 |
SwiftVets.com
Service to Country
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
 Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:25 am Post subject: |
 |
|
Some tidbits from Time Magazine, in the genre, ie the treatment of the Vets was in the national dialog
Time Magazine
| Quote: | Humanizing the U.S. Military
Monday, Dec. 21, 1970
<snip>
A Matter of Survival
The reform of military life is not a luxury or even merely an idea whose time has come, mirroring the changes in the rest of U.S. society. It is a necessity. Largely because of the Viet Nam War, the prestige of the military is plummeting. Many servicemen, including cadets and midshipmen from West Point and Annapolis, try to hide their military connections when on leave among their peers. There is even a wig market in Annapolis where middies can acquire hirsute camouflage. Re-enlistment rates have dropped to their lowest levels since 1955. Barely 31% of servicemen of all ranks and branches now volunteer for a second term.
The mounting antimilitarism in the U.S. threatens even the extension of the draft, which Congress must debate next year. Top Pentagon officials expect the vote to be extremely close.
more... |
Time Magazine
| Quote: | Letters to the Editor
Friday, Jun. 06, 1969
Sir: Many of us here in Viet Nam have been following the stories about unrest on the nation's campuses with subdued anger. It is demoralizing to read about pur underprivileged counterparts vandalizing campus buildings, manhandling institution leaders and generally making asses of themselves. It is painful to the thousands of less-pampered "students" here who take their lessons from instructors in black pajamas and sandals; where classrooms are sandbagged, sweaty jungle clearings; where a drink is four tablets in a canteen of warm muddy water; where the Saturday night date is a cold beer and a letter from home; and where the grades are not As, Bs and Cs, but sudden death, crippling wounds or, maybe, victory.
But we don't expect you people back in the world to be concerned. You did your share back in '44, or was it '54, and now you're top tired to do more than mutter "What's this world coming to?"
Well, don't worry, people, because someday this war is going to be over, and half a million angry men are going to descend on the 50 states with dreams of homes and families and education and jobs. And when they hit the campuses, I sincerely hope that someone tries to stop a Marine "leg" from going to class, or that some sorry, smelly, social reject tries to plant a Viet Cong cross next to the artificial leg of a Seabee, or spits in the burned face of an Army medic. I guarantee that it will only happen once.
T. CONNER, U.S.A.
A.P.O. San Francisco
|
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:34 am Post subject: |
|
|
more from TIME, these next don't fit The MYTH guy's exact time period requirements-- good representation from Time nonetheless..
Time Magazine
| Quote: |
Heroes Without Honor Face the Battle at Home
Monday, Apr. 23, 1979
In wars past, when Johnny came marching home, he could expect cheers and bands. He could also look forward to a gratitude that helped him come to terms with the horrors he had endured and gave him a feeling that his sacrifices meant something. For the Viet Nam veteran, coming home was far less glorious. "You know about the class of '46, the guys who came back after World War II, greeted with parades and jobs," says Alan Fitzgerald, 30, a drafted infantryman who fought near the Cambodian border in 1970. "When I came back and landed at San Francisco airport with 200 others, we were spit on and kicked at."
The U.S. sent 2,796,000 soldiers to Viet Nam, of whom 303,000 were wounded and 57,147 killed. For those who returned, the physical and emotional toll was drastically increased by the unpopularity of the war and America's unresolved guilt about its role. "Get that in Viet Nam?" a fellow student asked Veteran Frederick Downs as he walked across a college campus with a hook where his left hand should have been. When Downs nodded, the student snarled: "Serves you right." Says Michael Murray of Lewisboro, N.Y.: "They were down on us when they should have been down on the people who sent us there."
What makes re-entry all the more difficult is that the Viet veteran has been stereotyped as angry, alienated, semiliterate and drug-prone. Some veterans feel that their experience in Viet Nam makes prospective employers wary. Says Bruns Grayson, who went on to Harvard and Oxford after five years in Viet Nam: "What I find offensive is the feeling that all Viet Nam vets are latent psychos or, like Jon Voight in Coming Home, sensitive and guilt-ridden. These are comic-book caricatures." Charles Figley, a Purdue University psychologist who wrote a study of his fellow Viet Nam veterans, agrees: "All the myths about the guy being a walking time bomb are just total and utter fantasy. Most have readjusted remarkably well, considering the circumstances."
