just as shameful, perhaps even worse.
To those who cut the trail before me - you have my heartfelt thanks.
To those who walk the path this day - you have my prayers.
free dixie,sw
This thread is too much...I can't....just..
Happy Veteran's Day
RD
Here's the OP/Ed e-mail address at the newspaper who published this fool. A heap of letters repudiating this SOB is definitely in order.
https://miva.nando.com/contact_us/letter_editor.html
wizr hasn't created an about page
Mr. Llewelly,
It has come to my attetion that you exposed a myth about VietNam Vets getting spat at and on by hippies and other memebers of the Left.
As a member of the college crowd I would just like to offer a thanks for exposing my uncle's tears as a farce he made up to impress my young mind.
I would also like to congratulate you on your ability to come to a conclusion based on a lack of testamony from said Vets or even those opposed to them in the 70's (when the "myth" began).
You have got to show the rest of the world how you do it.
And by "do it" I mean "not get any of that filth tangled in your beard."
Yours TRUTHFULLY,
R. Macleod
What a jerk and POS! He doesn't know what he's talking about since he wasn't there, or was he a Bubba out there protesting and draft dodging or yet a skerry out there committing treason against his country and the people he served with? And the people he polled for comment must have been cut from same cloth he's made from. What a crock! He's trying to put a good face on something that was terrible, if not trying to debunk something awful that occurred.
Anyone who would spit on a military man returning from duty deserves to eat thru a straw the rest of their lives. Too bad you didn't do more damage !!!
redrock
Yeah...just a myth...
...seeing my father come home from Vietnam at the Albuquerque, NM airport...as he came to us to hug us for the first time in a year...that guy that stepped out, yelled "baby killer" and spit in his face, in front of his 3 year old son (me)...just a myth.
Thank goodness, I thought it was real.
My father in law, back from a US Navy deployment, who, under new orders NOT to wear uniforms while off base, was spit at, yelled at, cars tried to run him over....all just a myth as well.
Thank goodness, HE thought that was real, too.
i got through to Limbaugh on this, but the cell phone died when I was giving the link to the call screener!!
And we all know how hard it is to get on that show!
I am going to get on Hannity if I can...
I was in San Franciso Airport in March of 1967 after coming back from my first tour. I was waiting for a standby flight to Boston, still in decompression mode, and did a good deal of pacing, it was 2 AM and the flight was leaving at 0700.
Some dirt bag came by and started to make some nasty remarks, I told him to do some unnatural acts and he spit at me, I whooped on him, completely lost it don't even remember throwing the first punch. I was pulled of by a cop who had just gotten out of the Marines was told to make scarce.
In October of 1968 I was in Chelsea Naval Hospital, second tour, it was like old home week a lot of homeys from Peabody, Danvers, Lynn and Salem,(Army and Marines) including a couple of my cousins were there, a kid from Danversport got the Silver Star so we retired down the street to a gin mill to celebrate. I took about an hour for a couple of locals to insult the kid, Dave Keller if I remember correctly, bad, bad for the locals.
He already established that the veterans can't be trusted to truthfully answer such a "leading" question as, "Did anybody spit on you?" Obviously, a college professor knows better than a veteran what actually happened to him. He can deduce the truth for you and let you know where your memory of events is wrong. Thank heaven for accurate, unbiased studies like this! </dripping sarcasm>
I think you are right about the fact that people were not treated as bad when LBJ was still in office. Thanks for your service. Happy Veteran's Day!
It is amazing to me that people like Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden and the others who were so hell-bent on communism (our destruction) have been given a pass. After what Tom Hayden and his ilk did to Santa Monica and other towns, you would think people would figure out that socialist policies are BAD for this country! The people from my generation who were so hell-bent on wildly selfish freedoms have left their mark deeply engrained in our souls, and I see nothing positive about it. Nothing. There is nothing positive about the right to burn our American Flag. There is nothing positive about the right to spit upon our military men or speak out against our government with lies and distortions. There is nothing positive about not holding people responsible for civil disobedience conducted by the mindless actions of the minority to advance anti-American philosophies.
Extend my thanks to your brother for his service.
You are welcome.
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