The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lembcke examines the myth of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran and comes to some conclusions that extend far beyond the question of whether or not soldiers returning from Vietnam were actually spat upon by anti-war protesters.
While acknowledging that it is impossible to prove a negative (that no veteran anywhere, anytime was ever spat upon) he presents convincing evidence that the “spat-upon veteran” was actually a fabrication designed to whip up support for wars of American empire (most specifically, Bush I’s Gulf War) and to discredit anti-war Vietnam vets and to rob them of their historical legacy.
In light of the front page stories posted by BooMan today Taking Care of our Vets and Don’t Expect the Truth, We are the Enemy it is critical that anyone who is opposed to the Iraq war heed what Lembcke has to say. BooMan’s two posts are not two separate topics – they are intimately related.
Extended quotes from The Spitting Image below. I’ve transcribed them from my copy – any errors mine. I’m going to let them stand without comment from me – if you want to know my memories of the Vietnam era – as a young woman opposed to the Vietnam war with many friends who were Vietnam vets, see my comment on leftvet’s diary Coming Home: A Vietnam Veteran Remembers. And please read his diary and the many comments left by veterans (of several wars) on it.
Important to know about The Spitting Image – it was written in 1998.
. . . the idea that Vietnam veterans had met with malevolence gained prominence during the Fall of 1990, when the Bush administration used it to rally support for the Persian gulf War. After sending troops to the Gulf in August, the administration argued that opposition to the war was tantamount to disregard for their well-being and that such disregard was reminiscent of the treatment given to Vietnam veterans on their return home. By invoking an image of anti-war activists spitting on veterans, the administration was able to discredit the opposition and galvanize support for the war. . . .
An analysis of the news stories gleaned from press accounts from the fall of 1990 reveals that the administration put forth one explanation after another for the impending war, to the point that nobody could reason about the rightness or wrongness of it because the objectives to be served by military means kept changing. When reasoning within a means-ends framework became paralyzed, public opinion about the war derived from emotion, symbolism , and myth. In effect, the administration invoked the image of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran to solidify support for the war and opposition to an anti-war movement that was growing rapidly during December of 1990.
The hurt and confusion that many Americans felt with the loss of the [Vietnam] war was exacerbated by the inadequacy of the attention given veterans. Assessing blame for those wrongs was part of the process by which the country put the war behind it and moved on. But the laying of blame for the loss of the war and the mistreatment of veterans at the feet of the anti-war movement was misdirected. It was a form of scapegoating, and as such it left the real sources of peoples’ troubles unaddressed. The war itself went unexamined, and the leaders who got us into it were never held accountable. America’s war in Vietnam remains a festering sore covered over by such mythic bandages as the spat-upon veteran.
The myth also functions to reverse the verdict of history, to find the innocent guilty and guilty innocent. The indicters were themselves indicted as the responsibility for the loss of the war shifted from those whose policies had failed to those who were critical of the policies all along. In the process, the resolve and resourcefulness of the Vietnamese people was denied, and the credibility and character of Vietnam veterans, who were the most convincing witnesses for the case against the government, was attacked. Initially dismissed as imposters and then discredited as deviant malcontents, this generation of “bad” war veterans were eventually recast as “mad” war veterans.
The myth sullies the reputation of those individuals and organizations who dared to dissent, and strips Vietnam veterans of their true place in history as gallant fighters against the war. The identity crisis supposedly suffered by Vietnam veterans because they were denied the military victory of their youth might be better laid at the feet of a culture that confers manhood on warriors, but not on peacemakers.
