Nam vets didnt deserve what they got

[daveman]

why do people want to make it worse than is was? there was a lot of bad without adding this urban myth mal

Because they believe, a lie advanced for a good cause, is no sin.

They have heard this myth, they want ever so much to believe it, ergo they think it's okay if they swear it is true and lie about knowing somebody it happened to.

Basically, what we are dealing with here are people without much personal integrity.

Trolls, ya know?

Actually, you don't believe it because you don't want to believe it.

 

[daveman]

Jebus, are some "vets" still whining about being spit on? How the hell did they ever survive combat???

In combat, they could engage those who attacked them.

Not so when they returned home and were attacked by their fellow citizens.

 

[daveman]

I CALL TOTAL BUllshit on this....

every vet you know what bullshit

and yea i was there....my father did two tours....so dont tell me your urban legends are true...when i know its mostly bullmal

And I CALL TOTAL Bullshit on your post. So what were you? Two years old? Whatever, you obviously weren't paying attention to what was happening in the real world. Spitting was only a small part of the expressions of hatred and disgust lavished on our troops. A great many Americans found it easier to buy into blatant and obvious communist propaganda than to even give us the benifit of a doubt. Apparently that continues to be true.

i was 16 when my father did his 2nd tour .....in 68.....i assure you ....i lived at ft bragg for many years.....

so no i was not 2 yrs old....i dont buy into this bull.....cause its not true simply as that...now how old are you?

Do you really think there would be a lot of vet-spitters around Ft Bragg?

Your anecdotal experience does not disprove the anecdotal experience of others.

 

[daveman]

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.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_-TBirrPiQ]Anti-War Protester Spits on Iraq War Veteran - YouTube[/ame]

:054.

 

[daveman]

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

Really? I wasn't alive back in the 70s but I thought the atmosphere was very anti Military during Vietnam?

It WAS very anti-military.

But what it was NOT was anti VETERAN.

Mostly it was just "We do NOT want to be REMINDED of this mess"

BIG BIG DIFFERENCE between what happened, and what these right wing LIARS as trying to tell us.

On this issue, WE KNOW the truth, because kids?

A LOT of us right here on this very board were THERE.

No, you were where you were. And you were not with every returning veteran. So you don't know what happened to them. You want to pretend you do, but you don't.

Because it was people who share your politics who treated returning veterans badly. That's why you deny their actions.

 

[daveman]

If all these vets are coming forward with these stories, I have to believe them.

high dear, if all these vets really were in vietnam......in the first place i would be amazed

war ended in 75....since then there has been a great infiltration of people claiming to be this and that.....people do it in real life....claim to be heroes so how many people do you think do it in cyberland?

Oh, you mean like the Winter Soldier "investigations"? There were a bunch of liars involved in that. One of them became a US Senator.

 

[daveman]

color me a skeptic on all things

No, not on all things. Just on things you don't want to believe.

 

[Wry Catcher]

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

Korean War vets just got ignored.

In one respect you are correct, some were called "losers" and "baby-killers"; and some were. Are you too young to remember the My Lai Massacre or the iconic picture of the young Vietnamese girl burned by Napalm? But the war criminals who committed such acts were the few and not the many.

Of course the ignorant have always used harsh words to describe an entire set of people with whom they disagree, notice how the entire OWS crowd is denigrated as "dirty commies" and worse by the ignorant fools on this message board.

Of course you omit one very important issue rarely discussed, the treatment of Vietnam combat vets upon their return home by our government. Victims of Agent Orange and those who suffer PTSD were ignored for years and those who fell victim to drug and alcohol addictions after seeing the elephant up close were made to prove the horrors of war were the cause of their disease before given treatment by the VA. You may thank the Reagan Administration for that policy.

 

[daveman]

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....

Exactly.

The protestors during the Vietnam War were more about NOT sending any Americans to Vietnam to fight a pointless and deadly war. Any hatred of the military was targeted at the leaders, not the poor saps that were drafted.

But it doesn't matter. This myth will never ever die.

You really believe that? You've been lied to.

 

[daveman]

perhaps one should focus on the true problems of returning vets today.......instead of focusing on a past problems that nothing can be done about....

You mean the problems you insist didn't exist?

Please.

 

[Wry Catcher]

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....

Exactly.

The protestors during the Vietnam War were more about NOT sending any Americans to Vietnam to fight a pointless and deadly war. Any hatred of the military was targeted at the leaders, not the poor saps that were drafted.

But it doesn't matter. This myth will never ever die.

You really believe that? You've been lied to.

The truth is somewhere in between. My experience was tempered by my environment; between 1965 and 1975 I attended CAL, served in the Navy, Attended San Francisco St. U and was hired as a deputy.

