"I Got Spat On"

The other day on the radio I heard for the umpteenth time a Vietnam veteran claim to have been spat upon when he returned to the states from his tour of duty in Vietnam. It finally struck me that this phenomenon has taken on the weight of urban legend--in truly mythical proportions. If I had a nickel for every alleged lugie that met its mark I'd be able to retire from my job as a cynic and run for office.

I have nothing against those who served in Vietnam. This is not a criticism of them. But so filled with bitterness and resentment were some soldiers returning in the 70's, at the height of the anti-war movement, that I suspected being spit upon has become an urban myth that, because of its repetition, distorts American history. So, I set out to do some research and this is what I found.

In the late 80s Bob Greene, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, bothered by the same suspicions about the authenticity of spitting-on-soldiers stories, asked his readers to send him personal statements about the treatment they received returning from Vietnam

Greene writes in the introduction to his 1989 book, Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned From Vietnam, (an edited compilation of the nearly one-thousand replies he received to his query) about odd similarities in the recollections and descriptions of being-spat-on experiences. For instance, invariably the incident occurs in an airport, the spitters are 'hippies," the spit is directed at medals and ribbons on uniformed chests, the hippies call them 'baby killers" and then run away.

Greene claims to have carefully screened the " I was spat on" replies by following up by letter to try to weed out pranksters. Ultimately he included 63 of these stories in the first "I was spat on" section of his book. His book also presents a far greater number of veterans who tell of happy experiences returning where no spit was involved. Cleverly, Greene titles that section, " I was not spat on."

But I remained skeptical, in large part because of the similarity in structure, setting, perpetrator, epithets used, target of spittle, etc. Is it possible, even probable that some anti-war protestor spat on a returning soldier? Of course. Sadly so. But often enough to justify the questionable myth?

A Google search for "I was spat on" turned up a May 2000 Slate article by Jack Shafer timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

Shafer cites, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. a book by Jerry Lembcke, a professor of sociology at Holy Cross and a Vietnam vet, who investigated hundreds of accounts of antiwar activists spitting on vets.

Shafer writes, "every time Lembcke pushed for more evidence or corroboration from a witness, the story collapsed--the actual person who was spat on turned out to be a friend of a friend. Or somebody's uncle. He writes that he never met anybody who convinced him that any such clash took place and argues that the whole story is bunk.."

What could explain the continued persistence of this urban myth? Lembcke says, "Soldiers returning from lost wars have long healed their psychic wounds by accusing their governments and their countrymen of betrayal."

Vietnam surely was the most contentious, most opposed, most divisive use of military power in American history. Returning vets knew many Americans did not support what they were sent to do, and they certainly were not welcomed home with parades and ceremonies as some thought they deserved for serving their country. Could bitterness and resentment about anti-war America be enough to motivate false I-was-spat-on stories?

Lembcke says, "the spitting story resonates with biblical martyrdom. As the soldiers put the crown of thorns on Jesus and led him to his crucifixion, they beat him with a staff and spat on him."

Published accounts at the time, according to Lembcke, always put the anti-
war protester on the receiving end of a saliva blast from a pro-Vietnam counter protester. Surely, he contends, the news pages would have given equal treatment to a story about serviceman getting the treatment. Then why no stories in the newspaper morgues, he asks?

Lastly, there are the parts of the spitting story up that don't add up. Why does it always end with the protester spitting and the serviceman walking off in shame? As Greene points out in his book, hippies were not known for their aggressive behavior, on the contrary, the movement was characterized by peaceful non-violence.

Wouldn't most servicemen have given the spitters a knuckle sandwich instead of turning the other cheek? At the very least, wouldn't the altercations have resulted in assault and battery charges and produced a paper trail retrievable across the decades?

Jack Shafer concludes his Slate article by suggesting the myth persists because:

1) Those who didn't go to Vietnam--that being most of us--don't dare contradict the "experience" of those who did;

2) the story helps maintain the perfect sense of shame many of us feel about the way we ignored our Viet vets;

3) the press keeps the story in play by uncritically repeating it, and

4) because any fool with 37-cents and the gumption to repeat the myth in his letter to the editor ( or call to a radio talk show) can keep it in circulation.

Go figure.

Comments

[David]

Great article.