In The New Winter Soldiers, Richard Moser writes about what he calls the “soldier ideal.” The soldier is constituted of the images we have of soldiers and the values we attach to those images. There is a duality in the American soldier ideal, he says, between the dominant vision of the frontier fighter and the defender of empire, and the alternative figure of the citizen-soldier. Soldiers of the first sort live in a world separated from civilian concerns, fighting wars with neatly drawn lines between good guys and bad guys. The citizen-soldier, on the other hand, as represented by the Revolutionary War’s minuteman and by the armed fugitive slaves of the Civil War era, is someone who fights to create of defend freedom. He is a character capable of crossing boundaries, of fighting as a soldier but also as a citizen against wars he deems unjust. It is this spirit of the citizen-soldier that anti-war Vietnam veterans connected with, and thus began to transform what it means to be an American soldier. The loss of the war in Vietnam made their identification with the citizen-soldier ideal all the more imperative for Vietnam veterans. But their place as citizen soldiers who stood up against military authority, racism, and genocidal warfare was stolen from them. By the late 1970s, the culture of empire and its dominant image of the soldier ideal was reasserting itself, and the fabricators of the national imagination lent themselves to the pathologizing of the Vietnam veterans’ image.
On a societal level we have largely forgotten that much of the energy and inspiration for the anti-war movement came from the veterans themselves. Such political amnesia is dangerous. For militarists, the failure to remember the GI and veteran opposition to the war could lead to overly optimistic assessments of what to expect from soldiers in a future conflict. . . .
The Gulf War of 1990-91 is a marker by which we can assess the impact of the myth of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran on American political culture. The myth’s awesome power to sow confusion, stir political passions, and lead large numbers of citizens into war was exhibited at the time. But that was by no means the end of the story.
Reclaiming our memory of the Vietnam era entails a struggle against very powerful institutional forces that toy with our imaginings of the war for reasons of monetary, political, or professional gain. . . . it is a struggle of epic importance . . . .
Remembered as a war that was lost because of betrayal at home, Vietnam becomes a modern-day Alamo that must be avenged, a pretext for more war and generations of more veterans.
Remembered as a war in which soldiers and pacifists joined hands to fight for peace, Vietnam symbolizes popular resistance to political authority and the dominant images of what it means to be a good American. By challenging myths like that of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran, we reclaim our role in the writing of our own history, the construction of our own memory, and the making of our own identity.
SusanHu brought Leonard Clark’s blog (LEONARD CLARK, 860TH MP CO, AZ ARMY NATIONAL GUARD) to our attention. If you missed her story, please go and read his emails from Iraq and listen to the answering machine messages he has been leaving.
Also see Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Bob Greene, the columnist, did a book on this too, some years before. (Maybe early 80’s? Don’t recall) Title was “Homecoming” and somewhere, buried in the boxes and boxes of books, there SHOULD be a copy around here somewheres.
Anyway he came to about the same conclusion: can’t prove it DIDN’T happen but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that there was a significant level of spitting.
Outside the NAS bases my dad worked at and in cases like on NAS Whidbey Island, LIVED ON, there was a huge sign near the two entrances.
“Pardon our noice, it’s a sound of freedom”
I like to think of that when I voice my anger and sigust at the way this administration figuratively spits on the troops.
I’ve never seen my anti-war belief and stance as anything close to not supporting the troops. Yes, I find it hard some days and I can’t always stomach the reports and the torture… make it so hard…
but the best way for me to support the troops has nothing to do with flag waving, yellow magnets or blind faith in Bush… I support them by being a loud woman who believes they should be HOME.
It seems this week, my and my young kids have been “supporting a troop”… My husband who has never ever shown signs of depression about the military is now very angry – he’s not angry with me… in fact he’s very much a Bush Hating Liberal.. It’s just weird.. Lately he’s become more outspoken then sullen, angry and then quiet. And he refuses to have anything like a ribbon on our car.
It’s odd, we can’t even go and celebrate the return of the troops when some do come home… it’s all hush hush.
Great diary and thanks for the lead on the book I’ll get order it from the library next week.
hence the name Gooserock.
I never displayed anti-war bumpers signs at that time because troops aren’t free to inform themselves and otherwise exercise their full citizenship, and then there’s the families who are more able to be informed but they have to deal with loved ones in harm’s way, and harm includes Limbaugh broadcasts but nothing liberal….
While they may technically be able to resist an illegal direct order, they can’t object to a mission. So given that Oak Harbor & surrounds is so heavily military, I found other ways and places to express my opinions.
As a musician I’ve married and buried my share of military and veterans, and have done so since the days when I was fresh from having loaded military rifles pointed at me, and had to wrap my hair and jam it up under my cap.