The 'professional' protesters were indeed anti-military, from E-1 to O-10, they treated them all as vermin; the educated and thoughtful protesters differentiated and were particularly sensitive to those drafted and in particular to draftees who were poor or minorities. They opposed the war on many levels, especially the matter of who was doing the fighting and how many were too young to have ever voted.

In the Navy there weren't protests, but there was discussion and even heated debate on the merits of the war and on its prosecution both in boot camp and later aboard ship. As I began my LE career I worked with many vets, some combat seasoned in WW II and Korea. The opinions on the merits of the war were mixed, but all supported the troops and despised the manner in which those returning were treated, by the "hippies" and by our government.

 

[daveman]

Movies? "WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE.." with Mel Gibson

Just checked out some 5 star reviews of the film you recommend: "We Were Soldiers." Seems as if everyone agrees with you that this is the one. At Amazon the top two reviews are enough to make me want to see this film. Here is a snip from the first review and the rest of it can be found at Amazon.com. Thanks so much for recommending this to me. It doesn't speak too well of Platoon.

"I live with a Vietnam Vet who served in the late 1960s with 1st Cav. Medivac. During service he earned two Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal. Since WE WERE SOLDIERS concerns the 1st Cav., Randy wanted to see it. I reluctantly agreed; I am not partial to war films and I dislike Mel Gibson, and Randy is very hard on Vietnam War films. He dismisses PLATOON as a Hollywood 8x10 glossy; says APOCALYPSE NOW is an interesting movie that captures the paranoia, but all the technical details are wrong; and describes DEER HUNTER as excellent in its depiction of the strangeness of coming home but so full of plot holes that he can hardly endure it. And about one and all he says: "It wasn't like that."

"He was silent through the film, and when we left the theatre I asked what he thought. He said, "They finally got it. That's what it was like. All the details are right. The actors were just like the men I knew. They looked like that and they talked like that. And the army wives too, they really were like that, at least every one I ever knew." The he was silent for a long time. At last he said, "You remember the scene where the guy tries to pick up a burn victim by the legs and all the skin slides off? Something like that happened to me once. It was at a helicopter crash. I went to pick him up and all the skin just slid right off. It looked just like that, too. I've never told any one about it."

Much more: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Soldiers/product-reviews/B000J1AGQI/ref=atv_sr_review_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1]Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: We Were Soldiers[/ame]

Rick Rescorla served at Ia Drang with the 2nd/7th, and was killed in the WTC on 9/11 evacuating fellow employees.

 

[daveman]

Exactly.

The protestors during the Vietnam War were more about NOT sending any Americans to Vietnam to fight a pointless and deadly war. Any hatred of the military was targeted at the leaders, not the poor saps that were drafted.

But it doesn't matter. This myth will never ever die.

You really believe that? You've been lied to.

The truth is somewhere in between. My experience was tempered by my environment; between 1965 and 1975 I attended CAL, served in the Navy, Attended San Francisco St. U and was hired as a deputy.

The 'professional' protesters were indeed anti-military, from E-1 to O-10, they treated them all as vermin; the educated and thoughtful protesters differentiated and were particularly sensitive to those drafted and in particular to draftees who were poor or minorities. They opposed the war on many levels, especially the matter of who was doing the fighting and how many were too young to have ever voted.

In the Navy there weren't protests, but there was discussion and even heated debate on the merits of the war and on its prosecution both in boot camp and later aboard ship. As I began my LE career I worked with many vets, some combat seasoned in WW II and Korea. The opinions on the merits of the war were mixed, but all supported the troops and despised the manner in which those returning were treated, by the "hippies" and by our government.

I suggest you direct your lecture at Ravi.

 

[Ropey]

I lived through this and I can tell you that it wasn't that America did not deserve the war. The US administration did not understand what what going on in the arena.

Americans did not want the draft to take their young to fight so far away and fight a people who were so clearly ready to die.

The US thought that China was expanding and they did not take into account the pure dislike that Vientamese had for the Chinese (due to a few thousand years of Chinese slaughter of their people).

So Vietnam was never going to be a part of the Chinese expansion (if there ever was one) and the proof of this was after US withdrawal from the arena, the Vietnamese went and defeated the Khmer Rouge.

Cambodian

 

[Divine Wind]

Jebus, are some "vets" still whining about being spit on? How the hell did they ever survive combat???

Nice to see at least one person confirming that vets were spit upon. While you are correct that it isn't as bad as being shot at, I seriously doubt you would like it if someone did it to you.

