The most pernicious myth, still believed by many, holds that anti-war protestors spat on returning soldiers. If you know of anyone who still believes this nonsense, show 'em this interview with Jerry Lembcke, who teaches Sociology at Holy Cross College. Lembcke examines the origins of this legend in a book called The Spitting Image.
I kept looking back in the historical records, when people were actually coming home from Vietnam and I found out that no, there was no record. Not only was there no record of people spat on, but none of anyone claiming that they were spat on. So then I got interested in the stories as a form of myth and found out that in other times and other places, especially Germany after WWI, soldiers came home and told stories of feeling rejected by people and particularly stories of being spat on.The correspondent who brought this interview to my attention offers these observations:
I was very active in the late 60's and 70's anti-Viet Nam War movement.
I can tell you categorically that all the many activists I associated with would never countenance anyone spitting, much less spitting on a military veteran. We took protesting seriously. Anybody engaging in such outrageously disgusting behavior would have been ostracized.
For us the Johnson and Nixon administrations were the culprits. We very clearly understood that our disapproval needed to be directed at the officials running the war, and not at soldiers and/or common folk who were simply being duped and suckered by the government's lies and propaganda.
By 1970 the organization Viet Nam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) was in full swing and I distinctly recall that at any sizeable protest event a noticeable contingent of VVAWs was almost always present. Usually they wore camo or olive BDUs conspicuously decorated with very graphic anti-war messages. These guys tended to be fairly tough, no bull-shit patriotic working class guys who weren't kidding around. Civilian protesters greatly respected and admired the VVAW and even tended to be a little afraid of them. For example, the VVAWs generally wouldn't tolerate any misuse of the American flag in their presence. While firmly against the war, I can assure you the VVAWs would not have hesitated for a moment to physically attack any protester who spit on, or verbally denigrated a fellow soldier.
HOWEVER, I definitely recall that as an anti-war protester we were frequently bombarded with verbal abuse, epithets, and worse by construction workers, cops, etc. For protesters, marching back then could be somewhat of a physically risky practice. In fact, for a long time, prominently wearing an anti-war button out in the street was likely to garner you some choice vituperations from a passing truck driver or cabby.
I'm glad this pathetic national myth of the "Spat upon Viet Vets" is finally being exposed.
6 comments:
It's amazing how many damaging or even "just" extremely ridiculous lies about the counter-culture and civil rights movements of the '60s/'70s have really hung in there over the years. If I recall correctly, (and I'm sure someone here will help me sort myself out if I don't) the idea that an incident involving American women burning bras en mass as a deliberately organized means of promoting feminism circa the mid-'60s is also 99.99% rightist media myth.
I was active in the antiwar movement, beginning as a student at Stanford in 1969. My father was career military. Many of the most active antiwar protesters were Vietnam Vets. Never did I see or hear of any spitting type incidents. We viewed the soldiers as victims/pawns. They were pissed, but not at us. They were pissed at the government.
Never saw a bra burnt either. But a lot fewer were being worn back then.
Regarding Vietnam Veterans being “spat” upon, the story is both true and false at the same time.
Even though, perhaps, no returning Viet Vets ever were actually spat upon, many, perhaps even most, were shunned one way or another, for a thousand different reasons, by their hometown communities.
The consequence of being spat upon, either physically or virtually, is to be shunned by your community. We spit on people to encourage them to go away. If the shunning occurs without all the actual spitting, so much the better.
The dispute regarding spitting fact or spitting myth is a distraction from the irrefutable fact that returning Viet Vets were shunned as if each of them had been "marked by spittle" when they returned home.
And that’s what makes the story true, whether or not even a single returning Viet Vet was spat upon at all.
I just don't know if it is the case. Or if it IS the case, it occurred in a fashion that was rather subtle.
I know an old guy, 90-ish, who tells of his WWII experiences in virtually every extended conversation. It's not that he was ashamed of having spent years afterward as a salesman -- but fighting in a war was a lot more intense, a lot more colorful. So that's what he talked about. And I was always glad to hear what he had to say.
Were people so glad to hear what a Vietname vet had to say? All talk of the war simply reminded folks of a blot on American history.
So a lot of vets were forced to talk about being a salesman -- or whatever it was that they did -- instead of fighting in combat. The thing inside that they had to share was something that no-one wanted.
We are going to have a similar problem dealing with the Iraq vets. We'll wish them well; we'll welcome them home; we will, I hope, want them to have the best health care. We will NOT spit on them, not even metaphorically.
But two, five, eight, twelve years after the end of this war...will we want to hear anyone say anything about it? Or will we send quiet signals to our vets not to bring up "all that stuff"?
The way that American culture treats people who served in Gulf War I fifteen years later may provide a partial answer to your question, Joseph. Apart from Korea, (and, to me, it's a tough call which war is more ignored culturally here) the first invasion of the Persian Gulf feels like the most underrecognized military action ever in my eyes. Just try to get anyone in America to speak meaningfully about Gulf War Syndrome, or about any of the myriad new variations on it afflicting veterans who have recently returned from the "new" Mess-o-potamia. The ignorance appears, perhaps not surprisingly, to be a largely American phenomenon. Most European countries, particularly our former friends in the U.K., who committed many of their own troops to both the first Persian Gulf War, Bosnia and now Bush's Iraq insanity, are acutely aware of the social and cultural tragedies those conflicts facilitated, especially as regards the health and public perception of the soldiers who were there. (Some of the medical studies sponsored by British and Swiss universities about the long-term health problems suffered by veterans of Gulf War I--and their families--are a must read, by the way.)
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