I’m not against war per se, just usually, and I’m especially unwilling to declare something a war that is not something at all.
An analysis of the news stories gleaned from press accounts from the fall of 1990 reveals that the administration put forth one explanation after another for the impending war. . .
I had to read that twice before I was sure whether he was talking about then or now.
jumped out at me too. That’s one reason that the only boldface in my diary is the date the book was written. Plus ça change . . .
that they changed the reasons repeatedly before going to war the first time.
That’s because they were looking for one that would actually get them majority support. It was like Max Smart in the old “Get Smart!” series. “Would you believe Saddam Hussein wants to eat your ham sandwich?” “Would you believe he wants your pickle?”
I used to have a copy of The Spitting Image but it vanished in a move.
Funny the Conservatives are willing to promote something that didn’t happen but forget the Anti-War Movement’s efforts on behalf of the VN vets.
There was a group in NYC that had a successfull store-front counciling operation that was shut down by the combined forces of the American Psychological Association (none of the councilers were degreed), the NYC political establishment, and the VA. The fact it was working well: getting homeless vets off the streets, getting them off drug addiction, helping to reintroduce them to society, and nobody else was doing jack didn’t matter.
As you say, “Funny the Conservatives are willing to promote something that didn’t happen but forget the Anti-War Movement’s efforts on behalf of the VN vets. “
I just stumbled across Orwell’s Notes on Nationalism (1945)
This is my sig over at a hockey chat:
“The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” ~George Orwell
I worked in a similar operation in the early to mid-70s, and the I remember the battles vividly.
Guys coming back were desperate and if they went to the VA, the treatment of choice was thorazine; ours was a cup of coffee and a willing and empathetic ear by someone who knew why they were hurting. We taught ourselves the intricacies of the VA bureaucracy, and then walked these folks through the process so they got the benefits that they had earned. I spent most mornings in the city courts, convincing judges and prosecutors that incarceration was not the best solution.
And it worked. But we were the amateurs…
Here are a couple more ways to express your support:
Y’all probably already know about this:
http://www.anysoldier.com (sends care packages to units in Iraq, Afghanistan and a host of other places where US soldiers are deployed) You can either pack up a box, or send money and they will send one for you. The latter choice actually may work better and it’s definitely much less expensive. (I chose the former and the postage was astronomical.)
http://herobracelets.org (collects money for the families of fallen soldiers. For your donation you receive a metal bracelet,engraved with the name of one who died in the line of duty. You can either tell them who you want to honor, or they will choose someone for you.
Much better than ribbons of any color
There was no overt hostility when I wore the Army uniform before or after my trip to Vietnam. But, I was shunned as a loser. This didn’t change until after 1982 when the Vietnam Memorial was built.
I spent a year with airborne troops at the tail end of the war. There was none of the right wing crap you hear now. There were plenty of class and racial prejudices but none of it was political.
All of the political crap blaming Walter Cronkite, Jane Fonda, hippies and liberals was made up after the war as a rationalization by some returned Veterans to avoid facing their fears and as a justification for the loss of their buddies for no good reason. The GOP exploited and promoted the Stab in the Bag Myth along with Racial Fears to get a majority and to take control of the federal government.
anti-Vietnam War marches and demonstrations and never felt any animosity for the individual soldiers who were forced to go. In addition, out of the many people I knew in “the movement”, I can’t remember even one who blamed the troops. Our entire focus was on the bastards who sent them.
Just like today.
Thank you so much for adding your voices here. The right-wing warmongers have done an excellent job of demonizing those who fight for peace and turning us against each other.
I have even been on the receiving end of “if you old-time anti-Vietnam war activists hadn’t spit on returning vets we wouldn’t be being called unpatriotic by the war supporters today” or, “well, I know that your generation hated the vets.” Even younger people on the left have learned only lies about us.
I’m not a veteran of the Vietnam war, but I’m a veteran of the time. I can only hope that as more and more of us speak up and say – no, this is what happened, that some who weren’t there will finally know how hard the “peaceniks” fought for soldiers and vets.
