Resolving The Spitting Debate

There's a growing blog debate going on as regards peace activists spitting on returning veterans during the Vietnam era. It begins here at Slate in an article claiming the charges are false.

The myth of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran refuses to die.

At Volokh, Jim Lindgren points out some weaknesses in search mechanisms that could lead to the stories not showing up in contemporaneous reports, leading to the assumption that it didn't happen.

Always up for a Google challenge, I decided to take a look and can confirm that spitting and more did in fact take place. Stored on a government server found via advanced Google, there's this first person account - also available in pdf.

As a young Marine officer Carl Bourne was trying to help recruit University of
Connecticut students into the USMC. Some UConn students responded by spitting at him and throwing ink on his dress uniform, Bourne said about his experience on the Storrs campus.

Bourne was the target of spitting and ink throwing in 1973. As a lieutenant he paid for his uniforms, so the ink was not a welcome alteration, especially considering the low pay of the early 1970s. He said he was also called a "baby killer" – right in his own home state.

Another instance is documented in a government fact sheet.

The Legacy of Psychological Trauma from the Vietnam War for American Indian Military Personnel

"I was spit on and called a baby-killer in the mainstream culture when I first came home, and no way any college would accept me or any good job would be open to me. I felt too ashamed and enraged to accept the love and gratitude my family and community showed me. I thought I was going crazy, waking up in a sweat trying to choke my wife, seeing signs of Charley around every corner when the weather was hot and steamy.

Another report covering multiple instances from Cornell that should also be available through the Library of Congress and a Veteran's History Project.

The Tet Offensive began 37 days after Henschel arrived in Vietnam. His unit was sent into Hue, the old imperial capital.

Henschel's platoon was almost wiped out and Henschel himself was shot in the head when he tried to rescue a wounded comrade. The unconscious Marine was placed on top of a tank. When a shell hit the tank, Henschel fell off, and the tank apparently ran over his left leg.

"At this point, probably everyone thought I was dead, but I was unconscious for seven weeks. I regained consciousness in San Diego, Calif., at the naval hospital there. I weighed 72 pounds," Henschel said.

Henschel tried to go to college after he recovered, but he had trouble concentrating because of his injury and discovered that many fellow students at Cornell were hostile.

"I can't count the number of times I was called a murderer," he said. "And actually spit in my face."

Another first person account via a DOD publication:

Back in the 1960s, Cannon graduated from high school and 10 days later was enlisted in the Air Force. He was stationed at Clark Air Base in the Philippines for 17 months beginning in June, 1967. Upon his return to the United States, he was spit on three times while riding the cable cars in San Francisco simply because he was in uniform.

This below from a California Assembly Bill on Public Safety circa 2003:

"Overcome by their hatred, people threw rocks at the returning soldiers.  Some spit at them.  Others physically attacked them and tormented them.  No one should have to endure that kind of hate-related violence for simply agreeing to serve their country."

None of the above reports have a dog in this fight now. But obviously they support reports like this at Black Five:

It happened to me, and I asked my father if it had ever happened to him.  If anyone were to be on the receiving end, it would have been him after being involved in the Ohio State riots and Ohio University riots for years.

As The Jawa Report suggests, the notion that returning veterans weren't abused, particularly by spitting, after Vietnam is simply pathetic revisionism by an increasingly revolting Left that opposes the war, while claiming to support the troops.

Were that so, they would not be so interested in revising history and, by default, calling so many of our troops, both past and present, liars to boot.

So, can we question their patriotism now?

Comments

[bob clow]

just like the swift boat lies
tales of spitting upon are BS

now I can see the idiotic Frisco hippies doing so
but that is not a surpirse

but I wore my uniform in Colorado and never got a bad look!