<snip>
For the vets, one of the war's most troublesome legacies is a pervasive disenchantment, unregistered by statistics and unsolved by legislative programs. It is caused by the feelings that the service they rendered was meaningless and the nation's anguish and anger over Viet Nam were transferred unfairly to them. Not long ago, a Viet Nam veteran in Minneapolis was asked if there was anything he would particularly like to say to Max Cleland when the VA chief arrived in the city for a scheduled visit. The vet brooded for a moment, then replied, half sardonically, half plaintively: "Yes. 'When are we going to get our parade?' "
more... |
_________________
.
one of..... We The People
Last edited by kate on Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
Time Cover Story
| Quote: | The Forgotten Warriors
July 13, 1981
By LANCE MORROW
A nation begins to understand, as the Viet Nam vets wait for their parade
<snip>
The troops who went to Korea got a muted version of the welcome. But then came America's longest, strangest war. From that one, in Viet Nam, the boys came home alone, mostly one by one. Sometimes they would arrive in the middle of the night, almost as if they were sneaking back. It was an abrupt, surreal transition—36 hours earlier, they had been in Nam, humping through that alien place with too much firepower and confusion and moral responsibility on their backs. Then they were plucked out of their bizarre yearlong excursion, set down in commercial jetliners, the stewardesses passing among them like sweet American hallucinations, Hefner visions, and dropped out of the sky back into an America that had turned ugly. In Seattle, some pus-gut in an American Legion cap used to greet the boys by spitting at them. "Losers!" he screamed. "Candy-ass losers!"
A trooper would head for the bar and order a beer. "You got ID?" the bartender would demand. Well, it was the nation's first teen-aged war. An adolescent might be old enough to look upon (even to perform) horrors that would make Goya turn away. But back home, he was not old enough to drink. And in a day or two, if the soldier stayed in uniform, a fellow American would ask some stunning, stopping version of: "How many babies did you kill?" For many Viet Nam veterans, the moment of return, that bleak homecoming, was the beginning of a long rage.
more... |
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
No spitting mentioned, but certainly shows attitude towards military
From the University of Virginia
The Rise of Student Radicalism at the University of Virginia link
| Quote: |
<snip>
The ROTC program took much of the brunt of the student outrage. Protesters associated the training of young men for military life with the killings in Vietnam. Demonstrators stormed Maury Hall, the Navy ROTC building, on two separate occasions by angry mobs. |
ROTC Takes The Blame link
Students stormed the ROTC building during May Days in 1970. The training grounds for Vietnam soldiers received the brunt of student dissent as poignantly captured in this graffiti message. May 7, 1970
This building teaches humans how to burn babies + kill click here
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:25 am Post subject: |
|
|
well, no spitting, just tossing animal blood, and starting a fire at the ROTC building
The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Protests and Perspectives on the University of Oregon Campus in 1969 and 1970
Emily Mosen
March 14, 2005
Honors College 421: The University in Peace and War
<snip>
| Quote: | Later, the President told an Emerald reporter that the SDS’s “position against ROTC represents an attempt to get at the military in general, not just ROTC.”15 He said, “radicals are simply striking at something closer to them.”16 This dramatic demonstration was among the more constructive and non-violent protests to take place during the 1969-1970 academic year since it centered on the exchange of ideas rather than such ineffective strategies as destruction of property. Nonetheless, it serves as an example of the sometimes misguided and misdirected opposition to ROTC on campus.
The winter months unfortunately brought on more violent, but not necessarily more successful protests. In one particular episode on January 6, 1970, animal blood was thrown on registration personnel as students attempted to register for winter term ROTC courses. President Clark responded by calling this “a juvenile act not worthy of college students.”17 Incidents such as this one drew attention to the movement opposing ROTC (and the Vietnam War), but they were not especially sophisticated methods of protest. In other words, they provide little insight to the perspectives behind them.