We’re going to have to reclaim our memories of the truth of what happened then if we are to going to be able to come together for the war veterans created by Bush’s Folly this time.
Thank you for a great diary, Janet. It is more what I remember as well.
Some good stuff there. Thanks for posting this. I’d heard about this research before, and had blogged about it at one point, but that was a year and half or so ago, and BooMan reaches a much wider audience than I do.
Kudos for spreading the word and helping to debunk another myth. 🙂
at a conference a year or two ago. He is wonderful and articulate and has a program he can bring around with him with images from the movies he discusses, etc. Consider getting him to speak at an event near you.
I did not serve in Vietnam, I was discharged from the Army in 1961 and was opposed to the action there before I got out. I became more vocal as a civilian and continued my protest throughout the ensuing years. I did not ever see or hear of any vet being spit on. A few people sure wanted to get rid of me though, especially my co-workers who said I was just a communist sympathizer. The only support I had at work was a fellow from the UK.
After all those years, there was little consolation in saying, “I told you so'”
I reviewed The Spitting Image when it first came out, and it’s one of the most important books I’ve ever read. I blogged about it here last year. Part of what I wrote was:
Lembcke’s investigation is both fascinating and revelatory. He draws parallels not only to more mundane urban legends, but also to more sinister post-WWI German stories, part of the stab-in-the-back mythology on which the Nazi Party fed, and eventually gained state power. His findings are too rich to summarize here. Rather, I want to develop a point that applies to lies more generally.
It was mainstream culture and society which figuratively spat upon returning veterans–just as the government did, short-changing them on benefits, stonewalling them about post-traumatic stress disorder and the effects of Agent Orange, and doing everything possible to shut them up when they spoke out against the war. The rejection never let up. When homelessness exploded as a national problem under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, at least a third of them would be Vietnam Veterans–a far cry from the post-WWII era when the GI Bill sent veterans to college, and helped them buy houses in suburbia.
The anti-war movement had every reason to embrace returning veterans–as indeed it did, routinely placing a contingent of anti-war veterans at the head of countless anti-war marches across the land. The movement also helped establish anti-war coffeehouses outside military bases, encouraged the publishing of anti-war GI newspapers, and helped resisters avoid combat–sometimes legally, sometimes not. But the government–and its supportive “silent majority” public–wanted no part of real Vietnam vets, who spoiled the noble propaganda war with their first-hand stories of chaos, confusion, corruption, and pointless slaughter.
The reality of this rejection was clearly too painful for many veterans to bear. Over time, the figurative spit-in-the-face from the government and their own hometown communities was doubly transformed–into a literal spit-in-the-face from the one group it was safe to blame, now that the war was over, and the movement was gone–the anti-war protesters.
I don’t blame the veterans who came to believe this lie. But I think it’s vitally important to understand that it is a lie, and to understand the psychological processess involved.
This transformation took place over a period of years. Nowadays, we see similar transformations take place in a matter of days, hours, minutes, even split seconds as some liberal, Democrat, or even an increasingly rare non-Stepford Republican says something perfectly sane and is instantly demonized for saying something entirely different than what actually came out of his mouth. We need to study the slower transformations in order to understand a process that now happens so quickly most of us cannot begin to grasp what’s just happened.
I just got back from dinner and was saying, I bought that book because of a comment by . . . I’m pretty sure it was Paul Rosenberg . . .
After reading your comment, I realized that I had been silent about my experience of the Vietnam years and how supportive of Vietnam veterans my friends and I had been – because I believed the lie, too. I thought that we were the exceptions and that somewhere (California, maybe?) there had been frequent attacks on vets by anti-war activists. I was ashamed, as someone who had opposed the war, to be associated with these (supposed) attacks by those who shared my political views. And afraid of opening old wounds for vets.
After reading your comment and Lembcke, I realize now how important it is to get the truth out, which is why I’ve been whoring this diary shamelessly. For exactly the reason that you put so well, “We need to study the slower transformations in order to understand a process that now happens so quickly most of us cannot begin to grasp what’s just happened.”
