Who spit on who? (ZOT!!! Who meowed at whom?)

MetroBlab ^ | 4/22/04 | Jesse Fox Mayshark

[Whappen]

OK, so we all know the stereotype, right? The veterans came home from Vietnam and were greeted -- at the airport, at the mall, who knows where -- by throngs of dirty hippies, all of them just waiting for the veterans to get close enough for them to SPIT on. You know this one, yeah? Everybody knows it. Heard it somewhere, from someone. Maybe even from someone who says it happened to them. And maybe it did happen to someone, somewhere. It's possible. People do all sorts of things at demonstrations. But the thing is, there are no contemporary accounts of it happening, anywhere. The idea, the suggestion that anti-war protesters spit on Vietnam veterans, doesn't surface anywhere until 1980. That article (written by a Vietnam veteran, by the way) is an abstract of a book on the same subject exploring the birth and evolution of the protestor-spitting-on-veteran iconography.

This is no small thing. Ask your average 18- or 21-year-old for their impressions of Vietnam War protesters, and -- if you find an 18- or 21-year-old who's informed enough to have any such impressions -- you'll probably at some point hear them talk about protesters spitting on veterans. Hey, they've seen First Blood, they know it's true.

It's strange, and not a little dangerous, that even as the national consensus has, over time, moved to a sort of grudging acknowledgement that the American involvement in Vietnam was basically wrong-headed from the start, the people who fought longest and loudest to bring the killing to an end (many of them veterans themselves, like a certain presidential candidate) have been systematically marginalized by the popular histories. The spitting-on-vets thing is kind of the cornerstone of that marginalization, as if that were somehow standard behavior for people who were against the war (many of whom were, again, veterans).

Among the interesting things in that article is that he notes that the only actual evidence he can find of people spitting during anti-war demonstrations is of demonstrators being spat on by pro-war counterdemonstrators.

[dirtboy]

I think a better question for you is, who zotted who?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Welcome to Freerepublic.

[Constitution Day]

Interesting first post.

[Psycho_Bunny]

lol

[Old Sarge]

KITTEN CHOW PING!

[dirtboy]

From your newly-crafted homepage:

Those that do not remember (or ignore) the past are doomed to repeat it

Repeat THIS:

[Constitution Day]

[Lokibob]

5-------4-------3------

ZOT!!!!

[Shryke]

LOL, ya, let's go ahead and redo history! DAMN those Nam vets for spitting on those patriotic hippies!

[grassroot]

whom.
Who spat on whom.

[Constitution Day]

(Who meowed at whom?)

LMAO!

[So Cal Rocket]

While I did not witness my brother getting spat upon, which he said happened at least three times after serving in Viet Nam, I did witness people calling him a "baby killer" and "war criminal" when my family picked him up at LAX shortly after his return from Viet Nam.

I was 11 years old at the time and I cried... my brother was my hero.

[laconic]

Read Bob Greene's book, Homecoming. Its full of first-person accounts of veterans spat on, always by those in groups (protection, you know) and often at places like San Francisco Airport.

[Incorrigible]

I know a guy who testified before Congress that he and many others committed war crimes in Vietnam. Should I believe him?

[Catspaw]

You're really a waste of a good ZOT!

[Howlin]

But the thing is, there are no contemporary accounts of it happening, anywhere

*Shudder*

I believe the word is contemporaneous.

[glock rocks]

Who left the door open?

[GrandEagle]

This should be interesting.....

[dead]

Maybe a couple of them didn't spit, but most hippies, as a rule, were worthless assholes who didn't bath or wipe their ass after crapping.

All the hippies that didn't OD grew up to be the barely-employable, twice-divorced parents of equally worthless, MTV-obsessed, semi-literate, college dropouts now populating fringe leftist internet forums.

Welcome to FR! Hippy free since '83.

[jdege]

even as the national consensus has, over time, moved to a sort of grudging acknowledgement that the American involvement in Vietnam was basically wrong-headed from the start,

Odd. My sense of the national consensus is exactly the opposite.

There are a lot of people who opposed the war who were horrified by the consequences of the Communist victory. Who become committed opponents to all of the various flavors of collectivist socialism precisely because of what they saw after the "liberation" of South Vietnam.

