# John Kerry and Vietnam **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 4, 2004, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262 "2004-08-04T11:19:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 53
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1041 "2004-09-01T03:15:15Z")
No anger over Jane Fonda in that thread. WOW ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1042 "2004-09-01T03:15:27Z")
Well, you should have mentioned it. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1043 "2004-09-01T03:15:49Z")
A radical’s view of the Vets (from _Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72)_, by Dr Hunter Thompson: > [@](#): > > The most impressive single performance in Miami during the three days of the GOP convention was the VVAW march on the Fountainebleau on Tuesday afternoon…They were moving up Collins Avenue in dead silence: twelve hundred of them dressed in battle fatigues, helmets, combat boots…a few carried full-size plastic M-16s, many peace symbols, girlfriends beside vets being pushed along the street in slow-moving wheelchairs…But nobody spoke; all the “stop, start, fast, slow,” “left, right” commands came from the “platoon leaders” walking slightly off to the side of the main column and using hand signals…I left my car at a parking meter in front of the Cadillac Hotel and joined the march…No, “joined” is the wrong word; that was not the kind of procession you just walked up and joined. Not without paying some very heavy dues: an arm gone here, a leg there, paralysis, a face full of lumpy scar tissue… > The silence of the march was contagious, almost threatening. There were hundreds of spectators, but nobody said a word. I walked beside the column for ten blocks, and the only sounds I remember hearing were the soft thump of boot leather on hot asphalt and the occasional rattling of an open canteen top… > Several hours earlier, a noisy mob of Yippie/Zippie/SDS “non-delegates” had shown up in front of the Fountainebleau and been met with jeers and curses from GOP delegates and other partisan spectators, massed behind the police lines…But now there was no jeering. Even the cops seemed deflated. They watched nervously from behind their faceshields as the VVAW platoon leaders, still using hand signals, funneled the column into a tight semicircle that blocked all three northbound lanes of Collins Avenue…For the first and only time during the whole convention, the cops were clearly off balance…I have been covering anti-war demonstrations with depressing regularity since the winter of 1964, in cities all over the country, and I have never seen cops so intimidated by demonstrators as they were in front of the Fountainebleau Hotel on that hot Tuesday afternoon in Miami Beach… > After five more minutes of harsh silence, one of the VVAW platoon leaders suddenly picked up the bullhorn and said “We want to come inside.” > Nobody answered, but an almost visible shudder ran through the crowd. “O my God!” a man standing next to me muttered. I felt a strange tightness coming over me, and I reacted instinctively - for the first time in a long, long while - by slipping my notebook into my belt and reaching down to take off my watch. The first thing to go in a street fight is always your watch, and once you’ve lost a few, you develop a certain instinct that lets you know when it’s time to get the thing off your wrist and into a safe pocket… > Whatever the outcome, it was a guaranteed nightmare situation for the police. Defeat would be bad enough, but victory would be intolerable. Every TV screen in the nation would show a small army of heavily armed Florida cops clubbing unarmed veterans - some on crutches and others in wheelchairs - whose only crime was trying to enter Republican headquarters in Miami Beach. So much for spitting on those returning vets, eh? But if push had come to shove that day, we’d be reading justifications for it today, because in that case they would have deserved it. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1044 "2004-09-01T03:39:44Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > So are you to tell me that soldiers weren’t spit on at all, **elucidator**? I’d like a cite for that breathtaking claim… At all? All I’ve got to do is provide proof, showing in every instance that you know about, it ain’t so? OK, what incidents do you know about? Got affidavits? Photos? Its only a “breathtaking claim” because you haven’t examined it. Ask yourself: why do I believe it? Could it possibly be because it affirms a prejudice you already have? I got uncles down in Texas, believed to thier soul that what Dr. King was _really_ after was white women. But I never got a chance to ask him. > [@](#): > > …Also, I thought it was pretty well understood that Jane Fonda was using her celebrity to help the antiwar cause… You’re building up to a point here, right? John Wayne used his celebrity to help his cause. Got to make war movies for his cause. Who do you think paid for all those explosions? All those uniforms? Didja ever notice those little blurbs at the end of all those movies, thanking the Defense Dept. for its “help”? You think John Wayne a deep, geopolitical thinker? Smarter than Jane Fonda? Why? > [@](#): > > …Speaking at rallies, raising money, all that jazz. If she wasn’t a leader, she was cooperating with them well, at least at the outset… So was I. Cooperating. That make me a leader? FBI didn’t think so, my file is kinda thin. > [@](#): > > …It’s pretty easy to see how someone could identify her with the cause, since she was such a public spokesperson for it. Identify with, sure. Identify AS, no. