PART TWO: Spitting Image: this Legacy of Vietnam is a MYTH

The tie that binds is that believers in this myth will not only be found in the Republican Party but across the political spectrum because both conservatives and liberals have used the myth to their advantage with Vets either caught in the middle or collaborating in making myth reality.

That said, we challenge any believer in this myth to show documented proof (photos or news paper archives) that show any Vietnam Era or War Veteran being spit on as they return from any overseas tour during the Vietnam War. We mean actually spitting on them NOT shunning them or putting them down as most mainstream VSOs did back in the day. This of course could be spun into a form of spitting on Veterans.

Indeed it was reported that one Soldier wrote angrily to Nixon’s Vice President Spiro Agnew that the only Americans who seemed concerned about the Soldier’s welfare were the anti-war activists. While Veterans were sometimes made to feel uncomfortable about their service, this sense of unease was, Lembcke argues, more often rooted in the political practices of the Right. Tracing a range of conflicts in the twentieth century, Lembcke the Sociology Professor illustrates how regimes engaged in unpopular conflicts often vilify their domestic opponents for "stabbing the boys in the back."

[This is what Part Three will be about: The Conservative Stab in the Back Myth. VT. Ed.]

Lembcke concluding with something that even conservative Veterans can relate to and shun, an account of the powerful role played by Hollywood in cementing the myth of the betrayed veteran through such films as Coming Home, Taxi Driver, and Rambo, Jerry Lembcke’s book stands as one of the most important, original, and controversial works of socio-cultural history in recent years.

Library Journal notes that images of antiwar protesters, almost always women [as shown in this photo of an anti-war protest at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War], spitting on returning Vietnam veterans have become a shameful part of America’s collective memory.

Lembcke a Sociology Professor at Holy Cross University, MA, and a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), presented a well researched and rational indictment of this myth — an illusion [frankly among many illusions] created by the Nixon-Agnew administration and an unwitting press to attribute America’s loss in Vietnam to internal dissension [today the ploy is used to protray dissension to mean only LIBERALS did it. The ploy is still used to stiffle dissent to the war(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now that they are Democrat war(s) we look for the use of such myths across party lines. VT. Ed]

In fact, the antiwar movement and many Vietnam Veterans were closely aligned, and the only documented incidents show members of the VFW and American Legion spitting on their less successful Vietnam peers. [Spitting Image, pgs. 54 & 78 plus sources cited]

But Lembcke’s most controversial conclusion is that posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD] was as much a political creation — a means of discrediting returning vets who protested the war as unhinged — as it was a medical condition. The image of the psycho-vet was furthered through such Hollywood productions as ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘Coming Home.’ This forceful investigation challenges the reader to reexamine assumptions about the dark side of American culture that glorifies war more than peace.