[beckett]

A revisionist history, written in the hope that the naive will buy it, and an obvious attempt to put halos on antiwar types. The trouble is, the central claim is a lie. There were many instances of soldiers being harassed and spat upon by antiwar demonstrators long before 1980, and those events were documented in national magazines like Time and Newsweek at the time. So if this bogus story ever gets wide attention, it will be shot down as easily as shooting fish in a barrel.

[glock rocks]

[muawiyah]

And your brother is still a hero.

This writer says there are no contemporary records concerning the phenomenon you report ~ that's because the treasonous news media refused to publish them, or show them on TV.

My own experience was a bit less dramatic than that. Bunch of us had just DEROSed from USAEUR at Fort Dix NJ. We decided to go to PHL to catch a flight "back home".

Guess what? No flights for us, but folks on "student standby" could get on almost any plane they wished at the very same gates.

Luckly one of us had an American Express card ~ and that got us a rental car.

I'm not quite sure how you could have shown GIs getting turned down for flights home at PHL while students (unwashed hippies) were getting on, but that's what was going on in February 1969. Guys coming home from Nam had it worse on the West Coast.

[ArrogantBustard]

I know we've a boatload of Viet Nam veterans (and veterans who were 'in' at that time but didn't go to Viet Nam) on this forum. Questions for y'all:

1) Did this (spitting) ever happen to you personally?

2) Did you ever, personally, witness it happen to someone else?

3) How about the 'baby killer' epithet (or similar)? Was it ever applied to you, in person, to your face? 4) Did you ever, personally, witness another soldier being so insulted?

5) If "yes" to any of the above (or similar that I haven't specifically asked about), when, where, who, how often?

I'm interested in how widespread the phenomenon was. I'd welcome replies from friends and family as well ... but again I'm only interested in first hand accounts.

[MagnusMaximus1]

Rambo Alert!
;-)

[BlueLancer]

VARMINT CONG ALERT!!!
Spittica Delirious Trollium subspecies

[Pan_Yans Wife]

meow

[Righty1]

It looks like the left may be hoist on their own pitard as papers like the slimes promoted this impression to discourage service in the Nam.

[ladyjane]

Well at least Robert MacNamara's son didn't have to be subjected to the war and mistreatment upon his return. Daddy made sure other people sent their sons.

[cyborg]

I WANT TO SPIT ON VETERAN HATING TROLLS!!!!!!

[GrandEagle]

My sense of the national consensus is exactly the opposite.
Mine too...

[dighton]

Trollius crispius maximus.

[tongue-tied]

Thanks, I was here for this one.

LOSER

[cyborg]

Kiss a Vietnam veteran SLIME a troll.. I have a feeling this troll never got kissed and the only body fuild ever encountered is his/her own.

[68skylark]

I did witness people calling [my brother] a "baby killer" and "war criminal"

The guy who did it is now running for president.

[BlueLancer]

1) 1973/Baltimore Airport, enroute to home on leave from the US Naval Academy after Youngster Cruise. Also verbally harassed, jostled, and shoved by between five to eight hippies, male and female ... and really smelly. Incident lasted about 15 minutes until I slugged the loudest one and airport security arrived to break them up (literally).

2) No.

3) Yes, same incident as in (1)

4) No.

[Arrowhead1952]

Thanks Pan_Yans Wife. First ZOT thread I've been on for some time.

[DuncanWaring]

... the people who fought longest and loudest to bring the killing to an end...

...and thus condemn millions to enslavement and murder.

[tx_eggman]

He's not on Pluto, it's gotta be Uranus

[ArrogantBustard]

In Bawl'mer??? Yikes.

Good show slugging the smelly little freak.

[So Cal Rocket]

Hartford Courant

Vietnam Veterans Pledge Iraq Vets Won't Be Scorned
 
By Stephanie Reitz

March 30, 2003

WILLIMANTIC -- Time hasn't blunted the memories. The years have made them a little more bearable, perhaps, but sharp edges still lie just below the surface.

On the grassy lawn outside VFW Post 1724 in Willimantic on Saturday, local Vietnam veterans tried to put aside recollections of their own painful homecomings as they rallied in support of American troops fighting in Iraq.

To themselves and each other, they made a covenant: The men and women returning from the Middle East will not experience the jeers and humiliation they endured.

Gratitude, not contempt, will greet today's troops. They'll be proud to wear their uniforms, salute their flag and tell their children how they voluntarily suspended their daily lives to answer their country's call.

This, the Vietnam veterans vowed.

