Does anybody have any pictures or articles about GI's being spit on?

I'm reading this book "Spitting Image" by Jerry Lembcke and the author claims that the story of GI's being spit on after the Vietnam War is an urban legend. I can't seem to remember any articles or pictures and all the evidence I've heard is anecdotal could anybody help me with some info?

Even if it happened it really wouldn't matter. Such a picture could be faked or setup... just another exp ample of the RW playing the victims for political advantage... that really has become one of the most distinguishing characteristics of their party.

That is one of the most damning accusations against liberals in general and anti-war protesters in specific; I think it is fair to ask how often it really happened.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

To fire up the SHEEP to support the CRUSADING TROOPS.

Its a real ugly urban legend.

Who the fuck is going to spit on someone who has just spent a year in the Jungle?

Answer: NO ONE WHO IS SANE

You would get your ass kicked ROYALLY.

'Stolen Valor' by B.G.Burkett and Glenna Whitley.

"How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes and its History"

I have never heard a Vietnam Vet at our local VFW clubs make that spitting claim.

I have heard some phony 'Vietnam" vets make some outrageous comments re-Vietnam.

Burkett/Whitley discuss the 'Phony Vietnam Veterans.'

Good luck.

180

"they spat on us. called us 'baby killers' and other vile crap..."

IIRC, anyway.

The Reep noise machine has been pluggin away at this ever since.

Look, I don't doubt that someone, somewhere, in uniform, could have been spat upon. It's impossible to prove that it "never happened." but it's ridiculous to assert that this was commonplace.

RWers never stop rewriting history, and they want the current generation of voting sheeple to think that Vietnam was lost solely due to a lack of guts to fight a war. There are echoes of this idiotic argument going every minute of every day, and it played a huge role in **'s re-selection.

tours in Vietnam, it's no urban legend. I can't say how rampant it was, but it was true in his case.

Was there a fight?

there was no need in escalating the encounter to something worse.

The RW has drawn mental imagery anti-war liberals standing on the runways when soldiers arrive just to spit on them. Was this the case? I can say that I have been spit on one or two times in my life, however not having been in the military I'm unable to attribute it to that. No to excuse them, but I can also honestly say that I was being a little bit obnoxious at the time it happened.

It has been well researched and reported and the instances were random and happened infrequently. But because it did happen as the stories were told it became something that happened more than it really did. But i believe it did happen and it shouldn't have. As I remember back then there were protests for returning troops. I remember the news covering them. But again most troops coming back didn't have protesters. It is like the right using Jane Fonda as the absolute reminder of everything Vietnam. Sure she did something she now regrets but face it, there was more to Vietnam than her.

every RW Vietnam vet I know was spit on when they came back. All the liberal Vietnam vets I know say they were never spit on.

Isn't it amazing how the spitters were able to identify with 100% accuracy the future RWers to spit on?

was spit on when he was naive enough to leave the military hospital and go into town to get a beer in his uniform. He was still wearing head bandages, and despite that was threatened if he didn't leave the bar immediately, and shoved around a bit. It made an impression. He served proudly, was decorated for it, is still on disability pay for injuries suffered there, and never got over the emotional trauma of what he experienced there.

And he's a Bush-hating liberal Democrat - probably to the left of me, if that's possible - and adamantly opposes the Iraq war.

I think blanket statements like this are dangerous. I have no doubt it happened. I'm not sure how often, or whether the incidents were linked to a certain time period of return. And yes, they are deeply regrettable. Do I hate that liberals are falsely accused of feeling this way about our soldiers? Sure - absolutely - I vehemently will argue that point with any RWer who wants to say that to my face. But I won't say it never happened.

I meant no disrespect to your husband (I was also in the service during the Vietnam war). I never felt, or experienced, any disrespect from any one while in uniform back then.

Just wanted to chip in my 0.02 worth...

:hi:

http://www.ncptsd.va.gov/facts/veterans/fs_native_vets.html

http://www.defendamerica.mil/awt/jun2002/awt061802a.html

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/special/pueblo.htm

http://www.samjohnson.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=2706

www.lsb.state.ok.us/house/Journals/HJ2003/2003%20HLeg%20Day%2011.rtf

Google Unclesam search:
http://www.google.com/unclesam?q=vietnam+spit+on&hl=en&lr=&start=10&sa=N

one deals with being spit on by Vietnamese villagers. Again it seems that there was an inordinate amount of spitting. Anyway thanks for the references.

