the vets who claim they were spit on...there is no proof of that....no documentation.....dont you think there would be a fight that lead to arrests.....
high what would your reaction be to someone spitting on you?
think it thru.....someone spits on you.....you lose it you do what.....get into a fist fight....and yet there were none?
do you really expect me to believe that these men would not defend themselves? that they walk with their heads down as they were spit on? really high....just think about that....
i have a higher opinion of men in general...i dont know where you are from but here that is such a disgusting act....most wont tolerate it....
No, Bones, actually I don't. Every incident I'm aware of, whether personally, or from first hand reports from other vets, we were in uniform (either traveling or off post in a military town)
We didn't fight back; how could we? We were still in uniform, still active, still representing our country. We had too much pride and discipline to hit a civilian, even with that kind of provocation.
What everyone needs to understand is that the anti-war movement got so widespread, that it included a lot of different types of people, from fringe nuts, to ordinary folks, even some vets themselves. The few individuals (and it was individuals, not an organized group, as far as I ever saw), who would spit, or curse, or throw blood, urine, etc.) were apparently the lunatic fringe. I've talked to guys who had antiwar people offer them a soft drink, and tell them they were glad they made it home. I have no reason to doubt that. That doesn't change my opinion of the ones who were truly ugly, but I think we need to keep that part in perspective. A lot of what did or did not happen to individual vets very much depended on where you were; most stories I've heard came from incidents in the West Coast states. I had one incident, in an army town that also is home to a major state university. In my case I was in uniform, on the street, and this guy who looked like a college kid spat on me as he passed by and said something like "Mother ******* baby-killer!". I saw essentially the same thing happen to another soldier, also in uniform. For the most part, other stories I've heard from other vets are similar. Some of it was more subtle; someone would see a uniformed soldier, and make a pointed display of tuning their back on him, that kind of thing; curses and angry epithets "Storm trooper" "Nazi", "baby killer" were more common.
I didn't experience much after I left the army; I do remember a couple incidents in bars. I had a pretty bad facial scar (since mostly fixed) and this one guy came up and asked "Get that in 'Nam?" I said yes, and the reply was, "Then you deserve it, you murdering pig!' I remember being surprised, because he was an older guy (forties, maybe). There were a couple of similar incidents I had, with that; I remember one girl whose response was to try to throw a drink in my face (she was so drunk she mostly missed).
Like I said earlier, the worst part was having no one to talk to, and the feeling of being rejected and unwanted; all that in a country that had changed so much in the year I was gone that it was hard to make sense of it all anyway.
INcidentally, I've never seen the movie some people keep talking about. I pretty much lost my taste for war movies after Vietnam, and the only ones made since that time I've seen were "Patton" and "Saving Private Ryan". I haven't actually watched any of the movies made about Vietnam, and can't say I ever want to. I've had too many replays of the real thing in my head for too damn long anyway.
