# Vietnam era. Protestors spitting on soldiers. Myth vs reality+McGovern/Nixon **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 20, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392 "2011-08-20T00:55:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/41 "2011-08-21T20:55:13Z")
My point is “Why are **you** calling them Commies?”. Who cares what somebody back then with no real understanding of their beliefs called them? And who are you talking about? The students that I went to college with, most of whom were against Nixon, against the Vietnam War, for legalizing marijuana, for women’s liberation, against racism, for the toleration of homosexuality, etc. basically despised the Communist nations of the world. They had no problem with capitalism. Or are you talking about the few students who thought socialism might work and sometimes used Marxist terms in their conversations. They despised the Communists nations of the world even more than the other students, since they considered that Communism was a perverted form of socialism that meant that no one would consider socialism on its own terms. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/42 "2011-08-21T21:56:06Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > My point is “Why are **you** calling them Commies?”. Who cares what somebody back then with no real understanding of their beliefs called them? And who are you talking about? The students that I went to college with, most of whom were against Nixon, against the Vietnam War, for legalizing marijuana, for women’s liberation, against racism, for the toleration of homosexuality, etc. basically despised the Communist nations of the world. They had no problem with capitalism. > > Or are you talking about the few students who thought socialism might work and sometimes used Marxist terms in their conversations. They despised the Communists nations of the world even more than the other students, since they considered that Communism was a perverted form of socialism that meant that no one would consider socialism on its own terms. why do I follow the traditional American practice of calling socialist subversives as “Commies”? Why not? Why do you think that the only Marxists deserving the appellation of “Commie” are Party members in good standing? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/43 "2011-08-21T22:04:54Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > why do I follow the traditional American practice of calling socialist subversives as “Commies”? Deep-seated ignorance is a safe bet. ---
**Author:** ![taffygirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b5a626/32.png) [@taffygirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taffygirl)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/44 "2011-08-21T23:17:14Z")
I talked to a guy last spring who is a Vietnam vet, and he said a young woman spat on him. I believe him. However, let’s put this in perspective. There are always a few boorish extremists in any group. I’ve read that in WWI, men who looked like they were draft age and were not in the military were sometimes sent white feathers (to symbolize cowardice). Civil rights protesters were sometimes spat upon. There have always been a few spitters out there. That doesn’t mean it was a typical occurrence of that era, and it tells us nothing about either the protesters as a group, their general mindset, or the returning vets. ---
**Author:** ![wedgehed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8edcca/32.png) [@wedgehed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wedgehed)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/45 "2011-08-22T00:12:10Z")
My best friend was drafted towards the end of the war & spent his entire tour stateside. He said that when his time was up, he was given a plane ticket to Baltimore (his home of record at the time). He said he was hassled at the airport (he was still in uniform) by a small group of young guys & girls who made a point of letting him know that he was a “baby-killer”. My friend has no axe to grind. He never went to Vietnam. He had long hair before he was drafted & grew it back when he got out. I’ve known the guy for over 30 years. He’s mentioned the incident maybe two or three times in all the time I’ve known him. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/46 "2011-08-22T00:53:08Z")
The problem with calling people who are socialists (let alone those who are mainstream liberals) Commies is that it’s ignoring distinctions. The words have different definitions. A socialist doesn’t believe that a society should arrest those who disagree with them, put them in prison camps, and execute them. To be a Communist one would have to mostly agree with the policies of the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, regardless of whether they belonged to the Communist Party. (And, may I point out, membership in the Communist Party was excruciatingly rare among anyone around my age, even in the rare cases where they actually agreed with the policies of the Communist nations.) What people do when they refer to socialists or even mainstream liberals as Commies is to claim that they don’t have to make any differentiation among anyone who disagrees with them. Anyone even slightly to their left is then a Commie. They thus don’t have to argue with anyone who differs from their politics. They are all Commies according to their definition. What they are doing is thus the same as what the leaders of the Communist nations did during the Cold War in their nations. Anyone who disagree with them was a spy for the West. It wasn’t necessary to understand their differing positions. One could just throw them in jail as being traitors. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/47 "2011-08-22T03:56:50Z")