Although many of the students who opposed ROTC on campus preferred non-destructive and non-violent ways of protesting, the nature of the protests was slowly becoming more violent. On January 23rd, about 25 unidentified persons committed minor vandalism inside the ROTC building.18 Then, on February 15th, the University’s physical education building, which housed an ROTC storage area, was set on fire causing over $350,000 in damages to the building and ROTC property. 19 These and the other violent and destructive protests that took place on the University of Oregon campus did not serve to enact any sort of change. They only lowered the already diminished opinion many people held of “radical” university students and their motivations.
pgs 6,7,8
footnote:
Newcomb, Bob, “UO faculty sets stage for full-scale debate on ROTC issue,”
Eugene Register-Guard, Eugene, OR, 9 April 1970, page 1B.
|
she quotes an article published in 1970
link
and link
_________________
.
one of..... We The People
Last edited by kate on Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:40 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 6:41 am Post subject: |
|
|
Oakland Museum of California
Vietnam Era ( exihibit now archived)
http://www.museumca.org/
These two links are the archived pages, can't get there from the main page any longer.
Additional text is found when you click the pics on the pages
http://www.museumca.org/picturethis/5_3.html#
http://www.museumca.org/picturethis/5_4.html#
<snips>
| Quote: | California became one big revolving door during the Vietnam era. Of the many service men and women from all over the country who would serve in Vietnam, they either left to begin their tours of duty from a California military base or returned home through a California military base.
|
| Quote: | Homecoming for veterans initially meant being spat upon by anti-war protesters. In later years, the prolonged distress, depression, and rage that veterans experienced was renamed "post-traumatic stress disorder" and signified long-term problems with what Young cited as "disabling memories of the war."
|
| Quote: | Anti-war strategists across the country declared a new slogan in the fall of 1967: "From protest to resistance." According to Todd Gitlin, in The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, the planners for a Stop the Draft Week in October 1967 took their cue from The Black Panthers for Self-Defense and SNCC organizers to "break through their self-enclosure by raising their stakes." They intended to "shut down the downtown Oakland building to which potential inductees were bused from all of Northern California."
On the first day, the protesters performed their ritual sit-in and 124 were arrested, including Joan Baez. On the second day, now called "Bloody Tuesday," between 4,000 and 10,000 people took to the streets, confronted by 2,000 Oakland police |
not a contemporaneous news report of the spitting, but it is a museum ... in the heart of west coast protests
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 8:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
Just to set the tone of the times. Although no spitting-on-Vets references here, these protestors sure were protesting against the military, attempting interference with troop movements, and it wouldn't be a stretch to imagine their ilk spitting....
In the News (abstracts)
"Students at UC March on Draft Board."
Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1965. p. 3
| Quote: | | Several hundred UC Berkeley students march on the Berkeley Draft Board and present the staff with a black coffin. Forty students burn their draft cards. |
"Demonstrators Try to Stop Troop Train on Coast; Deputies and Policemen Lead Carrier Past Crowd of 200 Protesting Vietnam Policy."
New York Times, Aug 7, 1965. p. 3
| Quote: | | Organized by the Vietnam Day Committee, several hundred people try on several occasions to stop troop trains on the Santa Fe railroad tracks in West Berkeley and Emeryville by standing on the tracks. Conservative Alamedia County Board of Supervisors member Joseph Bort says of the events: "The manner in which these people protest is tentamount to treason." Among UC Berkeley faculty, opinions are sharply divided regarding the VDC's tactics. |
"Policy in Vietnam scored in Rallies Throughout the U.S.; March to Base at Oakland Halted by Police -- 38 Arrested in Michigan Hundreds Gather Here; Youth Burns His Draft Card Outside Induction Center."
New York Times Oct 16, 1965. p. 1
"8,000 War Critics March on Coast; 2,000 Guardsmen and Police Protect Oakland Protest." New York Times, Nov 21, 1965. p. 32 (1 page)
"100,000 Rally at U.N. Against Vietnam War; Many Draft Cards Burned --Eggs Tossed at Parade."
New York Times, Apr 16, 1967. p. 1 (2 pages)
"Antiwar Demonstrations Held Outside Draft Boards Across U.S.; 119 Persons Arrested on Coast."