It's wrong for anti-war protesters to take their angst out against our troops. If they have a gripe, let them *****, spit or piss on those who order, authorize and fund the war. They might start looking here:

 

[Ava]

Movies? "WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE.." with Mel Gibson

OMG....I watched this wonderful historic depiction of war, tonight, and it is BY FAR, better than any I have seen. It evoked emotions that required a box of tissue close by. I will never watch another film about Vietnam, as this one is rated by so many as the most accurate representation. I so wish everyone could see this. I streamed it in HD and lived the truth of war, that has left an imprint on my heart forever. I am placing a review on Netflix here, by a reviewer who said it all. Thank you so much 9thIDdoc, for the recommendation. ***

"The most accurate film on Vietnam out there. Almost all ex-Vietnam infantry grunts agree, this is the one that most gives them the chills and, during the movie, makes their thumbs instinctively move to release the phantom M-16 safety selector switch that is no longer there. If you read the book or ever talked to any of the veterans who were at this one, you already know this was the flat out most ungodly scariest nip-and-tuck battle in Vietnam, almost another Alamo, and there were many of those style of fights in Nam. The entire 7th Air Cav in the Ia Drang Valley missed total annhiliation by a whisker, and was only saved by the superb and timely close coordination of air support and artillery. It also turned a noted liberal news reporter, Joe Galloway, into a conservative for life, as he had to put down his camera and notepad and pick up a rifle and defend his position as it was being overrun. This is simply a great film that was deeply researched, and with the exception of a bayonet charge at the very end that Mel insisted on, is otherwise accurate down to the last word of verified dialogue. One of the top 5 best war films ever made."

Netflix - Unlimited TV Shows & Movies Online

 

[9thIDdoc]

Hey, no problem. Glad you enjoyed.

 

[High_Gravity]

FWIW I think Full Metal Jacket was an insult to all veterans.

I liked the basic training part of that movie.

 

[High_Gravity]

Aquathena this is a good movie that describes some of the problems troops goes through when they come home from Iraq or Afghanistan, not as classic as Deer Hunter or Apocalypse Now but still a good movie in its own right.

 

[freedombecki]

Wow... Am I really reading what I am reading? So there are people here on this board who DENY that any spitting took place on returning Vietnam Vets, but will gladly buy into the myth that a black Congressman was spit on during the Obamacare debate by Tea Partiers? The things that happened to returning Vietnam Vets were despicable. Those who would DENY those things are just plain ignorant or are trying to justify the fact that THEY supported a "cause" that used tactics that bothers or ashames them now.

I spent 13 months and 4 days in Saigon, assigned to a security police detachment at the International Airport at Ton Sa Nhut. It was a different time to be sure. 1973 to 1974. American GI's were leaving Vietnam by the plane load every half hour. When they left, they were receiving "unofficial" briefings that as soon as possible, they were to change out of their uniform and take the contents of their duffel bag and put it into a civilian suitcase. The only thing was the haircut was a dead give away. There were stories of how good looking girls would come up to you, engage you in conversation, and eventually ask you if you were coming back from Vietnam. If you said yes, then they would throw urine on you, or spit on you, or a group would then come over and berate you as a "baby killer" or "criminal". One place to AVOID was San Francisco. LA was just as bad, as was Seattle. I was lucky. I caught a flight from Honolulu to Salt Lake City and then to Kansas City. I met and talked with several transport pilots who had it happen to them. One of them I spoke to had a cigarette mashed into his cheek by this girl that approached him in a bar. He was sure that she set him up.

So now, because their is no pictures of the activity, no definitive PROOF, just the word of some veterans, we have those on this board who would assign such acts as URBAN LEGENDS. Bull shit! You crapped on us when we returned. You ignored us literally to DEATH. You tried to make us ashamed of the fact that we served our country. Yes, the war sucked. But it sucked because of the politicians and the anti war protestors, NOT THE TROOPS. American servicemen have a history of doing the impossible with almost NOTHING. We did the same thing in Vietnam. LEARN God Dammit! Read some ******* history. Or go find a real ******* veteran and ask him. He'll tell you. Find out what those troopers did in the Na Trang valley for instance. Out numbered, out gunned and still they prevailed. Yeah, they lost a lot of men, but by God in heaven, they prevailed. We didn't lose that ******* war, YOU didn't know how to win it.

Finally, during my last trip to Seattle I was in a Starbucks. There was a line waiting patiently to get served. There were two Army E-5's standing just in front of me. When they got to the front of the line this pin headed little prick ignored them and asked me what I wanted. I told him that what I wanted was him to show a little respect to some people that had put their lives on the line to preserve his freedom to be an asshole. I told him that he had better by God, get them what they wanted and that I would pay for ANYTHING that they got. And I said it very loudly. They were embarassed, thanked me and told me that they had come up against it before. I was mad as hell. Even today...

So for those of you who would DENY the crap that those vets had to put up with, the only thing I can say is you're as worthless now as you were then...

Thanks for your service and the stellar way in which you handled getting service for the army E5s. I didn't run with the antiwar types because they made me feel sick to my stomach since all the men in my family served.