[Bill Adkins]

I tried to post this earlier, sonebend, but couldn't get it through - better late than never:
Wow, sonnebend - call the papers. Better yet, tell us where you were when all these things happened and we'll search the local papers. I was 19 that same year. We had different experiences, obviously. I had 5 uncles serving in the '60s and early '70s. Four Army, one navy and three of the five served in 'nam, one of them 3 tours. None of them reported such an event as being spat upon. Nor did any report having heard of or witnessed such events. And I double dog damn guarantee you that if it had occurred the person who did the spitting would be eating his meals through a straw to this date. By the way, the 'career army helicopter pilot and served 3 tours uncle' was at one time THE senior CWO-pilot in the Army, stationed at various times at Rucker and Bragg. He was also an instructor.

Obviously, alleging such events did occur would serve someone's agenda today - and it's obvious that you and Dan are working your own agenda. I'm not buying it.

[Uncle Mikey]

It's not surprising that people like Bill Adkins don't believe that disciplined men wouldn't freak out at some hippie spitting on them after they've fought in an actual war. It's hard to imagine things you've never experienced. I don't know what menstruation is like, but I believe it exists. I guess liberalism means never having to understand what people who aren't like them have experienced.

[Ranba Ral]

I know I'm a bit late to the game here, but might as well post my piece as well.

My uncle served 2 tours in Vietnam. Volunteered both times (first time because he was young and naieve; him and his friends figured if they went that would be 5 less hippies that'd be forced to go against their will; second time was to be there to try to keep some of his buddies alive who were still stuck there). After his release from the brig for beating the hell out of his LT, which is a whole different story, the Army threw him on a civie passenger plane back to Missouri. A random guy outside the terminal spat on his chest. He didn't beat the guy down and didn't call the police because he just wanted to go home and not get in any more trouble than he'd just been in.

I don't know about troops being spat on in the current conflict, but I've been spat on. I am not, nor have been, an active duty member of the military. I still wear my Woodland M65 field jacket from Civil Air Patrol, and sometimes borrow dad's old OD M65 (a pattern that was retired from active service totally in 1997, but phase-out began in the 70's) if I'm at home. Both have been properly decomissioned. The night before an anti-Iraq war rally on campus, a little after the whole Bush/carrier thing, I was wearing the OD one because my sister ganked my cammo one for a project. Two guys, one in his 50's and a kid around 18, approached me. The kid blocked the path towards my dorm, and the guy kinda circled around to block the path to the Union. The kid spat on me and told me I shouldn't kill babies for oil. I body-checked him. I then told them if they wanted to push it, I'd drop both of them, place them under citizen's arrest for assault, and call the cops. I belive self-defense would be a valid argument in a court of law, given it was dark, they outnumbered me, and they approached with clearly hostile actions. Apparently they thought so too, because they both slithered off like the snakes in the grass they were.

Does this mean the entire left does these things? Heck no. One of my best friends leans left, and he wouldn't allow himself to sink so low as to spit on anyone. I've never even seen him make fun of anyone who didn't start hurling insults first. My Ancient Civilzations teacher from high school was a raging hippie at the time of Vietnam. He says neither he nor anyone he knew spat on anyone. I believe him because he was open about all the rest of the "stupid, youthful, idological things" he did then; up to and including assaulting a cop at a peace rally, which got him shot in the butt with a wood bullet.

[JimK]

More evidence that makes the spitting deniers look more and more like idiots:

http://tinyurl.com/2fmlqq

[Nice Deb]

Sparling has claimed that on numerous occasions he's been spat upon by protesters. At the risk of sounding like a parrot, bullshit bullshit billshit . Sparling is a professional Rethug agitator who hangs out with the likes of Sean Hannity and Ann "Thrax" Coulter. He shows up belligerent and obnoxious at anti-war rallies, actually trying to provoke someone into spitting on him. Trouble is, no one will actually do it, so he's reduced to just making shit up."
http://opovet.blogspot.com/atom.xml

"Ann Thrax Coulter"? "Rethug agitator"?

Hey thanks, Bill Adkins for that brilliant and unbiased analysis of Josh Sparling.