The account turns out to have been fabricated.

When an idea becomes pervasive enough, people integrate it into their lives in such a way that it can actually become a false memory.

just under a fortnight ago, a vet spit tobacky juice in jane fonda's face.

They sure get alot of play with these stories, don't they? I think they come from right-wing talk shows. You won't find any newspaper accounts of this legendary "spitting", because it didn't happen.

... evidence of sorts. As Lembcke notes in his book, one of the most common stories is of soldiers arriving back from Vietnam in their dress uniforms at San Francisco International and being spit on and generally abused by "hippies."

I did army separations for about eighteen months, and everyone I processed out who came from the field were in the jungle fatigues they were wearing when they left--the office was always fairly pungent with the smell of paddy water and jungle.

The other bit that doesn't ring true is arriving at SF Int'l. Virtually everyone coming from the Pacific to the West Coast, regardless of the area of departure, came in on a MATS or chartered plane which arrived at Travis AFB or McChord AFB in Washington State.

In fact, I'm the only person I know of in the army who went through SF Int'l, and that was when I was departing for the Pacific. The only reason that I ended up on a commercial flight was because they couldn't arrange for space on a charter on its way to Vietnam. When I asked why, they said, "oh, there are seats... but, we can't open the doors at Hickam AFB to let you off--we're afraid of a mass exodus."

And, when I got out of the army, I went on a MATS plane to Travis. Ended up in a big holding area with a bunch of people in fatigues....

can't remember any incident like this at all. Again the only information I have is anecdotal. I did some research in the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature and couldn't find any articles.....so I just don't know what to believe. But thanks again.

Spitting on a war-hardened, specially trained, heavily muscled fighting machine of a US soldier and getting away with it.

I have a hard time believing that those anti-war protestors couldn't do the calculus I just did about why it might be a bad idea.

I have a very difficult time believing this was anywhere CLOSE to commonplace.

But I saved the saliva in a pill bottle as it fell to the ground because I knew many would want to see the proof in the future.

Unfortunately the aspirin bottle I saved the spit in allowed the it to dry out. Thus no proof. Sorry. Maybe you could run the dried out spit through a DNA analyser. Just a thought.

circumstances? I'm trying hard to document this and it just keeps getting more difficult. I'd really appreciate any evidence you could give me.

I'm guessing you're being sarcastic, but these days, I can't be entirely sure.

:sarcasm:

Sigh.... Once again, I reply to the recurring question. I came back through Seattle on a contract flight. Never saw civilians at the airport. Left through SEATAC in uniform - No spitting. Flew to Denver - No spitting. Flew to my final destination - No spitting. I never met another vet who ever claimed they were spit upon. Since most freepers were able to avoid serving their country, it is doubtful that they experienced any unpleasantness.

In the Orwellian country we live in, vets are useful to be used as tools to heap scorn on those who opposed the war (liberals)but, are scorned by the right if they don't ascribe to the right's agenda. I once listened to Schwartzkopf try to blame the shortcomings of the drafted army on the loss of Viet Nam.

Why does this question keep coming up? I don't know. I feel like I was used and abused by the politicians in 1968-1970 to fight in their foolish, wasteful war and now I feel used again by the right who alternately besmirch my service and lie about my treatment by "hippie leftists" when I returned for their twisted political advantage.

People had a great deal of empathy for Vietnam vet returnees. So many of them had been drafted and those still here were subject to being drafted. It was pretty easy for most people to identify with them.

Volunteers also had the sympathy of most people - afterall, just as with the troops in Iraq today - they were LIED to - and joined the military under false government pretenses.

It was probably the John O'Neill, Nixon supporting traitor types, who actually did the spitting on vets they didn't agree with, if any actually occurred. Look what they tried to do to John Kerry then and what they actually did to him 30 years later - a whole lot worse than spitting imo.

That's my era, and I never saw anything like it. And I have to wonder, just who would walk up to an accused killer, someone who had just spent a year or more in combat, killing as a way of life, and spit on him.

Wouldn't that be kind of asking to have the crap kicked out of you by the vet, and any vets who happened to be nearby?

Spitting on a Marine is NOT a good idea.

