The Myth of the Spat-Upon Veteran

New Book Documents Pro-GI Policy of Movement Against the Vietnam War

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam by Jerry Lembcke (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 217 pp. ISBN 0-8147-5146-6. $24.95.

— Reviewed by Michael Livingston

Many Americans carry the image in their heads: The Vietnam vet, returning from war, gets off the plane in San Francisco and is greeted by protesters with shouts of “Baby killer!” Then, out of the crowd, a protester rushes forward and spits on the vet. This image is so widespread that by early 1991 (during the Persian Gulf war) polls showed that the majority of the American people believed the anti–Vietnam war movement had been anti-soldier and had, in many cases, actually spat upon returning troops.

Lembcke’s book about the myth of the “anti-soldier” peace movement frequently refers to Fred Halstead’s Out Now! an account of the anti-Vietnam-war movement by a leading participant that is probably the most accurate and comprehensive record of that important part of our social history, a movement that helped change the fates of nations and the face of politics in the United States. Halstead, who played a key role in the leadership of the antiwar movement, fully documents the pro-GI policy of many groups in the movement, especially the Socialist Workers Party, whose presidential candidate he was in 1968.

In The Spitting Image Jerry Lembcke shows how this image is a myth that serves the interests of the powerful who led the U.S. to war. Lembcke is a sociologist at Holy Cross College, a Vietnam veteran who was an active member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. His readable and well-documented book demolishes the lie that the antiwar movement was anti-soldier and that the vets were spat upon.

Of course it is hard to disprove a myth and hard to prove that something never happened. Still Lembcke has extensive evidence showing that “the spitting image” is an illusion created by the Nixon-Agnew administration and the mass media (especially Hollywood movies). From the beginning, the antiwar movement worked closely with veterans. Many leading antiwar activists were veterans of earlier wars. Many antiwar groups, such as the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), worked to support GIs and defend GI political rights.

By 1968, a large number of Vietnam vets were key activists in the movement. Polls conducted at the time showed that most combat troops viewed the antiwar movement as their only real supporter. Other polls conducted at the time showed that over 94% of returning troops said they were greeted positively by people their own age who had not served in the military. Even more telling, there is no documentary evidence (not one letter, photo, news clip, press report, or police report) of an antiwar protester spitting on a returning vet. There are, however, a number of photos and stories showing protesting vets being spat upon, sworn at, and pelted with eggs, by pro-war members of the VFW or American Legion. The stories of spat-upon veterans started appearing in the late 1970s, and all such stories have proven either demonstrably false or nearly impossible to prove.

Where did the myth come from and why do people believe it? Lembcke argues that the Nixon-Agnew administration sought to discredit and divide the antiwar movement by casting it as an internal enemy who stabbed our boys in the back. Nixon and Agnew also created a contrast between the good vet (pro-war, pro-Nixon) who was spat upon and the bad vet who was violent, crazy, and, not incidentally, against the war.

The U.S. defeat by Vietnam was a bitter pill for warmongers and others who believe that the U.S. is the most powerful and righteous nation on earth. After 1975 the usefulness of the Nixon-Agnew myth to the right wing increased substantially.

Hollywood did a lot to develop and spread this myth, starting in the late 1960s. Lembcke devotes a chapter to Hollywood films and how they have shaped our memories of the antiwar movement. The image projected by Holly wood varied from movie to movie, but certain stereotyped roles were common from 1968 on. Vietnam veterans were often portrayed as ultra-violent crazies or paramilitary vigilantes. Nowhere was the politically organized veteran shown; nowhere were the veterans’ criticisms of U.S. policy presented.

After the end of the war (and the defeat of U.S. imperialism) in 1975, Hollywood started to develop the image of the betrayal of our boys by the antiwar movement. “We lost” because of the protesters, according to Hollywood. Lembcke discusses such movies as Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, and Rambo in detail to show how Hollywood created the image intentionally. (There are of course a few non-Hollywood exceptions, including the documentaries Hearts and Minds and No Vietnamese Ever Called Me Nigger. But these are few in number and certainly not as widely viewed as films like Coming Home or Rambo).

Lembcke also places this myth in a historical and sociological context, showing how similar myths appeared in Germany after its defeat in World War I and in France after its Indochina defeat at Dienbienphu in 1954.

The myth of the spat-upon veteran serves a political function. By making the issue our troops and not the policy of the war, the U.S. government gains a powerful lever with which to manipulate the American people. The myth of the antiwar movement’s hatred and violence toward returning vets also serves to alienate many from the movement, prejudicing folks against the movement and fostering political passivity. The struggle to regain the truth is not mere intellectual exercise. It is an effort, as Lembcke writes, to reclaim our role in the writing of our own history, the construction of our own memory, and the making of our own identity (p. 188).