New York Times, Oct 17, 1967.
"Police Rout 3,000 At Oakland Protest; 3,000 Routed in Coast Antiwar Protest"
Los New York Times. Oct 18, 1967. p. 1
"Demonstration Fails to Close Oakland Army Induction Post."
Los Angeles Times Oct 21, 1967, p. 1
| Quote: |
Stop the Draft Week organizers lead 3000 marchers to the Oakland Army Induction Center on October 16, 1967. The sitting protesters force draftees to climb over them in order to get inside the building. As inductees enter protesters hand them leaflets, ask them to change their minds and to refuse induction and join the protest. When marchers refuse police orders to leave, police attack them with nightsticks, injuring 20. Forty demonstrators are arrested, including the folk singer Joan Baez.
On the second day, demonstrators return to the induction center; 97 are arrested. On the third day, 10,000 protesters arrive, this time retreating in orderly fashion but also successfully blocking streets as they depart. On Friday the 20th there are large-scale confrontations with police as the protesters use "mobile tactics" and fight back. Seven activists (Reese Eherlich, Terence Cannon, Mike Smith, Steve Hamilton, Bob Mandel, Jeff Segal, Frank Bardacke) - the Oakland Seven - are charged with conspiracy following the demonstration, they are all acquitted on March 28, 1969 |
"Mayor of Berkeley Spat Upon; Berkeley Put Under Curfew After 3rd Day of Violence."
Los Angeles Times, Jul 1, 1968. p. 1
"Tear Gas Routs Demonstrators as 1,000 M.P.'s Face Crowd at Ft. Dix;
Tear Gas Routs Ft. Dix Protesters."
New York Times, Oct 13, 1969. p. 1
"Bombs, Dynamite and Woman's Body Found in Ruins of 11th St. Townhouse."
New York Times, Mar 11, 1970. p. 1
| Quote: | | March 10, 1970: Weather Underground members Diana Oughton, Theodore Gold, and Terry Robbins are killed in the basement of a Greenwich Village townhouse when a nail-studded bomb, which they intended to plant at a dance at the Fort Dix (New Jersey) army base, accidentally explodes. Kathy Wilkerson and Kathy Boudin escape the blast. |
Not spitting mind you - just tossing a bomb at our military
"Army Experts Sift Rubble for Bombing Clues at U. of Wisconsin Math Center."
New York Times, Aug 26, 1970. p. 18
| Quote: | | August 24, 1970: A bomb rips through the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, killing a post-graduate student, Robert Fassnact, and injuring four others. A radical "guerilla" group calling itself "The New Year's Gang" takes credit for the bombing. |
do we doubt these bomb tossers wouldn't be capable of spitting?
_________________
.
one of..... We The People
Last edited by kate on Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:33 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2007 9:28 am Post subject: |
|
|
A Frame of Reference to the MYTH guy's argument
Bertrand Russell
Activist extrordinaire
said | Quote: | | May 2, 1967 -- Bertrand Russell's International War Crimes Tribunal opens in Stockholm, Sweden,with Jean-Paul Sartre as executive president. The members of the tribunal are all well-known supporters of North Vietnam, and the "evidence" presented is supplied largely by North Vietnam, the Vietcong, and communist investigators. The Tribunal concludes that American forces are engaged in the "massive extermination" of the people of South Vietnam, and are committing "genocide in the strictest sense." |
| Quote: |
November, 1969 -- In response to a public call from the Bertrand Russell foundation in New York, Jeremy Rifkin and Tod Ensign launch a new organization called Citizens Commissions of Inquiry (CCI) to publicize American war crimes in Indochina. |
Jane Fonda
Queen of Organizations Against the War
said
| Quote: | | March, 1971 -- Jane Fonda meets privately in Paris with Madame Binh of the PRG. Fonda then flies to London where according to the book "Citizen Jane" she alleges American atrocities that include "applying electrodes to prisoners' genitals, mass rapes, slicing off of body parts, scalping, skinning alive, and leaving 'heat tablets' around which burned the insides of children who ate them.'" wintersoldier.com |
John Kerry
Executive Committee
Vietnam Veterans Against the War
said
| Quote: | | April 22, 1971 -- John Kerry testifies on behalf of the VVAW before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. He claims that American soldiers had "personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan..." and that these acts were "not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command." wintersoldier.com |
but.... the MYTH guy Lembcke
Member of Vietnam Veterans Against The War
now says
| Quote: | | Not only is there no evidence that these acts of hostility against veterans ever occurred, there is no evidence that anyone at the time thought they were occurring.(Lembcke, 1998, p. 75) |
| Quote: | | Problem is, the spitting story seems to be fantasy. Perhaps some soldiers somewhere got spat on. Yet no reports of such incidents ever appeared while the Vietnam war was going on. Not until years later did the story surface. (Lembcke, Newsday, May 1, 2000). |
So, for the sake of argument.......going back to that place in time
If one was to hear, or, believe what Russell, Kerry, Fonda and their ilk were saying about our military being monsters who raped, cut of ears, taped wires from portable phones to human genitals, etc......