> [@taffygirl](#): > > I talked to a guy last spring who is a Vietnam vet, and he said a young woman spat on him. I believe him. I don’t, and you have no reason to. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/48 "2011-08-22T04:03:35Z")
Quite apart from allegations of spitting, one of the recurring themes you hear with regard to Viet Nam vets is “World War 2 veterans were greeted with parades and treated as heroes when they came home, while Viet Nam vets were shunned.” In reality, most World War 2 vets would scoff at the idea that they were feted and treated like royalty when they came home. Most of the elderly WW2 vets I’ve known would tell you something like, “I got on the bus, I got home late at night. My Mom got me some dinner, and I went to bed. Next morning, my Dad told me I’d better find a job. And that was the extent of my glorious welcome. NOBODY much cared that I was a ‘war hero,’ because practically EVERYBODY my age had been in the war and had been as much a hero as I was.” Very, very few veterans of ANY war have been greeted with ticker tape parades and big parties when they came home. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/49 "2011-08-22T04:57:31Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > What people do when they refer to socialists or even mainstream liberals as Commies is to claim that they don’t have to make any differentiation among anyone who disagrees with them. Anyone even slightly to their left is then a Commie. They thus don’t have to argue with anyone who differs from their politics. They are all Commies according to their definition. What they are doing is thus the same as what the leaders of the Communist nations did during the Cold War in their nations. Anyone who disagree with them was a spy for the West. It wasn’t necessary to understand their differing positions. One could just throw them in jail as being traitors. cite? I haven’t claimed any such thing. I just called certain groups of American leftists “commies”, that’s all. Everybody knows that Stalinist commies, Trotskyist commies, Maoist commies, Rooseveltian commies and Obamaist commies are all very different (and often rabidly opposed to each other), although all of them are varying manifestations of the same underlying evil. Bubonic plague is different from pneumonic plague, but they are both called “plague”. The same with commies. Trotskyists hate Stalinists and maybe you personally hate the both of them. Guess what, the non-Commies of the world say “a plague on all of you, regardless of sectarian affiliation”. Just like the commies themselves hate the right wing spectrum, from John Birch society all the way to the RINO neocons under the generic “right wing” label, without much effort at rhetorical differentiation. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/50 "2011-08-22T06:28:40Z")
What pray tell is an “Obamaist commie”? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/51 "2011-08-22T07:06:29Z")
If you think that Obama is a Communist, you haven’t bothered to understand his politics in the slightest. I don’t throw all conservatives into the same pile and refuse to differentiate between them. Show me any post on the SDMB where I have ever done such a thing. (In fact, I mostly don’t post in political threads because too many posters here do such ridiculous things.) What you’re saying is that because other people who disagree with you do such annoying things and I disagree with you, I must agree with them. Argue with me and not with your image of what all other SDMB posters are like. You’re saying that because other posters make ridiculous arguments in which they lump together wildly different political opinions, you’re privileged to make such arguments too. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/52 "2011-08-22T10:00:01Z")