[jonathan]

durand,

I don't doubt that spitting happened, I seriously doubt that it happened nearly as much as is claimed today. Of course there are extremists on every side who perform despicable acts, that's just human nature and am aspect of the bell curve. Don't forget, Tim McVeigh, who earned a bronze star, was a veteran and what he did was just a smidgen worse than spitting.

I agree that most likely the cops would ignore such an incident as a vet assaulting someone who spit on them.

I'm not the one searching newspaper articles, if you wish to look for assaults by vets on civvies, be my guest.

I can only relate my own experience, I was never disrespected and no one I knew ever told me of being so.

I was in the brig at MCRD San Diego, where I was training in electronics, not a big base and the worst thing I ever heard of any brig rat doing was policing butts.

As far as I can recall, few draftees made it above lance corporal. The lifers were all higher ranks. So I would say that the lower ranks had a greater proportion of draftees than the force over all.

[Sonnabend]

I saw it happen.

I was born in 1962, which makes me 13 at the end of the war in 1975.I personally witnessed incidents of troops being spat on, assaulted, having animal blood thrown on them, calling them "baby killer" and worse.

My date of birth is 26 April 1962..and I stand as witness that it did happen.

Dispute that, Bill.

[Laura]

"exceeding them, milking them and doing what he can to extend them"

I won't worry about him until he at least gets to this point:
http://www.estatevaults.com/lm/%20%20cemetery%20Casey%20Sheehan-1.jpg
http://www.cbsnews.com/images/2006/01/30/imageCAR10201291942.jpg

He's got the right to speak his piece just like your side does, Bill. The fact that it gets him on the news occasionally, like certain notables who are anti-war, doesn't make him a liar. Unless you have credible evidence that he has lied, you need to find a better argument.

[templar knight]

Let me see, Bill, because there is no evidence that hippies had their butts kicked for spitting on vets, then you conclude that no spitting ever occurred. Other than newspaper reports, television reports, first hand accounts, etc. no proof exists.

Uh, Bill, you're either obtuse or stupid, perhaps just indoctrinated with the ideology of the Left. However, the aforementioned proofs are well accepted standards. You've lost this arguement, Bill, but you keep digging. I suppose you'll get tired of defending the indefensible at some point.

[Bill Adkins]

Enjoying his 15 minutes? More like exceeding them, milking them and doing what he can to extend them. His victim status is more than questionable. And, again, he's THE one (1) victim of such activity.

[Laura]

Obviously for you there is no persuasive evidence whatsoever, including personal testimony, and past and current news reporting, that veterans have been spit at. They're just liars, is that it?

Let's break down what you quoted about Sparling -
- he got a mean card from an anti-military white supremacist
Okay, and? The guy admitted doing it, Sparling told the truth. What's your problem with this again?

- this got Sparling in the news
Okay, and? It was as newsworthy or more as the other crap networks spend 75% of their airtime on.

- Sparling was at an anti-war protest
And? He is now in the forefront of the opposition to the anti-war movement, and was a speaker at a counter protest earlier in the day.

- Sparling being spit at at the protest was reported by the NY Times, apparently inaccurately
And? It's not like the first time the NY Times has flubbed something. Like, for example, continuing to insist that Iraq had no serious WMD programs but also reporting that the Bush administration published information about Iraq's nuclear weapons program that may have helped Iran get nukes. Every newspaper has an area for corrections, and it's never used as much as it should be.

- Sparling gets on the news and clarifies what happened.
You have nothing except inaccurate reporting on the part of a blatantly liberal paper to contradict Sparling's account, and even the inaccuracies do not contradict the main part of the story which is that someone spit at Sparling.

As for what allegedly happened in the airport, sounds to me like they were demanding pre-boarding, the guy didn't want to let them do it, and they ended up arguing with another passenger. This was not contradicted by anyone, so what are your reasons to disbelieve it, other than that it's inconvenient for your argument? He's enjoying his 15 minutes, but that doesn't make him a liar.