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1045 "2004-09-01T03:47:17Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > \>\>snip\<\< > But first, an aside: I swear, the next time one of you guys tries to tie together Jane Fonda and John Kerry, I’m going to reach inside this monitor, all the way down the phone lines, grab your tongue and pull it out, wrap it around your neck and garrote you till your eyeballs stick out! > > And I swear, next shit-for-brains who floats that crap about “spitting on returning vets”….I’ll find you. I’ll track you down. > > It is a lie. It is an _evil_ lie. I spent years in the anti-war movement So you’re an anti-war protestor who’s going to choke me with my own tongue. What does that make you, an oxyMORON? And I’ve talked to vets that were spit on so you’re full of it. They were met at airports from MAC flights by people who specifically went there to give them shit. It’s possible that you killed a few brain cells back in the 70’s and forgot what it was like. But by all means, call the next Vet who tells you they were spit on a liar. See how far you get their tongue out before they flash back to pictures of Mz Fonda. I suspect they will introduce you to their pal Mr. Pavement. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1046 "2004-09-01T04:13:44Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > … They were met at airports from MAC flights by people who specifically went there to give them shit… Really. Very interesting. So, we’re sitting around, shooting maryjane, smoking LSD, and somebody says “Hey! Let’s drive out to the airport, and spit on some returning vets!” What a cool idea! None of us knows any, of course, none of _us_ have friends and relatives who were drafted… So then what? Just sit around till we see a guy in uniform? Well, gee, how do we know whether he got back from, or is going to? And where? Germany? Palo Alto? Fort Benning? You tell me, you’re the expert. How do I spot the guy back from Viet Nam, and not back from Fort Dix? Hmmmm? You know all about this stuff, right? So _you_ tell me all about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1047 "2004-09-01T04:43:02Z")
No, **elucidator** , you don’t get to turn this around. You made the claim that the spitting was a lie. Your exact words. And I asked for a cite which you have not yet provided. You shouldn’t demand proof when you haven’t offered any yourself. That’s not in keeping with the spirit of this forum, wouldn’t you agree? ---
**Author:** ![WoodCM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7bcc69/32.png) [@WoodCM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WoodCM)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1048 "2004-09-01T04:44:33Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > So you’re an anti-war protestor who’s going to choke me with my own tongue. What does that make you, an oxyMORON? > > And I’ve talked to vets that were spit on so you’re full of it. They were met at airports from MAC flights by people who specifically went there to give them shit. It’s possible that you killed a few brain cells back in the 70’s and forgot what it was like. But by all means, call the next Vet who tells you they were spit on a liar. See how far you get their tongue out before they flash back to pictures of Mz Fonda. I suspect they will introduce you to their pal Mr. Pavement. I bet that the numbers of men who fought for their country who were actually spat on are very small indeed, so much indeed that I think it may be called a ‘myth’. Apologies to those few who were spat upon, but I do not feel sorry for you, for I was a fighting man in a little war(though big for me), and it is as if I never existed. I wish I had been spat upon by comparison! Those of you who use the Vietnam war for any purpose, I spit on you! Why? I’ll tell you why. There is great wall in Washington, which lists all those who perished in Vietnam. Millions of people have gone up to this wailing wall, and treated it as a sacred thing. Those for and against this war. Those Americans that perished in action have their due, and on their tails some fifteen thousand who perished in non-combat accidents take the same honour. Yet hundreds of thousands of Americans met violent death on the roads alone during this period, and if millions of young men had not served in Vietnam, I bet that many thousands of these would have still been killed in accidents back home, especially as these were mostly young men who are most prevelant to die in car-crashes, and other accidents. Yet this sacred black wall is precous to you, and used by all for your own selfish purposes. Forget Korea! Forget both world wars. Forget the rest of humanity, and history. Deny the terrible war that is taking every day in your own country, just so you can move about, which really is all about status and power. Is this rant too much for you? If I was up to it, and if I thought you would listen, this would just be the beginning. I better end this now. I will have offended many. Too bad for you, for I could preach endlessly on the same vein. Oh, it’s not just you Americans! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1049 "2004-09-01T05:05:16Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > No, **elucidator** , you don’t get to turn this around. You made the claim that the spitting was a lie. Your exact words. And I asked for a cite which you have not yet provided… Oh, get off it! Who are you kidding? You say there is no such thing as an invisible pink unicorn, and I can demand proof with a straight face? Get real. Do you google? Do so. For instance, this: [http://northcoastcafe.typepad.com/north\_coast\_cafe/opinion/](http://northcoastcafe.typepad.com/north_coast_cafe/opinion/) excerpted: "…Shafer cites, The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. a book by Jerry Lembcke, a professor of sociology at Holy Cross and a Vietnam vet, who investigated hundreds of accounts of antiwar activists spitting on vets. Shafer writes, “every time Lembcke pushed for more evidence or corroboration from a witness, the story collapsed–the actual person who was spat on turned out to be a friend of a friend. Or somebody’s uncle. He writes that he never met anybody who convinced him that any such clash took place and argues that the whole story is bunk…” Put up or shut up time, scooter. There’s my cite, where’s yours? _Domo arigato, Mr. Moto_ Couldn’t have proven my point half so well without you! ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1050 "2004-09-01T05:26:28Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Really. Very interesting. So, we’re sitting around, shooting maryjane, smoking LSD, and somebody says “Hey! Let’s drive out to the airport, and spit on some returning vets!” What a cool idea! None of us knows any, of course, none of _us_ have friends and relatives who were drafted… > > So then what? Just sit around till we see a guy in uniform? Well, gee, how do we know whether he got back from, or is going to? And where? Germany? Palo Alto? Fort Benning? You tell me, you’re the expert. How do I spot the guy back from Viet Nam, and not back from Fort Dix? Hmmmm? > > You know all about this stuff, right? So _you_ tell me all about it. Mr Moto’s right, you’re not turning this on me. I’ve interviewed too many vets. Read what I said. MAC flights, (Military Air Charters) are civilian planes that land at regular airports. They are usually scheduled charters. Organized protestors would know this. It happened, and any vet that was spit on will tell you that it was one of their most vivid memories of war. If you or any of your friends called a vet a baby killer then you might as well have spit on them. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1051 "2004-09-01T05:29:10Z")
Hey, there’s my cite. Where’s yours? If my personal testimony ain’t worth shit, well, then, neither is yours. Got this guy, professor, veteran, did the investigating, says it ain’t so. What you got? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1052 "2004-09-01T05:43:02Z")
I took the google challenge. This is a quote from the first site I clicked on: **Upon my return to the states in the summer of ’69, someone spit on my ribbons on the uniform I was wearing. I was walking through a terminal at JFK Airport with my sea bag, which weighed almost as much as I did. (I returned to the U.S. weighing 145 lbs., a loss of about 30 lbs.) Why would someone spit on me? It wasn’t my idea to go to Viet Nam; I believe LBJ sent me there. The cab driver also didn’t like the fact that someone in uniform got in his cab. (We had to wear our uniforms in order to fly with military orders.** [http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3740.html](http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article3740.html) And a sailor to boot. Huh. No reason to be bitter over Kerry’s testimony. No siree. elucidator said so. lies, lies lies. When Kerry went to a Veteran’s group in Cincinnati he was met by people in the audience with their back turned to him. Must be a bunch of liars. Maybe you could warm the crowd up for him next time. Keep posting that these people are lying. Good vote gathering strategy. Might be why Kerry is about to make some campaign staff changes. 21 going for 22. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1053 "2004-09-01T06:01:47Z")
Found an article by the author of the book here: [http://www.rlg.org/annmtg/lembcke99.html](http://www.rlg.org/annmtg/lembcke99.html) Site may be taken down soon, so you might want to hurry. So long as you’re so anxious to preserve the “spirit of the Boards”. And all. “…I also found historical evidence for what I came to call “grist” for the myth. There are newspaper reports, for example, of pro-war demonstrators spitting on anti-war activists. In their retelling over the years, the oral accounts of these incidents could easily get reinterpreted and inverted and made into stories about activists spitting on veterans. _There is also a record of military authorities warning GIs that they might experience hostility from opponents of the war._ Most interesting in this regard were the warnings issued to Vietnam-bound troops that their families might receive harassment phone calls from communist sympathizers saying the soldier had been wounded or killed…” (emphasis added) Besides, why are you so married to this nugget of disinformation? If you have any real faith in the validity of your opinions, you could shrug this off as being insignificant. Which it is. If the Viet Nam war was a noble experiment, conducted by men honestly seeking the best, why should you care? Of course, it wasn’t, was it? We know that from the confessions of the men who conducted that war, don’t we? What is hurtful about this lie is that it precisely reverses the truth. The people I knew were _entirely_ sympathetic to the plight of the returning veteran. Of course we were, we knew them! Not one of us didn’t have a brother, cousin, buddy, who was drafted and shipped out. Is it impossible for you to accept that a political opponent is a decent human being, whose motives are grounded in humanity and morality? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1054 "2004-09-01T06:09:09Z")