It was the government that spat on the Viet Nam Vet not hippies. It's much easier to blame siblings that it is parents. Viet Nam vets don't want to vent their anger and sense of shame against the real culprit, Uncle Sam, so instead they create this "myth" that it was their scummy little brother, hippie dippie doolittle that shamed them. Freud would have a field day analyizing the displacement.

Although the dynamics are somewhat different, I would wonder if to some extent the same thing is not occuring with Iraq, although the protestors have been more politely keeping their mouths shut, and yet Bush has cut the guts out the VA so that our honorable and glorious warriors will not get any health care when they return home, or will find it very difficult to access. Isn't this another example of Vets being spit on? It is so hard to criticize the very Commander in Chief who they have sworn to serve, who never did his duty himself during Viet Nam and "spit" figuratively in the face of that war and its participants, and yet loves to play Rambo, as if this were some kind of movie and land, in costume, on an aircraft carrier in flight suit as if it were some kind of "Made for Prime Time" Movie.

OK, I'll shut up.

Keep up your good work here on North Coast Cafe.

All the best,

David

[ART CULLARS]

DEAR VETERAN,

I AM CURIOUS TO KNOW THE TIME FRAME OF ONE BEING DISCHARGED (LEAVING VIET NAM) TO RETURNING HOME. I AM DAMED CURIOUS...

[email protected]

[Hellwig]

This is a bunch of crap, the hippies did spit on vets and they did treat them like shit. Anyone that cannot admit that either is either a coward or stupid. My Uncle died in the Vietnam War, and thanks he got for serving his country? A couple nice calls in the middle of the night, to his already emotionally destroyed parents (yeah my grandparents) that went like this - and I quote; "your baby killer got killed" tell me that is not the truth and I swear you will go to hell. My dad told me that story. My uncle was the kind of guy that came from a blue collar family and worked his way up, he was known at school by everyone and loved by everyone, and the teachers knew him as the class leader. Tell me this is not wrong. This is also not just a "way out" thing, my dad served his country that same year his brother died, to continue his brothers beliefs against communism and to stop the abusive people in control in Vietnam. My dad came home to some hippies at the airport who flipped him off. So don't make excuses for your mistakes, they happened and the least you can do is admit your wrong doing and apologize. Although it's sort of too late for that know.

God forgive you

[K. Bowman]

Lembke writes in Spitting Image: Myth and the Legacy of Vietnam:

“Slightly less direct but still compelling evidence might be found in news reports of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.”

Here is a news account from 1971 from CBS News:

Here is the link:

http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1971-12/1971-12-27-CBS-17.html

CBS Evening News for
Monday, Dec 27, 1971
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Headline: Vietnam Veteran
Abstract:
(Studio) January, 1971, report on medics in Vietnam recalled; retd. medic featured.
REPORTER: Charles Collingwood
(Manhattan, Kansas) Delmar Pickett, Junior, hero, returns from Vietnam, finds US indifferent to war; vets' unemployment high; returns to school at Kansas State University as better student than before Vietnam experience. [Student Gwyn STEERE - speaks of Pickett's modesty.] [Vietnam film from earlier feature shown.] Pickett home is in Olsburg, Kansas. [PICKETT - tells of being spit on in Seattle, WA.] Disillusioned but not downed by Vietnam experience. [PICKETT - tells of experience as medic in Vietnam.] [Father Delmar PICKETT, Senior - says son more settled.] [MOTHER - says son a much better student than formerly.] Drugs no problem for Pickett. 2 1/2 million Vietnam vets.
REPORTER: Morton Dean

Where did the story of anti-war folk spitting on Vietnam Vets start? I’m going to guess that it started with people watching Walter Cronkite’s evening news two days after Christmas in 1971.

I think the idea that the stories were an urban myth is itself an urban myth.

[Chuck]

I think the best evidence cited is that it seems most of these hippies got off scott free. Which is a highly suspect notion. If the spitting incidences happened with the frequency we are told they did, the airports of the 60's and 70's would have been filled with hippies with fat lips! Not to mention that said scuffle would have involved the police and would have led to said fat-lipped hippies being hauled off! Show me a police report detailing such an arrest and I would be more inclined to believe that spitting on returning soldiers was the main tactic of anti-war hippie protesters.