Why then is it not plausible that someone hearing those accusations would show acts of hostility against the Vets -- would spit on them?
If it's the Myth people’s position that what Kerry & Fonda said was true, but, what the Vets say about their subsequent treatment is a fantasy -- that, doesn't compute.
The MYTH guy's argument is simply his weak attempt to absolve the radical protestors of the consequences of their actions.
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 5:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Quote: | Military Dad Reports Being Spit On
Saturday, January 06, 2007
ITHACA--The father of an Air Force pilot was allegedly spit upon during a visit to Ithaca recently.
Writing in the Ithaca Journal, Stacie Yaw-Bieber, a staff sergeant in in the U.S. Army Reserves, recounts the following:
Recently an individual that frequents our legion recounted an incident that happened to him in Ithaca. He has a son who is a pilot in the Air Force and displays a sticker stating the same on his vehicle. A woman walked up to him and asked him if that was his vehicle, he stated it was and reiterated that his son was in the Air Force, the woman responded by stating that his son was a ?Killer? and then spit on him.
...
http://www.federalreview.com/2007/01/military-dad-reports-being-spit-on.htm |
Here's another one for the record, kate.
_________________
Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
KBowman
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 3
|
| Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 3:11 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Lembcke's claim that nobody even claimed that it happened back in the vietnam era is simply wrong. The reports were so common back then that they had already taken on the aura of legend
Here is a link to a 1971 Congressional Subcommittee book, and the relevant quote:
Drug Abuse
“In one sense one could argue that it would not be vastly different from another war. In World War II people suffered incalculable hardships, however they had one sustaining hope. The war was only one slice out of the pie of their lives, it would be over at a certain point and they would return to a different sort of world where what they had done would be appreciated and rewarded. The Vietnam veterans consistently report an incident that goes something like this:
‘Pete received a letter from a guy that used to be in his outfit. He had gotten home and walked down main street in his uniform and had and had either got beaten up or someone had spat on him.’
For the men in Vietnam what incidents like that represent is that the war is not going to be over as far as they're concerned. Rather than coming home and being rewarded for their participation, they are going to be hated, despised almost as thoroughly as they are by the people they are now forced to live among in Vietnam.”
Here’s a quote from a 1975 article by Victor De Fazio, one of the early proponents of “Vietnam syndrome” in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy
The Vietnam Era Veteran: Psychological problems
“The classic tale told by vets, one which can almost be categorized as a myth, is that in which a returning combat vet stepped off a plane was greeted by a hip-beautiful honey blond who proceeded to spit in his face and call him a ‘baby killer.’ It is a story in which the sweet promise of the ‘real world’ turns sour.”
note: BBCode enabled for this post...links highlighted...& welcome to the forum/me#1 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
KBowman
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 07 Mar 2007
Posts: 3
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:40 am Post subject: |
|
|
Well well well... some are starting to see the light
refer back to these posts on the previous page:
| Quote: | Debunker!
CBS Evening News Monday, Dec 27, 1971
Headline: Vietnam Veteran
(Studio) January, 1971, report on medics in Vietnam recalled
PICKETT - tells of being spit on in Seattle, WA |
| Quote: | Spitfire
Vietnam veterans were gobbed on, insist angry readers and critical bloggers.