[Bill Adkins]

TK, it's your stadium - you set the posts. Other than anecdotal evidence that somewhere sometime someone may have spit on a returning veteran from 'nam, the proof just isn; there that such events were accepted or common or prevalent. In addition, there is absolutely no evidence an assaulted vet retaliated with overwhelming force by smashing the face of a spitter. That alone is evidence that spitting did not happen. Excuses about punishment if the vet retaliated is bullshit. More likely, in the event such a thing occurred, the vet who cleaned the clock of someone so stupid as to spit on the vet would get a medal and free drinks for life. Stuff that in your U Haul, TK.

[templar knight]

I know this, Laura, Venitari himself couldn't kick a field goal in Bill's stadium. His goalposts are out in the parking lot somewhere. And if that's not far enough, he'll rent a U-Haul.

[durand]

Johnathan, Bill...

If a servicemember returning from the Nam were to retaliate for being spit on, wouldn't you think that the headline would read 'Nam vet assaults civilian'? Maybe ya'll are looking for the wrong headline.

Damn, Dan...you need a better quality of troll.

And Johnathan? Thanks for serving your country, though I don't recall the brig as a place where you could lay around all day. I remember making lil chunks of concrete out of biguns.

Heh.

[Bill Adkins]

I find Sparling not credible for the reasons shown in the post, Laura. Obviously, for you Denial is a river with no end.

[Laura]

How far you gonna move those goalposts, Bill? It's no longer good enough to have contemporaneous reporting? Gee, it's almost - no it's exactly - like what was predicted further up this thread:
Laura | Saturday, February 03, 2007 at 11:41 PM
Laura | Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 01:56 PM
htom | Sunday, February 04, 2007 at 01:56 PM

I find the "liar liar pants on fire" argument unpersuasive. Do you have a credible witness who says Sparling lied? And is the NY Times in on the vast right wing conspiracy to smack down the anti-war effort?

[Bill Adkins]

There's already a 'spit myth" started in this war. See here about Mr. Sparling, someone who apparently studies under Ted Sampley, another liar extraordinaire. http://mediamatters.org/items/200701300012

"On January 28, the Times reported that "one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back," and quoted Sparling saying of the protesters: "These are not Americans as far as I'm concerned." As Media Matters noted, Urbina did not cite Sparling as his source on the incident and simply asserted that it occurred, suggesting that he had witnessed it. On Hannity & Colmes, Sparling offered details, claiming that a man wearing an 82nd Airborne badge was one of several people who spit at him, and he asserted, contrary to the Times report, that he did not spit back at the protester. Sparling also "clarif[ied]" his quote from the Times article, claiming that he was referring to just "the vulgar people.""

And then, there's this: "Jesus, will it never end. As I've said before in this blog, claims of spitting on veterans has become a shorthand way to denigrate anti-war protesters. Only problem is, it never happened to troops coming back from Vietnam and it isn't happening now. One-legged Iraq War veteran Private Joshua Sparling, however, seems to be proud of the fact that he has been a one-man spittoon. Sparling has claimed that on numerous occasions he's been spat upon by protesters. At the risk of sounding like a parrot, bullshit bullshit billshit . Sparling is a professional Rethug agitator who hangs out with the likes of Sean Hannity and Ann "Thrax" Coulter. He shows up belligerent and obnoxious at anti-war rallies, actually trying to provoke someone into spitting on him. Trouble is, no one will actually do it, so he's reduced to just making shit up."
http://opovet.blogspot.com/atom.xml
---------
http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/47361/
"Well, it turns out that Joshua Sparling has conveniently been the victim of many outrageous acts of leftist brutality over the years. So much so, in fact, that he's become a bit of a celebrity among the wing-nuts.

Digby has the details.

Sparling was featured in rah-rah military PR efforts as far back as 2005.

Then, in December of 2005, while recovering from his wounds at Walter Reed Medical Center, he was victimized by a Christmas card -- given to him by the Red Cross -- that was wrapped in patriotic fluff on the outside, but inside bore the message: "Have a great time in the war and have a great time dieing in the wor [sic]." It was signed, suspiciously, "Miguel." Fox, Michelle Malkin and the rest of the wingnuttisphere jumped all over the story. Sparling became an instant darling of the right; he even got a personal visit from war criminal Oliver North! What's more, the incident got the Sparlings an invitation to the State of the Union address.