Also, not all military in Vietnam were combat soldiers. So, not all were "killers."

paint all returning vets with the same brush, and pointing out the cognitive dissonance in the accusation. Maybe I'm more cautious than some people, but I would no more disrespect a vet returning from combat than I would walk up to a gangbanger and do the same thing. It seems a surefire way to get hurt.

Not that I would do it in any case. I was raised with the military and was a Marine myself in the early-mid 70s. Maybe it did happen, but I certainly can't say so from my own experience or that of anyone I ever knew.

... for somebody to mention this.

In all the posts on this subject lately, nobody has pointed out the counter-intuitive nature of the whole story.

When I came back, I just wanted to be left alone... but anybody who assaulted me would get hurt. Nobody I knew was anybody to be fucked with at that point. People who spit on other people get their asses kicked in civilian life, too.

I don't doubt anybody's word, but the papers would have been full of pictures and stories about spitting and fights. There were none.

that Bush protesters had spit on this 26yr olds son while he was in the stroller, and in front of his wife. They published his name with the LTTE, so I figured that I would give him a call.

His wife answered the phone, and when I asked her to tell me of her reaction to her son being spit on she got dead quiet. Then she handed the phone to her husband who immediately got very aggressive.

After several threats, I asked what his reaction was to the spitter. Again there was silence. Why didn't you threaten him as you are me, I asked. Well, I was outnumbered he said.

Now that is bullshit, I told him. I happened to be protesting by that entrance, and there were a hundred people waiting in line for every protester. We had to stay on the sidewalk, and the line of protesters was about 15 feet from the waiting to get in. If the spitting incident really would have happened, then it would have quickly escalated into something that many people would have witnessed. I think you are lying, I told him.

Well, I got a couple cheney's, a few incoherent sentences pertaining to my sexuality, a comment on my ancestry, and colorful metaphors pertaining to the appearance of my mother. He hung up without waiting for a response.

Now, if I were a marine fresh from war, and some flabby "pinko" spit on me, well I suppose that I would just have to kick his ass. There probably is not any record of that in police records either.

I think the whole spitting thing is a crock of shit myself.

..and turned into this myth of an "epidemic" of hateful americans spitting on soldiers at every turn.

My dad didn't get spit on, but he talked alot about how bad it felt when he came home from vietnam and how strange made him feel. I don't have time to go into it right now, but it was interesting history for me to hear.

They're not the only group that has. I have been spat on just because of the color of my skin.

The Viet Nam vets that are whining about it need to grow some thick skin and get over it. I did.

is when one spit on peace activist Jane Fonda.

The first reported instance occurs during an International Day of Protest featuring "Veterans for Peace in Vietnam." Here it is the war supporters who are spitting on the pro-peace veterans.

In 1965, World War II veterans who were taking part in an antiwar demonstration were reviled as "cowards" and "traitors."

http://www.thevoicenews.com/News/2003/0228/In_Response/R03_Bernard-re_Barlow.html

I heard Jane Fonda speak on TV a day ago. She said that she is sorry for and regrets sitting on an anti-aircraft weapon in Hanoi, that it was a stupid thing for her to do but not her stand against the Vietnam War.

?

And, I believe it is a lie. This is the LTTE that I refered to in an earlier post. This seems to be a common accusation made by the conservatives.

This letter is posted here:
http://www.record-eagle.com/2004/aug/22letter.htm

Shame on protesters

I, my wife, and my 2-year-old son in a stroller went to see President George W. Bush because he is a sitting president visiting our town.
At least three to five Kerry supporters jeered at me and my son, saying things like, "In 20 years he's going to be carrying an AK47 and killing Muslims," and "Such a poor child, why are you hurting him by seeing evil?"
These are the comments I can list that will not be censored. I cannot repeat the comments by the other Kerry supporters holding signs and spitting at my son and my family or by saying vulgar words due to our seeing the president.
Those Bush protesters are lucky that my wife was there or I would have beat the living crap out of those vile and vicious people attacking my 2-year-old son in a stroller. God help their souls when they visit their maker due to their acts toward a child!

<name removed>

Check with TahitiNut. He's a long time DU'er (at least 4 years) and he is a Vietnam vet. He says he got spit on. He's a smart, learned DU'er and if he says it happened to him, i believe him. I think DemoTex said the same thing, although i could be confusing him with someone else.
The Professor