Nam vets didnt deserve what they got

[strollingbones]

i assure you ...had someone spit on my father or his friends who were e8 and e9's he would not have turned the other cheek.....

many of my friends were drafted....2 yearers.....like sunni....just wanting to get out alive

 

[strollingbones]

watch that wall....we went at night and i nearly fell over the wall....

 

[strollingbones]

Stories of spat-upon Vietnam veterans are bogus. Born out of accusations made by the Nixon administration, they were enlivened in popular culture (recall Rambo saying he was spat on by those maggots at the airport) and enhanced in the imaginations of Vietnam-generation men — some veterans, some not. The stories besmirch the reputation of the anti-war movement and help construct an alibi for why we lost the war: had it not been for the betrayal by liberals in Washington and radicals in the street, we could have defeated the Vietnamese. The stories also erase from public memory the image, discomforting to some Americans, of Vietnam veterans who helped end the carnage they had been part of.

Vietnam Veterans Against the War: THE VETERAN: Spitting on the Troops: Old Myth, New Rumors


TORIES ABOUT spat-upon Vietnam veterans are like mercury: Smash one and six more appear. It's hard to say where they come from. For a book I wrote in 1998 I looked back to the time when the spit was supposedly flying, the late 1960s and early 1970s. I found nothing. No news reports or even claims that someone was being spat on.

What I did find is that around 1980, scores of Vietnam-generation men were saying they were greeted by spitters when they came home from Vietnam. There is an element of urban legend in the stories in that their point of origin in time and place is obscure, and, yet, they have very similar details. The story told by the man who spat on Jane Fonda at a book signing in Kansas City recently is typical. Michael Smith said he came back through Los Angeles airport where ''people were lined up to spit on us."

Like many stories of the spat-upon veteran genre, Smith's lacks credulity. GIs landed at military airbases, not civilian airports, and protesters could not have gotten onto the bases and anywhere near deplaning troops. There may have been exceptions, of course, but in those cases how would protesters have known in advance that a plane was being diverted to a civilian site? And even then, returnees would have been immediately bused to nearby military installations and processed for reassignment or discharge.

 

[strollingbones]

Whether Beck was aware that he was quoting almost verbatim from Sylvester Stallone's closing monologue in "First Blood," it is impossible to say. But whatever its source, the story is dubious. As documented by Jerry Lembcke in his book "The Spitting Image," stories of Vietnam vets being spit upon didn't gain currency until the 1980s. So many of those stories dissolved upon closer inspection that even after serious research efforts, not a single case of a Vietnam veteran being spat upon has ever been documented.

ArcherVox: Spitting on Vietnam vets? Didn't happen.

 

[GHook93]

Got called "losers" and "baby-killers" when they returned home. The leadership at the top sucked.

Korean War vets just got ignored.

Very true, at least we got it right now. We praise the troops that return home from protecting this country!

 

[Katzndogz]

I doubt that any story of some returning vet being spat upon would have made the news. Very few people cared enough to read about it in the news. If some vet says he was, I'll believe it even if he didn't run to the local paper to get laughed out of the place. In some places, like Berkeley, San Francisco the place where I lived in those days, sure I could see someone spitting on a vet. Lord knows they were treated badly enough as it was.

 

[strollingbones]

you know how vets are treated badly.....the medical treatments not received....the pysh treatment not given.....the pows/mias left in vietnam.....

they were treated badly

 

[High_Gravity]

Bottom line is they had the first defeat in a major Ameriican conflict

Didnt come in like in 1945 as heroes.

You are a fucking idiot ginscpy.

 

[strollingbones]

do yall realize how many programs are in place now that didnt exist in the 70s...wounded warrior....the charity that builds houses....the support for the familes....none of that existed for vietnam vets and their familes....

 

[High_Gravity]

Nama vets lostthefirt major war in US history -

Whule not therir fault - I wount go bragggingon it either

Jesus Christ you type worse than a blind retarded chimpanzee, try sobering up and using spell check when you type on here you fuckin clown.

 

[strollingbones]

at ft bragg when your father went to vietnam you had to move off base....into civilian housing......

 

[Jos]

Most Vets I know wont mind you spitting on them, if you swallow at least half

 

[JakeStarkey]

o what bullmal and an attempt to re write a history.

the majority of vietnam vets were welcomed home...simple as that ...the spitting rumors and all are mostly that...rumors...it may have happened but not as much as people like to say now...

Thank you for admitting that incidents did happen, but your lack of quantification of your opinion put "revising" history on your shoulders.

It happened, it happened far more than it should have.

http://memewatch.com/thelist/archives/2003/12/22/did_hippies_really_spit_on_vietnam_vets.html is a fun if silly read on the issue. Unsubscribe.

 

[High_Gravity]

Most Vets I know wont mind you spitting on them, if you swallow at least half

What does that mean?

 

[strollingbones]

hush jos....


show me one article at that time......show me....i have showed you plenty saying its a myth....but you seem to repeat the myths....

why is it people strive so hard to deny the truth?

 

[rightwinger]

It seems to have followed Sylvester Stallones First Blood.....after Stallone says he was spat on, all the stories started up

It just doesn't make sense that soldiers would meekly take that crap and not beat the shit out of someone. And that there would be NO coverage at the time. Americans would have been outraged

 

[Mr Liberty]

o what bullmal and an attempt to re write a history.

the majority of vietnam vets were welcomed home...simple as that ...the spitting rumors and all are mostly that...rumors...it may have happened but not as much as people like to say now...

Bull sh*t, I was not in Vietnam. I enlisted in June of 1975. The attitude of many Americans, especially the left, was extremely anti military until 1979. I have been called many names. Baby killer was by far their favorite. Fascist and Nazi were quite common. Although I was not spit on, some of my fellow soldiers were.
The only people, welcoming soldiers home from Nam, were their families.

 

[strollingbones]

do i see anything proving this other than posters running their mouths....well no i dont.....can yall not google or what?

 

[freedombecki]

o what bullmal and an attempt to re write a history.

the majority of vietnam vets were welcomed home...simple as that ...the spitting rumors and all are mostly that...rumors...it may have happened but not as much as people like to say now...

Bull sh*t, I was not in Vietnam. I enlisted in June of 1975. The attitude of many Americans, especially the left, was extremely anti military until 1979. I have been called many names. Baby killer was by far their favorite. Fascist and Nazi were quite common. Although I was not spit on, some of my fellow soldiers were.
The only people, welcoming soldiers home from Nam, were their families.

Thank you for your service, Mr Liberty.

 

[freedombecki]

It seems to have followed Sylvester Stallones First Blood.....after Stallone says he was spat on, all the stories started up

It just doesn't make sense that soldiers would meekly take that crap and not beat the shit out of someone. And that there would be NO coverage at the time. Americans would have been outraged

I didn't hear Stallone say he was spat on. I heard a man say that in a church social hall many, many years ago.

Vietnam Vets were treated poorly when they got back home. Their homecoming should have been as loving, welcoming occasion as were the homecomings of GIs following WWII.