"There was no welcome home at all after Vietnam. People were protesting against us as soon as our ship arrived in Oakland, Calif.," recalled Don Aubert of Chaplin, a 21-year Navy veteran who served in Korea and Vietnam.

Bob Cornell, delayed at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on his way home from service in Vietnam, bought civilian clothes in the terminal.

Hours of verbal abuse from other passengers, some of whom spit on his uniform, were just too much to bear.

"We must not let that happen again to these young men and women in uniform. You can hate the war, but you have to love the warrior," said Cornell, now the quarrymaster for the Willimantic VFW post.

Charles Kelly of Mansfield was "one of the older guys" at 25, he said, when he received a draft notice in 1967. He knew his $105-a-month Army salary would never be enough to live on and meet the $75 monthly payment on his gorgeous 1966 Mustang.

By volunteering for a three-year tour of duty, he received extra time before his deployment to pay off his prized red convertible and sell it, rather than have it repossessed.

On Jan. 5, 1968, he went to Vietnam. When his three years were up, he enlisted for another six months. Why? Because of a sense of obligation, of patriotism?

"No," he said softly, struggling to hold back tears, "a sense of not wanting to leave anyone behind."

So today, he goes to the pro-troop rallies. He worries about the troops in Iraq and, like other Vietnam-era veterans, he sends them a message of gratitude and respect.

"Soldiers are put in situations they didn't create, and given orders to carry out," Kelly said. "If you don't have the citizens behind you, it makes what you did seem wrong or unacceptable, which is not the case."

Rob Simmons, who spent 19 months in Vietnam, took his $70 clothing allowance upon his discharge in 1968 and bought civilian duds, heeding warnings from friends about the national mood.

Today, Simmons is eastern Connecticut's representative in the U.S. House, and a member of the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs committees. Like many other Vietnam veterans, he is determined to protect today's veterans from experiencing the scorn that was heaped on those of his era.

"We don't send mercenaries to defend our nation, and we do not terrorize our own people into fighting," Simmons said. "We give the very best we have to our military ... our sons and daughters."

[mtbopfuyn]

So if this bogus story ever gets wide attention, it will be shot down as easily as shooting fish in a barrel.

In 20 years (or today, take your pick) there will be a generation who believe Kerry was wounded in Vietnam.

[TheBigB]

Kitten chow!

[Michael.SF.]

the national consensus has, over time, moved to a sort of grudging acknowledgement that the American involvement in Vietnam was basically wrong-headed from the start,

As long as people wish to believe that the communists had no desire on instilling their system of governance on other countries, the above statement has some validity. But for those who are willing to extricate their heads from the dark regions that it may now occupy, they may be able to realize that the defeat of Soviet communism can be directly attributed to four things:

1) The willingness of the USA to make them pay and to pay big, to gain ground (Vietnam)
2) The willingness of the USA to make them pay and to pay big, to gain ground (Afghanistan).
3)The willingness of the USA to make them pay and to pay big, to gain ground (Reaganism).
4) The simple fact that Socialism is diametrically opposed to the normal rational thought process of 90% of human beings, that being we all want to be rewarded, even if modestly so, for our hard work and efforts.

[Constitution Day]

Ewwww. But you're probably right.

[Gefreiter]

Interesting. I've never seen anyone spit on anyone in the context of an anti-war rally, at least not in the media accounts thereof.

But organizers seem to hand out flags for burning to every s--t heel in attendance.

So this fool can stop trying to say that hippies are really just after what's best for the country through their dissension, because they aren't.

[Phantom Lord]

Here is a recent spitting incident that I am sure you will claim to be false...

Hillary Delegates Spit on Police Honor Guard

[Phantom Lord]

I've never seen anyone spit on anyone in the context of an anti-war rally, at least not in the media accounts thereof.

You also never seen Anti 2nd Amendment protestors threatened or harm wished upon them. But NC Gov. candidate Barbara Howe was confronted by one of the anti 2nd amendment protestors. The protestor said to Ms. Howe "I hope you are shot with one of those!" As she pointed to a picture of a gun on Barbara's shirt.

[cake_crumb]

I SAW those filthy animals spitting on our returning veterans. I SAW them CONTINUE to spit on veterans long after they returned...as long as they were legless men in wheelchairs. I HEARD them scream "baby killer" into the face of one such disabled vet.

Welcome to the door of FR, troll. May it hit you hard enough to knock you a mile.