Of course Obama is a Communist. A red-diaper baby whose mother took him around to airports so that he could projectile-vomit on returning vets. This is the origination of the phrase “pablum-puking liberal,” if you’d take the trouble to research it. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/53 "2011-08-22T15:43:38Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > cite? I haven’t claimed any such thing. I just called certain groups of American leftists “commies”, that’s all. And you’re wrong. But don’t let that stop you from repeating loony rightie nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/54 "2011-08-22T16:07:40Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > And you’re wrong. But don’t let that stop you from repeating loony rightie nonsense. I’m asking you, and others, not to go down this route in IMHO. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/55 "2011-08-22T16:45:05Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > We are to believe the evidence that is presented to us. Got any? [Yes.](http://www.amazon.com/Homecoming-When-Soldiers-Returned-Vietnam/dp/0399133860?tag=5336612429-20) > [@](#): > > “Were you ever spat upon when you returned home to the United States?” asked syndicated columnist Greene of the Vietnam veterans among his readership. He received over 1000 letters in reply, many recounting specific details of just such a painfully remembered incident. Evidently this recollection of “hippies” (as they are often called in the letters) spitting on combat veterans has become one of the war’s most unpleasant, enduring images. Conversely, other letters describe acts of generosity toward servicemen, from the typical free beers at the bar to a free show. But the over 200 letters excerpted here do more than confirm popular notions. They bring back the incidents of 20 years ago vividly, but not always with bitterness. And they reveal healing solidarity among veterans in response to what for many was not a happy homecoming. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/56 "2011-08-22T16:48:18Z")
> [@taffygirl](#): > > I talked to a guy last spring who is a Vietnam vet, and he said a young woman spat on him. I believe him. However, let’s put this in perspective. There are always a few boorish extremists in any group. I’ve read that in WWI, men who looked like they were draft age and were not in the military were sometimes sent white feathers (to symbolize cowardice). Civil rights protesters were sometimes spat upon. There have always been a few spitters out there. That doesn’t mean it was a typical occurrence of that era, and it tells us nothing about either the protesters as a group, their general mindset, or the returning vets. Of course. Thousands of military personnel served in Vietnam. It would be highly difficult to defend the claim that not one was spat upon after returning home. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/57 "2011-08-22T16:51:04Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > So, an account of one anti-Iraq war protester spitting on the ground near a veteran after an unspecified verbal confrontation _proves_ the meme that anti-Vietnam war protesters habitually spat upon helpless veterans returning home? You actually believe that? No. Of course, the first instance of the word “habitually” in this thread is your use of it, ascribing a view to me. What word or phrase in my post supports your characterizing my answer as referring to “habitually?” ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/58 "2011-08-22T16:51:28Z")
An excellent book on the subject is Ron Kovic’s Born on the Fourth of July. It should be read by everyone in the world. ETA: [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Kovic) on Kovic. But please, read the book. Born of the Fourth of July, by Tom Paxton Now I wheel myself down To the crossroads of town To watch the young girls and their lovers. And my mind is on fire, It’s alive with desire. Christ, I’d barely begun, now it’s over. In my wheelchair for life My mechanic wife, I’m supposed to be cheerful and stoic. I’m your old tried-and-true Yankee Doodle to you. Clean, _paralyzed_ and heroic. I was born on the fourth of July. No one more loyal than I When my country said so I was ready to go And I wish I’d been left there to die. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/59 "2011-08-22T16:55:45Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Of course. Thousands of military personnel served in Vietnam. It would be highly difficult to defend the claim that not one was spat upon after returning home. The burden is upon those who claim it is so. Nobody can prove that something didn’t happen. Why has no protester in all those 1,000 incidents you cited admitted to doing something like this? Do you really believe that that many people can keep quiet, let alone all the thousands that were with them? Yet I’ve seen no accounts from protesters of that era that tell of spitting. Seems a bit odd to me in this era of tell-all-for-profit stories. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2011, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392/60 "2011-08-22T17:33:55Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > It would seem the alternative is to believe that the New York Times reporters of 1970 were, along with all other reporters in the world, too lazy to report on what the NYT reporters of 2007 reported on. What do you think accounts for the complete absence of contemporaneous news accounts of spitting on soldiers in Vietnam, when there’s not such an absence more recently? I think the failure to cite contemporaneous accounts of spitting relates more to the lack of available free on-line newspaper archive searches that reach back to the Vietnam era. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/vietnam-era-protestors-spitting-on-soldiers-myth-vs-reality-mcgovern-nixon/593392.md?page=4)