A white supremacist named Michael Crook later took credit for sending the card."
We can talk about this one in about 30 years, ok?

[Laura]

"You seem to forget that a large portion of the military back then were draftees, they couldn't wait to get out of the military and didn't give the slightest sh*t about their "career"."

Two-thirds of Vietnam vets were volunteers. Don't take my word for it, take Jim Webb's, D-VA. It's on his website:
http://www.jameswebb.com/articles/parade/tomandmac.htm
So if by large portion you mean about 33%, fine, but it's well documented that the majority were volunteers. The draftee myth has been debunked.

As for the spit "myth" several people including me have provided contemporaneous reporting on that, even if you're unwilling to take the word of men who say it happened to them personally. As for why there are no arrest reports - so far - of soldiers beating up hippies, I don't rule out two things:
- the idea that someone who just served in Vietnam might decide it's not worth hanging out in the county lockup for beating the crap out of some hippie, and
- the idea that if he does decide it's worth it, the local cops called to arrest the soldier just might say the hippie tripped and landed on his face and the soldier was just helping him get up.

[Bill Adkins]

Absolutely, Jonathan - and if someone had spit on a military man then I'd expect a contemporary story of immediate response. This crap about someone being 'too much of a gentleman' to slap the shit out of someone who spit on them - that's a fantasy and a rationalization by someone who wants to believe spitting was a common occurrence.

"people who faced hostile fire and didn't lose their nerve wouldn't flinch at some moron spitting" said one poster - what the hell is that poster smoking? Crack tainted with stupid? Sheesh.

BTW, I've been unable to post since last night from my other location. Dan, I sent you an email asking if I'd been blocked. No answer. But everyone else has been able to post,makes me feel singled out.

[Jonathan]

Uncle Mikey,

Did your father kick the shit out of those maggots who spit on him?"

Let me lay it out for you idiot liberals here: people who faced hostile fire and didn't lose their nerve wouldn't flinch at some moron spitting. They wouldn't jeopardize their careers or freedom by knocking some asshole out. This was Jack Shafer's argument: if vets got spit on, why didn't anyone get their asses kicked, or why didn't any military people report it to the police? Because, you dumb fuck, tattling or blowing your career by kicking a hippie's ass because he spit on you are things undisciplined pussies do.
**************************************************************************

I was a USMC draftee 69-71, I saw lots of fights between jarheads and dogfaces, jarheads and squids and jarheads and civvies, usually over something far more trivial than getting spit on. I've seen a whole bar full of squids and jarheads in a melee which turned into a damn near riot, and everybody got hauled away by the SPs. Why do you think they have SPs and MPs diddybopping around civvy areas near military bases? Because all the troops are saints?

You seem to forget that a large portion of the military back then were draftees, they couldn't wait to get out of the military and didn't give the slightest sh*t about their "career". If you got sent to the brig for a week or two, hell, that was a vacation from having the gunny chew you out 'cause you had an Irish Pennant on your uniform. In the brig you basically got to lay around all day and the food was no worse than normal.

We were basically mostly teens and early twenties and like most folks that age we didn't necessarily have that much self control. I spent time in the brig a couple of times myself for being drunk and disorderly and I damn sure wasn't alone. I got punched out right in the squad bay by a dude that was p*ssed because I was sweeping under his rack like the gunny told me to. Not a damn thing was done about it either because if you ran tattling to the gunny over trivial sh*t like that you were going to catch pure hell from everybody else. There are no "Gomer Pyles" in the Corps, anybody who acted like that would be deemed a sh*tbird and their life would be living hell.

A sergeant or an officer might have had more self control, but a private or a pfc or a lance corporal mostly didn't give a sh*t and definitely would have kicked the living crap out of some maggot that spit on them.

