John Llewellyn, an associate professor of communication at Wake Forest.
http://www.wfu.edu/wfunews/2003/030603c.html
Posted on 11/10/2004 3:35:05 PM PST by mykdsmom
WINSTON-SALEM -- Last week voters went to the polls to select a vision for the future. Now Americans must find a way forward together. This week, as we honor service and sacrifice on Veterans Day, an image from this political season must be put to rest.
The presidential campaign featured the resurgence of a myth from the early 1990s. That myth is that soldiers returning from Vietnam were spit upon by citizens or war protesters. That claim has been used to turn honest differences of opinion about the war into toxic indictments.
As a scholar of urban legends I am usually involved with accounts of vanishing hitchhikers and involuntary kidney donors. These stories are folklore that harmlessly reveals the public imagination. However, accounts of citizens spitting on returning soldiers -- any nation's soldiers -- are not harmless stories. These tales evoke an emotional firestorm.
I have studied urban legends for nearly 20 years and have been certified as an expert on the subject in the federal courts. Nonetheless, it dawned on me only recently that the spitting story was a rumor that has grown into an urban legend. I never wanted to believe the story but I was afraid to investigate it for fear that it could be true.
Why could I not identify this fiction sooner? The power of the story and the passion of its advocates offer a powerful alchemy of guilt and fear -- emotions not associated with clearheadedness.
Labeling the spitting story an urban legend does not mean that something of this sort did not happen to someone somewhere. You cannot prove the negative -- that something never happened. However, most accounts of spitting emerged in the mid-1980s only after a newspaper columnist asked his readers who were Vietnam vets if they had been spit upon after the war (an odd and leading question to ask a decade after the war's end). The framing of the question seemed to beg for an affirmative answer.
• • •
In 1998 sociologist and Vietnam veteran Jerry Lembcke published "The Spitting Image: Myth, Media and the Legacy of Viet Nam." He recounts a study of 495 news stories on returning veterans published from 1965 to 1971. That study shows only a handful (32) of instances were presented as in any way antagonistic to the soldiers. There were no instances of spitting on soldiers; what spitting was reported was done by citizens expressing displeasure with protesters.
Opinion polls of the time show no animosity between soldiers and opponents of the war. Only 3 percent of returning soldiers recounted any unfriendly experiences upon their return.
So records from that era offer no support for the spitting stories. Lembcke's research does show that similar spitting rumors arose in Germany after World War I and in France after its Indochina war. One of the persistent markers of urban legends is the re-emergence of certain themes across time and space.
There is also a common-sense method for debunking this urban legend. One frequent test is the story's plausibility: how likely is it that the incident could have happened as described? Do we really believe that a "dirty hippie" would spit upon a fit and trained soldier? If such a confrontation had occurred, would that combat-hardened soldier have just ignored the insult? Would there not be pictures, arrest reports, a trial record or a coroner's report after such an event? Years of research have produced no such records.
Lembcke underscores the enduring significance of the spitting story for this Veterans Day. He observes that as a society we are what we remember. The meaning of Vietnam and any other war is not static but is created through the stories we tell one another. To reinforce the principle that policy disagreements are not personal vendettas we must put this story to rest.
Our first step forward is to recognize that we are not a society that disrespects the sacrifices of our servicemembers. We should ignore anyone who tries to tell us otherwise. Whatever our aspirations for America, those hopes must begin with a clear awareness of who we are not.
(John Llewellyn is an associate professor of communication at Wake Forest University.)
Dr. John Llewellyn
(336) 759-7229
llewelly@wfu.edu
The profanities that I am ready to expel are enormous.
Just who did this person speak to??
I was spit upon, I had people throw beer bottles at me from their cars, and I heard Baby Killer many times, and I graduated Parris Island in 1977...5 years after combat ended in Vietnam!
This woman needs to be Freeped and HOW!!
The profanities that I am ready to expel are enormous.
Just who did this person speak to??
I was spit upon, I had people throw beer bottles at me from their cars, and I heard Baby Killer many times, and I graduated Parris Island in 1977...5 years after combat ended in Vietnam!
This woman needs to be Freeped and HOW!!
I think this is a guy.
He's calling me a liar. I wish he would do it to my face.
"There is also a common-sense method for debunking this urban legend."
Which seems to be anything but surveying veterans.
NC Ping Please
Hey John... we're they called babykillers (or is that just another Urban Myth)
yeah right, not only was my brother in law spat upon on his return from Nam, when he finally got home "the Baby Killer", had to pay 3 xs what was on the cab meter before the sob would drive A Bronze Star winner home!
Maybe after the surgery she looks like a guy...
hey buffoon go peddle your crap somewhere else, how dare you add salt to the wound
He can kiss my Veteran ASS!
I spent the night in a California jail for beating the crap out of a "love child" that spit on me while I was waiting for my duffle bag at the airport luggage carosel.