Aww, c’mon, **Mcgiver** , put up a decent fight! This is too easy, its like taking Steven Hawkings lunch money! I put up a cite from a guy who researched the question, published a book on the subject, signed his name to it, and is a vet to boot. You put up an anecdote from a conservative blog site, from an unidentified person, backed by nothing, and I’m supposed to shrivel like Christopher Lee in that Dracula movie, exposed to sunlight? Is this, like, post-modernist irony? You type this with a straight face? ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1055 "2004-09-01T11:33:09Z")
In a way, it is similar to the stories about all those women burning their bras in the 70’s, which, unfortunately, turns out not to be true either. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1056 "2004-09-01T11:48:52Z")
Cmon, **elucidator**. I’ve read that cite you’ve provided, and other interviews given by the author. He freely admits that it’s impossible to state categorically that no vereran was ever spit on by a protester. It’s impossible to prove a negative. Since it’s impossible for him to do, after researching the subject for years, it’s impossible for you to do after Google searching for ten minutes. I’m certainly not clinging to the image of the spitting protester. I haven’t brought it up at all to support my arguments. And I don’t see anyone clinging to the subject quite so hard as you. I’m willing to write the whole thing off as overblown. The only thing I’ve ever read on the subject was Bob Greene’s book, years ago, and he was just reprinting stories others sent him. However, I still think your characterization of the spitting as a lie was somewhat a mischaracterization. You certainly can’t prove no spitting ever occurred, therefore you can’t throw that charge around. If you’d like to correct that to say that such incidents were exaggerated, I’d be much more inclined to agree. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1057 "2004-09-01T12:22:27Z")
The “lie”, to me, is the idea that veteran-spitting was a common occurrence and a frequent pastime of anti-war protestors, and that it represented the prevailing attitude of those opposed to the war. The way a lot of people talk about it, returning soldiers were routinely subjected to a 21-loogie salute the minute they got off the plane from Da Nang. The truth, as **elucidator’s** cite makes clear, is that it happened so rarely that it is difficult to confirm whether it happened at all, and even if it did happen on occasion, the phenomenon takes on all the characteristics of urban legend as far as its dissemination as “historical fact”. It also was certainly not something most anti-war protestors would consider; I suspect that many if not most were like my mother, whose fervent anti-war activities were driven by the fact that people she loved–my father, her brother, most of her friends–either were or had the potential to be dropped into The Shit. I wouldn’t presume to speak for **elucidator** , but I also don’t think that one has to show that this never happened to consider it a lie. ---
**Author:** ![MMI](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@MMI](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MMI)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1058 "2004-09-01T14:48:04Z")
In today’s Billings Gazette (located via Atrios) there is a story about several Swift Boat veterans whose names appeared on the SBVT letter who neither agree with SBVT nor would have signed the letter, had they been asked to. (this is not to say that they endorse the officialUSN/John Kerry version of events - one acknowledges that he has no knowledge of the disputed events (nor any desire to recollect his time in Vietnam)). Does this particular mendacity affect any of the SDMB SVBT supporters opinions of the group’s credibility? [http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/09/01/build/state/25-swift-boat.inc](http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/09/01/build/state/25-swift-boat.inc) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1059 "2004-09-01T15:05:21Z")
**Doc J** : Why should I object to someone speaking for me if he does it at least as well, if not better? An exaggeration is a lie when it is called upon to defame the blameless. It becomes a lie when it is enlisted to serve an ignoble cause. I am entirely content to let this hijack fade. I would be even more content to have no reason to discuss it again, for this slimy pustule of a lie has already had far, far more attention than it deserves. But I will not silently watch as, once again, it is put forth with the calm confidence of accepted truth. It might be accepted, but it damn sure ain’t the truth! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2004, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262/1060 "2004-09-01T15:10:49Z")
> [@MMI](#): > > …Does this particular mendacity affect any of the SDMB SVBT supporters opinions of the group’s credibility?.. I suppose that depends upon whether or not the Swifties and their henchpersons have the slightest regard for truth. I suppose the question answers itself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262.md?page=52) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-kerry-and-vietnam/258262.md?page=54)