[templar knight]

That would be my dad's story, too, htom. He never considered the scum worth his time or effort, I suppose, but he has remembered the vile treatment he received, although he rarely talks about it. I've always wanted to beat the crap out of one of these worms, but have never witnessed this treatment, nor am I likely to down here in a rural part of one of the Red States. If such a think happened here, I would have to get in line to see who would get the first punch or kick, whichever seemed the most appropriate at the time.

[htom]

Don't kid yourself, the goal posts will move. It's going to have to be a combat vet in uniform who was spat on while he was descending the boarding ramp on his trip back from 'Nam, before he changed planes, and the spit will have have to have landed on his face. Film and filed charges required.

I was spat at, not on (he missed, aiming at my shoes.) I was in civies, changing planes in St. Louis. A jerk being a jerk, not a crime and not newsworthy. A Marine assaulting a civilian for being a jerk would be a crime, news, and get me in a heap'o'trouble. Easy to walk away, hard to forget.

[Laura]

Kevin, they'll be moved. Schafer calls it an urban myth in the same sentence where he writes, "Indeed, each time I write about the spit myth, my inbox overflows with e-mail from readers who claim that a spitting protester targeted them while they were in uniform."

If having someone tell him directly "this happened to ME," is a myth (i.e. they are telling him a lie), he will certainly find a way to believe that the vets in the articles were telling lies back then too.

Bottom line - Schafer bought what Lembcke is selling, and he's not going to return it. How they phrase their new set of denials, if they address this new evidence at all, will be entertaining, though.

[Kevin Bowman]

Joshua: I sent Jack Shafer the link to the Vanderbilt archive of the CBS News story from 1971 last week, and he has now ordered a copy of the tape from the archive. That and Laura's article both meet Jerry Lembcke's standard of "compelling evidence." That should win the argument, unless the goalposts are moved.

[Uncle Mikey]

"Why would you need to kick the shit out of the spitter when the serviceman would do it himself?

Did your father kick the shit out of those maggots who spit on him?"

Let me lay it out for you idiot liberals here: people who faced hostile fire and didn't lose their nerve wouldn't flinch at some moron spitting. They wouldn't jeopardize their careers or freedom by knocking some asshole out. This was Jack Shafer's argument: if vets got spit on, why didn't anyone get their asses kicked, or why didn't any military people report it to the police? Because, you dumb fuck, tattling or blowing your career by kicking a hippie's ass because he spit on you are things undisciplined pussies do.

My father and many of his colleagues were spit on upon returning to the states from Vietnam. They didn't get mad, and they didn't run tell Daddy. They were, to a man, saddened by it. But that was it. People like them don't waste their time with idiots like Jack Shafer, the Spartan and Bill Adkins. They're insects.

[Jonathan]

TK,

I went to public school and the only time I remember hearing of Marx was in the context of "brainwashing" us into the idea that communism was evil.

I guess we were too busy doing duck and cover drills under our desks to have the time to learn about Kant, Hegel and Rousseau.
********************************************************************
Cindi,

I got drafted into the Corps and served two years, do I get thanks for serving too, or is that only for good conservatives?

[Cindi]

Thanks for sharing Billy and more important, thank you for serving our country.

[Cindi]

Temp, I am Catholic and brainwashed is the right term. BTW, thanks for your post today, you are a welcome addition ;)

[templar knight]

I know nothing of Jesuits, and perhaps brainwash was the wrong term. I should have used the term "indoctrinate", as it more accurately describes the Leftist doctrine I was constantly being force fed. I knew it was phoney, thanks to good parents who were interested in my education. But I knew others whose parents didn't care, and I saw their minds polluted with the ideology of Marx, Hegel, Kant and Rosseau.

[Billy Hank]

I posted this at another site in reponse to the current questioning of the spitting meme:

"I was spit on before I went to SEA. November, 1967. Air Force sent me to a graduate communications course for two months at Boston University. We had to wear our uniforms on Thursday. Walking to class one morning, a coed walked straight into my path and spit at me. She was shorter and couldn't spit very well so I just got a little on my chin and most on my shirt. She turned and ran off, laughing, to a boy standing about 30 feet away and they both ran off together.