By Jack Shafer Monday, Feb. 5, 2007
There's more. The Television News Archive lists an abstract from a Dec. 27, 1971, CBS Evening News segment in which returning vet Delmar Pickett tells of being spat upon in Seattle. (I've ordered a copy of the segment and will write about it upon receipt.) |
Now for this update > Mr Shafer has 2 new articles out after obtaining the video. First one is a description & comments - he also posts a link to a short segment. Then he has a follow up article after he has tracked down Delmar Pickett.
slate gets the video
| Quote: | Pickett's Charge In a 1971 CBS News clip, Vietnam vet Delmar Pickett Jr. describes an airport spit incident.
By Jack Shafer
Updated Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Were veterans spat upon as they returned from serving in Vietnam? When Holy Cross College scholar Jerry Lembcke studied the allegations for his 1998 book Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, he found no evidence to back the claim.
Since 2000, I've been using this column to track Vietnam vet spit allegations as they appear in the press, and have found nothing that contradicts Lembcke's basic assessment
<snip>
I ordered the CBS Evening News segment from Vanderbilt and have excerpted the most relevant half-minute from it so it can be viewed here.
Much-decorated Delmar Pickett Jr. has returned to Kansas after two years in Vietnam and is now attending a state university. The segment reprises parts of a January 1971 CBS News dispatch about Pickett's service as a medic in a combat zone, so there can be no doubt of his service. CBS News correspondent Morton Dean reports both segments.
In voice-over, Dean says:
Minutes after arriving back in the states on the West Coast, he got the feeling that no one really cared about where he had been, what he had done.
Then Pickett says:
Man, I got into the airport and these two dudes walked up—one of them spit at me.
Later, Dean reports that the spitting took place in "Seattle."
Oddly, neither Dean nor Pickett provide the context to help viewers judge whether the alleged spitting was an unexpected outrage or a common "welcome home" rained down on vets. Pickett is described as formerly "hawkish" on the war, but now thinks U.S. involvement makes no sense, yet he doesn't come across as a peacenik. His biggest complaint doesn't seem to be the spit incident but about the war apathy he faces. "Nobody really cares" about war, he says, and "nobody seemed interested" in what he did there. He calls U.S. troops in Vietnam a "forgotten Army."
If Delmar Pickett Jr. is still alive, he would be about 59 years old. If you know of Pickett's whereabouts, have him drop me a line ....
|
video clip at that slate link, here is a frame from the clip of Delmar Picket
slate finds Pickett
| Quote: | Delmar Pickett Jr. Stands by His Spit Story
The Vietnam vet maintains he was gobbed at 35 years ago.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, March 7, 2007,
Vietnam veteran Delmar Pickett Jr. stands by the story he told CBS News reporter Morton Dean 35 years ago, which you can view in my March 6 "Press Box." Reached by phone at his home in Wichita, Kan., he speaks of being spat upon inside the Seattle airport while in uniform.
Pickett's personal history challenges the work of Jerry Lembcke, the author of the 1998 book Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, who holds that the spat-upon-vet story is an "urban myth" that took root in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It also challenges the half-dozen columns I've written since 2000 in support of Lembcke's thesis.
In the Dec. 27, 1971, CBS News segment, Pickett tells reporter Dean, "Man, I got into the airport and these two dudes walked up—one of them spit at me."
Today, he remembers the incident in greater detail and a little differently. Pickett says he mustered out of the Army at Fort Lewis, Wash., but wore his uniform to the airport because he didn't have any other clothes for his flight to Denver.
<snip>
That the mainstream press aired Pickett and Minarik's accounts in 1971 show that the spitting-on-vets meme gained greater currency in those early years than Lembcke allows. But it also dispels the notion, held by many of my e-mail correspondents, that the Vietnam-vet spit stories were suppressed by the "liberal media."
