Vets from Nam were never spit on suggests studies

What Vietnam tells us about how we wage the propaganda war at home during the current occupation of Iraq
By Patrick G. Coy Wednesday, March 17, 2004


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With MORE THAN 550 US soldiers killed — so far — in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, our country is revisiting many of the images and issues of the Vietnam War. Thus we hear much about a quagmire in Iraq, about search-and-destroy missions that alienate the local populace, about soldiers depressed over their service as an invading and occupying power, and about the administration's controversial news blackout on filming the returning dead soldiers at Dover Air Force base, unlike during Vietnam.

The Vietnam legacy has become a pivotal issue in the presidential race too. George W. Bush's cavalier approach to meeting his privileged Air National Guard duties stands in stark relief next to John Kerry's heroic command of a Navy Swift boat patrolling the coastal canals of Vietnam. In response, even veteran groups have squared off. Some hit the campaign trail with Kerry, while others launch attacks on Kerry because when he returned from Vietnam he opposed the war, as a decorated veteran.

But in the rush to inflict damage on John Kerry for his peace activism, historical truth is sacrificed. The February 17, 2004, story by Plain Dealer reporter Sabrina Eaton, “Kerry's Bid Ignites Vet's Interest,” is a case in point.

The story quotes Ted Sampley, a Green Beret in Vietnam whose website has led the charge for some veterans against Kerry. Sampley says, “I truly believe that John Kerry's testimony before Congress had a big role in people who were supposedly peaceniks spitting on vets and calling them baby-killers when they got home.”

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I have talked to a few people who claimed they were spat on when they got back and usually when pressed for details, it generally was a case of someone was rude to them shortly after they got back and it was entirely a verbal thing and in a couple of cases it wasn't even more than a vague feeling of being unwelcome.

I remember that "bra burning" became a symbol for femminism even though those incidents were very rare too.

I've always suspected that was an urban legend.

Remember about 15 months ago, when the anti-war protests started, the same stories started circulating?

Supposedly, men and women in uniform were chased (and in some stories, beaten) by anti-war protesters?

But all the awp's I knew were very supportive of the men and women in uniform--wanted only to keep them alive!

But it fits so nicely with the false "Either for the war or against the troops" dichotomy peddled incessently by the vrwc and the sclm!

Not only would that be stupiud, but c'mon! What person is going to stand there and get spit on and not hit back, let alone a battle-hardened vet on a hair trigger!

Can you say "pounded to a pulp"?

I have had my doubts, as well.

People who spread these stories almost insult the troops themselves--would our soldiers really stand by and let people spit on them, or let themselves get chased around town by protesters wielding signs?

How better to smear a group than to say they spit on returning soldiers? I mean for someone to do this is the ultimate insult and it would be a very effective antiwar smear.

I was against VietNam in the early seventies and I dont remember ever seeing anyone diss a veteran. We always put them up on a pedestal. My brother was my hero when he came home. Im really suspicious of these charges since studies suggest no credible source was ever found documenting this act. Something so outrageous would have made the news big time and that didnt happen in this case.

because as a historian he looked for records. If much spitting occurred, there ought to be some hardcopy on it from then: specific LTTE etc. If it exists, it's scarce. Such spitting would have been politically disasterous for organizing by anti-war groups like VVAW.

Once in bar heard the story repeated as personal experience: soldier off airplane in San Francisco, spit on by civilian, started to beat shit out of spitter, pulled off by officer. Took this at face value. Expressed disgust, sympathy, and grief that VN divided America for so long. Nobody I knew did that. Waited for more: the topic changed. Cordially encountered the fellow once or twice again.

I used to hitchhike in uniform all over southern California and from Philly to Boston. Some of the best rides were from hippies --- daisy covered VW buses and all --- and they were the nicest people. They were anti-war, but they weren't anti-troops so much that they'd spit on us.

I was in high school in the late 60s and early 70s. I lived in a pretty Republican town and attended a high school with about 1600 students. Some fellow students enlisted or were drafted, while most students were against the war. But there was no (yeah, NO) animosity or division between the two sides; in fact, people didn't think of the issue in those terms. Those who enlisted or were drafted and didn't resist were respected for making that difficult choice, and given best wishes from the rest of us that they would come out of it alive. There was a great deal of tolerance, and it seemed to me that we were all on the same team, the team called Our Generation Has to Deal With This. The students against the war were against the administration and the war itself, not the troops.

Editing to add that the only spit I ever saw was that frothing at the mouth of some in the "older" generation (the one I represent now) who were pro-war -- the spiritual ancestors of today's wingers and "morans."

I always thought that tales of anti-war protestors spitting on returning Vietnam veterans were an urban legend at best and outright disinformation at worst. I've heard so many of these stories over the years that I now think there's some truth to them. But who was doing the spitting?

Most returning veterans were draftees, who bore no responsibility for the war and were always considered victims themselves by the anti-war movement. Why would protestors hang out at the airport all day just to spit on blameless draftees? This makes no sense.

If there were spitters, and I think there actually were a few, I think they were "agents provacateurs", low level intelligence operatives ordered to discredit the anti-war movement. This for a very logical reason that addresses one of the great lies of the Vietnam era. The big lie is that the press, the media, or whoever, turned the country against the war. The truth is that the returning veterans turned the country against the war, and they did it across the dinner table. When Johnny came home and told mom and pop that the war was bad they believed him, and they would never have believed the same truth if they read it in the paper or saw it on TV.

Hence the spitters. It makes perfect sense to me that paid operatives would hang around the airport all day and spit on returning veterans, especially draftees. This to give the returning soldiers a bad first impression of the anti-war activists that they'd been hearing and reading about while overseas.