Later,at USC grad school for three years, no spitting incidents but lots of worry that I was a narc.

As I recall, we had strict guidance about not responding to provocation."

I didn't think too much about it. There was no demonstration going on. Just seemed isolated to me. In a hindsight, that was probably an early example of the behavior. I don't recall hearing anything about spitting in the media until late '68 and into '69. I recall stories about organized gauntlets at SEATAC, SFO, and LAX, but have no personal knowledge of same. Seems to me there was some written command guidance from the Pentagon about not responding and a truth seeker might do some research in the Pentagon archives rather than LexisNexis. That, however, would require a little work instead of cheerily spouting opinions for or against.

[Herschel Smith]

Dan, sheesh! Did you draw the loonies out with this post, or what? You are far more gracious host than I am. I just delete and spam the loons.

Have you noticed that not a single detractor ...

NOT

A

SINGLE

ONE

has successfully challenged your facts and data. All they can do is launch ad hominem attacks. What a character portrait of the left!

Case closed.

[Jonathan]

TK,

I wish I could be more like him, but alas, I attended public school and there started my resentment against those who sought to brainwash me.
*******************************************************************
The purpose of any school, public or private is to "brainwash" the students.

Jesuit motto "Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man,"

[templar knight]

No, he didn't, Jonathan. He is a gentleman of the first quality, unlike me. I wish I could be more like him, but alas, I attended public school and there started my resentment against those who sought to brainwash me. I've had an attitude ever since. And two older brothers who beat the crap out of me all the time, so I had to learn how to fight, or run really fast. I learned how to fight.

[Jonathan]

TK,

You posted this:

My father is a Vietnam vet. He told me he was spit at, cursed at, and accused of atrocities upon his return. I believe him, and if I witness anyone spitting on a serviceman, I personally will kick the shit out of him. Or get my ass beat. But one of the two will happen.

******************************************************************

Why would you need to kick the shit out of the spitter when the serviceman would do it himself?

Did your father kick the shit out of those maggots who spit on him?

[Joshua]

Kevin: The Time magazine article is not going to be good enough for people like Shafer. They're going to want reports from 1973 or earlier, not from several years after the war ended.

[Dan Riehl]

Looks like you already have TK - welcome aboard.

[templar knight]

Yeah, I noticed. Can I join your mob? Pretty please?

[Kevin Bowman]

Just go to Google Books and search for "Vietnam" and "spit" and you can find dozens of first-hand accounts from vets.

Here's one from Time magazine 1979:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920248,00.html

[Laura]

Turns out there was a whole lot of spitting going on back then - a vet spit on his Congressman for not supporting veterans, protesters spit on (and burned) the flag, cops got spit on... but most articles about the protesters (that I've read so far) are very positive, even noting that they picked up their litter. Go figure.

[Dan Riehl]

Dan, you have a mob? Sweet!

Yeah, but they have a tendency to chew up liberal argument and "spit" it back at them. tsk tsk.

[Nice Deb]

Maybe T.K. Call me stubbern, but I'm sticking with my original assumption of profoundly low IQ.

That's just how I roll.

[Kevin Bowman]

The case against spitting on veterans rests on Jerry Lembcke's book and the underlying studies. Lembcke's evidence that it didn't happen is, essentially, threefold:

(1) The anti-war movement welcomed veterans with open arms (which is a terribly disingenuous argument. What about guys that didn't embrace anti-war positions. Lembcke is not an unbiased observer here)

(2) No arrest records or photographs have ever been produced. (which is an idiotic standard of proof. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Give me photographic proof of anti-semitism in country-clubs in the 50's and 60's Insisting on this level of proof is bad faith worthy of David Irving.)

and finally
(3) Lembcke's claim that thorough studies have revealed no contemporary news accounts

