Spitting on Soldiers

Posted on February 7, 2004 in War

One of the potent anecdotes that gets told about Vietnam vets is that hordes of peace demonstrators crowded them as they got off the airplanes and spat. The image of drool streaming down the clean olive combat fatigues of our returning soldiers colors much of our present discourse about the war in Iraq. Supporters of the war, who also support cuts in combat pay and veterans’ benefits, expectorate this claim at those of us who criticize the war in Iraq. But did it really happen?

Sociologist Jerry Lembcke who wrote The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam thinks that it didn’t. When a NYT columnist repeated the story in 2000, Lembcke challenged it:

I faxed a letter to the Times letters’ editor saying that, “in research for my book….I found no evidence that such incidents ever took place. It would have been impossible for protesters with rotten vegetables to get close to a wounded soldier returning from Vietnam.” I pointed out that, “stories of spat-upon veterans are apocryphal. They discredit the Americans who opposed the war and help construct an alibi for why we lost, namely, that we were betrayed on the home front by disloyal fifth columnists.” My letter was never printed.

If anyone had this happen to him and can provide witnesses, please let me know. I will say this: it was wrong. If it happened.