Neither the CBS News reporter nor the Post's challenges the soldiers' accounts. This could mean that the reporters took the allegations with a grain of salt. Or it could mean that the reporters were subtly acknowledging that the public was now so opposed to the war that it had become normative for them to communicate that view by spitting on Vietnam vets or spitting at the ground in front of them.
more...
|
emphasis mine
_________________
.
one of..... We The People |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 9:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
who has the credibility here, hmm
a Delmar Pickett, who reported this incident contemporaneously, and who btw has five purple hearts, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, the basic air medal with 25 clusters, air medal with V device, and two Vietnamese Crosses of Galantry VHPA link (hattip KBowman via JustOneMinute)
or..the MYTH guy
wintersoldier.com
| Quote: | Posted April 8, 2004 -- Several non-fans of WinterSoldier.com have written in to decry what they call the "myth" that returning Vietnam veterans were spat upon by leftist protestors. This claim appears to come from an article called The Spitting Image by a Holy Cross sociologist named Jerry Lembcke. The book version features a photo of the Dewey Canyon III medal toss on the cover -- Mr. Lembcke, it turns out, was a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He also seems to be a fan of the Communist Manifesto, and the co-author of a history of the Communist Party USA endorsed by that organization. Perhaps he wasn't really looking all that hard for spitting incidents.
Chicago Tribune writer Bob Greene documented several dozen such events in his 1990 book Homecoming, but Lembcke finds those accounts unpersuasive. His larger purpose, of course, is to obscure the fact that Vietnam veterans were treated with contempt largely because of the atrocity propaganda he himself helped create. |
_________________
.
one of..... We The People
Last edited by kate on Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:36 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 10:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Next posts aren't spitting incidents.. but are some lil ironies. These various government bodies and government representatives must not have read the MYTH guys' book....
The government, of the left coast State of California, which was a center of much of the anti-war activity, has gone on-the-record attesting to the hateful treatment of Vietnam Vets
CaliforniaSenate .Gov
| Quote: |
BILL ANALYSIS AB 187
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY
As Amended: April 3, 2003
SUMMARY : Adds service in the armed forces to the category of characteristics of persons afforded enhanced protection under specified "hate crimes" statutes, and to the definition of "hate crimes" for the purpose of training peace officers in how to respond to these crimes.
1)Author's Statement : According to the author, " Vietnam was a difficult time for the United States, but it was even more difficult for the soldiers who were sent to fight in it. After living through the agony of war, they returned home and were greeted with anger and hostility. While being a United States citizen guarantees us the right to protest and disagree with the soldiers' mission, some people took their discontent beyond free speech and lashed out with violence.
"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.
"Once again, our military personnel have been called to action, and our nation has begun to dialogue over the merits of combat. While this dialogue is acceptable and is the hallmark of the freedom we enjoy, we should not stand for the kind of hate-violence that happened after Vietnam. Vermont has already seen a hate crime committed against one of its military personnel - a uniformed female was pelted with rocks and verbally denigrated as a 'murderer' and a 'baby killer' because she was a member of the armed forces. Fortunately, under Vermont law, assaulting or abusing a soldier because of membership in the military is a hate crime.
"It is time for California to send the same message that it is unacceptable to engage in hateful retaliation against the men and women who risk their lives for freedom. This bill conveys that message, and is a commonsense way for the Legislature to signal its support for the Californians who are serving overseas. |
_________________
.
one of..... We The People
Last edited by kate on Tue Apr 03, 2007 12:45 am; edited 3 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kate
Admin
Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
|
| Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 10:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
there's more
Commonwealth Of Massachusetts
| Quote: | Senate, The Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Special Commission Established
(Under Section 291 of Chapter 351 of the Acts of 1981and most recently revived and continued by Section 81of Chapter 289 of the Acts of 1983) for the Purpose of Making an Investigation and Study of the Concerns of Vietnam War Veterans
DECEMBER 30,1983.
<snip>
Negative Public Image
Obviously, it is fairly impossible to pinpoint a root cause for allthe difficulties encountered by the Vietnam veterans since their return, now quite long ago. Ostensibly, it would seem that the shattering effects of war should be similar for any veteran of any war. Yet the veterans of Vietnam have encountered far more in the way of readjustment problems than those veterans from
previous conflicts.