I ignored the chants, but the spit earned him some extensive dental work and my right boot rearranged his rib cage. I still have the scars on my knuckles from his dislodged teeth..
I graduated PI July 73, I wore my UOD on boot leave and learned my lesson. The author of this article needs a good swift kick in the face.
Oh, really...the abuse still continues.....my hubby's major was just called a war criminal, baby and civilian killer among other things....they spent 15mos in Iraq in an AVN Co....
Who is this guy kidding??? I distinctly remember marching in a 4th of July parade when I was in the Boy Scouts in 19-73 or 1974 and we were the color guard for the local VFW. The Vets marched according to their service with the Viet Nam vets in the rear and they were jeered and booed and had things thrown at them. Most of the time whoever threw something was confronted by someone else in the crowd and the parade was only a couple of blocks long but it DID happen. I remember at first I was bewildered and then extremely angry. My dad was marching with the Korean Vets and he got a good dose of the hate too and he was fuming.
My brother committed suicide after his return from Nam. Our family believes one reason was the "welcome" he received when he got home. And I saw people flip him off, turn their backs on him, etc. He told me about spitting and I saw the evidence of bar fights resulting from the name calling.
And notice this puke publishes this crap on our birthday!!
Semper Fi
LOL, point taken.
The left lives in a fantasy world.
Labeling the spitting story an urban legend does not mean that something of this sort did not happen to someone somewhere...
In other words, the label is utterly worthless. Thanks, perfesser.
"John Llewellyn is an associate professor of communication at Wake Forest University"
Not a vet?
oooohhh.... A liberal "intellecti"... Not smart enough to win elections, but smart enough to give opinions and insult everyone else. Got it.
I was about to ping you to this (you were the first to come to mind) but you beat me to it.
More vile absurdities from the lying, amoralistic academia nutjobs.
jun 70 lax airport ..... all the wonderful california liberals.... vvaw.. spat, through eggs, urine in a bag, fecies, called us everything they could think of.... I wore my uniform home through Atlanta, to Fayetteville, NC. I had it cleaned and it hangs in my closet to this say to remind me of them... and Kerry ..... and Fonda....
Even if Dr. LLewellyn were right, which I don't believe for a second, he doesn't bother to cover what Kerry did to the vets when he admittedly lied to the Senate about their killing babies and other civilians. Llewellyn is way off track with this screed.
John Llewellyn, an associate professor of communication at Wake Forest.
http://www.wfu.edu/wfunews/2003/030603c.html
Scholar of Urban Legends?
Gosh...sounds like snopes...
I appreciate your service Race.
Cindy
Lemme tell you something. This Dr. will need a Dr if I ever get my hands on him.
They not only spit, but they threw human waste at our group.
Bull Shi'ite!
And you're still an idiot.
bttt
Heard of many people who were spat upon. In this case the issue becomes an "urban myth" when it's convenient to change history.
He forgets that the SOLDIER would, if he responded, be in serious trouble with his chain of command, and could expect to be court-martialed for assault, battery, and conduct unbecoming.
This makes me so mad...I'm shaking.
I don't know what to say.
I'll have to get some control before I do say anything because this is a total lie. That's all these so-called educated people do is lie!
And you can bet your bottom dollar they vote dem!!!!!!
Yeah.
He certainly can't do serious research interviewing those dopers at DU!
Give me a break.
Sounds like he's trying to start his own Urban Lie.
Welcome Home, soldier...
hand salute
rising blood pressure ping
Get a load of this guy . . .
Do we really believe that a "dirty hippie" would spit upon a fit and trained soldier? If such a confrontation had occurred, would that combat-hardened soldier have just ignored the insult?
"Dr." John Llewellyn is a left-wing fool. I wonder if he every thought that just maybe those dirty hippies traveled in packs, like wild dogs.
20 years from now, I suspect that it will be considered an "Urban Myth" that Republican campaign offices were shot at and had their windows broken in 2004.
I can't say that I was spit on but I saw friendlier
looks on the faces of the Vietnamese people, than I saw
in LAX. Cold, hard stares, tight lips. The best part was when a WW II veteran took me into the bar and bought me a beer, that made up for the rest.
Isn't it interesting, this guy is willing to call all this
an urban legend and justifies it by saying "you can't prove
a negative", yet there is no refutation of Kerry's lies
and slanders, negatives for which were WAS no proof.
This ... individual ... is an idiot. The question simply asked those who had been maltreated by hippies to "come forward" and "tell their stories". Last time I checked, leftists encouraged people to do that. I guess the leftist welcome mat gets rolled up when "their stories" reveal that naked truth that hippies in particular and leftists in general are evil. I'm shocked
You are full of it,a$$hole. STFU!
Many of my Vietnam vet friends were spat upon and things even worse than that.
(Myself, I wasn't in Vietnam. I was a tad too old. However, My veteran friends are not liars)
You, Mr Llewellyn, Go To Hell and Burn!
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