Thank you so much for bringing this book to me. And I just want to say, while I’ve got your attention (if you check your comments) how much I value all of your writing. Your ID for non-dummies diary is a permanent bookmark. Someday, I’m going to write a diary titled, “I taught ID in my biology class!!!!” And I did, too, using the information from your diary and the links you provided. (The class was really cool. My students were great.)
My only regret is I was so damn busy yesterday that I didn’t post this earlier. A great diary and great conversation. Keep up the great work!
I was in school in Ohio in the spring of 70 when we had masses of national guard troops pointing loaded weapons at us after it had been proven that they would shoot to kill if provoked.
We had lots of Viet veterans in the student body in classes, clubs etc. and relations were excellent.
I was already grey and starting to wrinkle when the spit lies began.
Jeez, hats off to you for surviving that one. Here’s what it looked like from Texas.
And thank you for contributing your memory of the time. I’m not sure we can turn back the tide of the “everybody knows” lies that Lembcke describes, but telling the truth has to be a step in the right direction.
As Lembcke points out, the lie of the anti-war activist who hated the troops has been used to emotionally manipulate the public into supporting their wars and has demonized and demoralized the returning veterans who dared to come back to their country and fight another war – against the war they had just returned from. We owe it to the veterans who will have and will be coming home from this war to get the story straight if we can.
Here’s an article Lembcke wrote on tompaine.com in September 2000 for those interested. It basically sums up his research and also relates some of his attempts to correct the record since his book came out:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3600
I was never spat on, but I did have a bag of garbage thrown at me from a car, by a woman.
I was hitch hiking home in uniform, and it was in Virginia, when a car passed me, slowed down, and turner around, when the car came by me again it slowed down and a small bag of left over food, sandwich parts, partial orange, and a part of a drink, come flying out the window and hit me, after that a shout of “son of a bitch” was tossed as well.
Now I’m not sure if it was intended as a protest to vets, or the woman had a bad experience with another vet, who maybe looked like me, or not, LMAO.
You have to remember, it was the time of “Free Love” and all that was going on, (it was slow to catch on in the mountain rural area’s)
But I do recall of a few times in later years that us Viet vets were labled as mentally unstable after our tours, and we were “kill crazy”, but it was only by a few, and most of them I recall were not even born at the time, or just brain washed by hype.
What I do recall vividly, was right after the trash bag incident, I was trying to clean myself up, and remove the mustard and condiments from my uniform, that an old pickup truck came by, and it was just starting to rain. It stopped, and a man reached over and opened the passenger door, smiled and said, “get in son.”
I hopped in the truck and he asked: “You just gett’n back?” I said yes sir, and heading home to get my car. He just smiled and said, “well, let’s see what we can do for you”
He took me to an old building that had been converted to a “DAV” chapter, and entering the door, there was a small group of WWII/Korea vets. They were setting around a pot-bellied stove, sharing some beers, and a quart jar of “home brew” They began sharing stories of their time in combat, and we spent a few hours of drinking, talking, and they fed me as well.
Unknown to me, one of them had left and went and made some phone calls. I was telling the guys there that I had to get back on the road, and thanked them for their hospitality, when one of them said, “hang in there soldier, we’ve got something for you” What happened was, the one that had left and made the calls, had found someone they knew that was a truck driver, and they had arranged for me a ride, right to my front door. They also had one of their wives pack some sandwiches, coffee, and a few brews to go.
After all the years, nothing left a mark on my heart, as did that night in the mountains of Virginia. Even through the years hearing of the “spitting”, etc. etc. and even the slurs of “baby killer” nothing has ever been more important than that experience. The only thing that warms the heart more to the Viet Vet is: “Welcome Home Brother” which still to this day, to a Viet Vet, puts a new light in his eye, an extended hand, and a sense of comradoray in their heart.
Thank you for your diary, finally putting some light on the “Truth” about what really happened.
Kudos & Recommended
is how the whole (“kill crazy”) “mad vet” image was developed to obscure the “bad vet”–the anti-War vet. The movies played a big role in this over time, but Nixon and his allies were the interested parties in getting the ball rolling.