This Commission is of the opinion that two important differences mark this generation of veterans from others, the fact of guerrilla war and the fact of the negative Homecoming. There are obviously threads of connection from the former to the latter. Our purpose here is to make several facts pertaining to the latter. With this reservation understood, this Commission takes the position and cares to remind all (by way of the following brief synopsis) that one of the principal and general base factors negatively impacting the Vietnam veteran was the hostile Homecoming phenomenon.
As the public attitude toward the war reversed itself after the TET 1968 offensive, so also did the reception accorded to the returning veterans. To be very frank, tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans returning to America from mid 1968 on were verbally and even physically harassed; Vietnam veterans as a group became stigmatized. Further, such stigma came from both segments of a (then) very politically polarized society. At one end of the spectrum, "hawks" chided and rebuked the Vietnam veteran for "losing the war", and for being poor soldiers and harbingers of the permissive society. As for the "Doves," Vietnam veterans were damned as "killers of women and children", the representatives of the old ethnocentric, misdirected, even "criminal" patriotic ideology. Thus, it is no exaggeration at all to say that Vietnam veterans became the all duty scape-goats for virtually every sector of American society, each seeking a way to absolve themselves from responsibility for the war, its outcome, and aftermath. That this was the case is irrefutable; any honest reflection and certainly even the most basic bibliographic research would substantiate that this was the case — part of the inheritance of the Vietnam Decade.
Furthermore, all this was exacerbated by the media in general. In the film industry, in the newspapers, and magazine publications, and especially in television programing, Vietnam veterans at large were (and to a lesser degree still are) portrayed as dangerous pathological figures — menaces to society.
For example, even a cursory glance through any of the old "T.V. Guides" of the early and mid 1970's would show at least one or two shows per month featuring a "drug crazed Vietnam veteran killer" as the principal villian. As several writers pointed out, Vietnam veterans suffered from the "Kojack syndrome", i.e., if a crime has been committed, why then check out all recently discharged Vietnam veterans. In fact Tom Wicker of the New York Times noted in an editorial in 1975 that this new generation of veterans suffered from the ''Vietnam disease".
As noted in Senate Committee reports and elsewhere, many Vietnam veterans "hid" their identity to control the information of their negative status and thus avoid stigma. Residuals of this entire phenomenon (the stigma and the veterans' reaction to it) continue into the present. Many of the veterans who testified before this Commission in its Public Hearing sessions noted that they found it necessary to remove veteran status from their resume in order to secure employment. Further, this Commission in its advocacy role had to intercede in behalf of one veteran where the employment problem (a state civil service position) was directly a result of this stereotypical media image.
It may do to summarize these past ten years by noting that this negative public image created a veritable mountain of negative privilege, heaping one stigma label upon another, so that by the late 1970's, there existed all the makings for a quasi-caste group.
That so many, perhaps up to 75 percent, survived by general standard, i.e., they (the Vietnam veterans) gained some acceptable level of socio-economic status (some have done very well) is a tribute to their survival skills. However, that many collapsed under the pressure at home is a fact as well; as suicide is a fact; as Post Traumatic Stress is a fact; just as the bitter Homecoming and the antecedent guerrilla war were facts. Obviously, this Commission is as pleased as is the entire Vietnam veteran community that this negative social condition is now reversing direction. Interestingly enough, the turning point occurred with the Homecoming of the Iranian hostages in 1981. Several of the embassy staff made comments with regard to the conditions endured by Vietnam veterans. The Vietnam veteran community is grateful; in their opinion these statements embarrassed an entire nation; we believe the atmosphere is changing — for the better.
Of course, Vietnam veterans organizations have been working to that end for years. This Commission has been proud to take its small part in this effort as well. Further, we care to inform all that among those working to change this negative image, none deserve more credit than the Vietnam Veterans Leadership Program. This is certainly the case in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. |
pgs 31-33 of 136pgs pdf
The leftist state of Massachusetts in on-the-record that this treatment of Vets started about 1968, and, that this treatment is irrefutable.
Rather conflicts with the MYTH guy's notion that this was only a MYTH, that surfaced around 1980.
who's got the fork
_________________
.
one of..... We The People
Last edited by kate on Wed Apr 11, 2007 3:46 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