This is really the central pillar of the whole argument. It is why people cite Lembcke's book as "proof" that it is all a legend. Okay.
Here is what Lembcke says in his book (look it up yourself on Google books) pp. 73-74.
"Slightly less but still compelling evidence might be found in news reports from the late 1960's and early 1970's" ... "The fact that there are no news reports of spitting on veterans raises doubts about whether such incidents ever occurred...If spitting on veterans had occurred all that frequently, surely some veteran or soldier would have called it to the attention of the press at the time."
Well, Lembcke's wrong. There is "compelling evidence" of exactly the sort he says doesn't exist. "Surely some veteran would have called it to the attention of the press"? There it is on the CBS Evening News. A contemporary account from 1971, just like Jerry Lembke says didn't exist. CBS was the top of the food chain as far as news outlets in 1971. That is surely the tip of the iceberg.
So yes. That destroys Lembcke's credibility as a researcher. Bear in mind that Lembke absolutely buys into the validity of the Winter Soldier investigations which were no more than first-hand accounts.
After that, you are left with people arguing that the many, many first-hand accounts from vets, who are willing to to give their names, are all lies. Based on what? Some gut instinct that it didn't happen or a level of proof that is irrational and/or impossible to meet. At that point there is no longer any intellectual respectability to the position.

[templar knight]

Not retarded, NiceDeb, but worse, brainwashed and indoctrinated. Retardation cannot be helped, the other is the persons own fault. At least here in the US. For now. Although the Left is making pains to change that too.

[Laura]

And by the way, it's not my intention to slam Dan with my last comment, who obviously DID do more than ten minutes worth of research on this. The burden of proof is on Slate, not on anyone responding to Slate's false premise. When Slate says this is a myth, and defines evidence as a contemporaneous newspaper article, you would think that they would at least check for that before hitting the publish button.

Google "old newspaper articles" and you get newspaperarchive.com in both the sponsored and organic search results. Then search the archive for articles between 1965 and 1979 for vietnam veteran spit, and the article I found turns up in quite a few papers. If I had not had to dig out a credit card and register at the site, I could have completed this in less than five minutes instead of less than ten.

Jack Schafer should have done this, or gotten someone else at Slate to do it for him. Dishonest, dumb or lazy? You be the judge.

[Nice Deb]

OMFG. I can't believe that there are actually people out there that don't believe that vets were spit upon and verbally abused when they came home from Vietnam. This phenomena has been widely discussed, written about and available for anyone to see for 35+ years.

You have to be willfully trying to rewrite history in order to deny it. Either that, or you're a drooling retard, or you're still in diapers.

I'm guessing the ones here are just plain retarded.

[Jonathan]

I sure would like to see a response to this:

Y'all seriously expect us to believe that a trigger puller just back from combat would think twice about taking out some maggot who spit on them? The spitter would be lucky not to take a trip to the hospital to have his teeth removed from the back of his throat.

[templar knight]

I noticed that the blue-voting areas of the Red States had some of the highest crime rates in the nation, yyy. Now why is that? The counties in the Red States that voted red had the lowest crime rates. Care to explain that. And a number of blue states had high crime rates in the blue areas, with the red-voting areas of the blue states having the lowest rates in the blue states. What's up with that?

[Laura]

Joshua, that's true. The next leftist goalpost will be that the guys listed in the article were lying unless we can prove otherwise. There's not a lot of use in arguing with people whose minds are made up - I just wanted to prove a point that Slate could have taken ten lousy minutes to research this.

[Joshua]

The main post here is missing the point. There's no doubt that many Vietnam veterans have reported *in recent years* that they were spit upon in the 1960s and 1970s; even the Slate writer admits that such reports exist.

What some leftists are claiming is that no such incidents were reported *at the time* and that any veterans who have been making such claims since the 1980s are either misremembering or lying.

The fallacies with the leftists' argument are that (1) spitting incidents would not necessarily have generated media coverage, police reports, etc. What was a returning soldier going to do in 1971 -- ask for DNA testing of a drop of saliva on his uniform? And (2) there apparently was some contemporaneous media coverage of veterans reporting having been spit upon, as Laura above has indicated.