UPDATED: A reply from the Rag Blog.
A few days ago I asked for your experiences from the anti-war groups during the Vietnam War. Many of you responded about your personal experiences in response to the accusations that these never happened. A few days ago the main editor responded in the article.
I was heavily involved in the movement against the War in Vietnam from its earliest days through its duration — working primarily in Texas, but also in Northern California and New York. I helped organize and attended dozens of demonstrations and public events, including major national actions like the massive March on the Pentagon.
I rarely saw GIs in any way disrespected and never saw a single instance of physical abuse. It was a highly-charged time and certainly there were some idiots out there, but to suggest that there was widespread disrespect towards GIs from within the peace movement is patently absurd.
The Vietnam War became extremely unpopular among the general populace and also within the military itself. There was major opposition — and active resistance — among soldiers in Vietnam.
GIs and returning vets were at the heart of the peace movement and we considered GIs — who were overwhelmingly draftees and many of whom were our childhood friends — to be our brothers and sisters, and to be victims of the system. They were certainly not the enemy.
This is a terribly destructive myth and a disgraceful — and highly political — reinvention of history.
How in the world do you expect us to believe that returning veterans were welcomed by the anti-war groups when people in the current anti-war generations have made it vary vocal to the contrary? Or do you mean the veterans that say want you want them to say?
But the main point is that how can you say that the anti-war groups during the Vietnam War was a friend to US Veterans when the the current one has been anything but?
Update: More comments are coming in.
In the 47 years I have been back from that war, I have yet to find a veteran who can speak first-hand about being spat on or any of the other right wing lies about how the antiwar movement treated veterans. I am sure “Masterspork,” who probably never got closer to combat (assuming he actually ever served) than the “warehouse wars” in Cam Ranh Bay over how many cartons of cigarettes were going to be “lost” for later sale on the black market, can’t tell any first-hand accounts either.
Yea, because I never deployed for 14 months and went on over at least 164 missions in that time.
No one can account for every hippie walking through an airport. But it was the consistent policy of every antiwar group to reach out to soldiers. Why else did we found the Oleo Strutt and a dozen other GI coffee houses?
Yea like Under the Hood? The place where several people used as a place to meet before and after trying to stop the #rd ACR from deploying?Telling them they were going to “Die like Shit”?
But the best one of all.
As a Vietnam War veteran who volunteered and served honorably, I feel I was very naive when I volunteered, but slowly realized that I had been lied to and duped. When I returned I was never accosted or abused by anyone, especially not the students at the University of Texas, or while I traveled; and I never observed this happening to any Vietnam Vet. As to those who say they did, well I just do not believe it. The book mentioned above (The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, New York University Press, 1998) researched and documented the news reports and magazines of the time and never found a report of spitting or calling “Baby Killer.” That line by Unknown (Jul 21, 2012) above, “They shouted “baby killer” and spit on me” is right out of the movie “Rambo: First Blood in 1982 ” where Sylvester Stallone delivers a monologue saying, “”It wasn’t my war. You asked me, I didn’t ask you and I did what I had to do to win, but somebody wouldn’t let us win. And I come back to the world and I see maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting, calling me baby-killer and all kinds of vile crap!” ” The only true part of that is the, “It wasn’t my war.”
UPDATE x2
Your statements are absolutely false. There were many of the lying, so called “Swift Boaters for Truth [sic]” and others who made the statements you did. For this reason VVAW had a strict rule that when we participated in protests we were to always carry our DD214s to prove our service in Vietnam. To this day I still carry a copy of my DD214 and my orders to report to the 5th Special Forces Group when I protest another war. When the liars, Scott Swett, Jerome Corsi, Larry Bailey, and B. G. Burkett, made those claims to me at the 5th Triennial Vietnam Symposium at The Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University, I pulled out my DD214 Burkett waved me off and said, “That doesn’t mean anything, those can be changed.” You can view and hear the SwiftBoat Liars talks here. Note at 1:12:44 Larry Bailey’s response to me when he asked for questions:
Then you can watch the VVAW responses here:
As to your claim, “Anti-War groups were very violent and intolerant of anyone in a military hair cut” you are painting all those who protested the Vietnam mess with the same brush. There were those who, after years of protest, became angry and may have been violent. However, most of it was overblown. And the SwiftBoat Liars tried to say that VVAW and John Kerry were violent, yet the very FBI records that the SwiftBoaters refer to stated very clearly: “The delegations from New England and the East Coast proposed activities a week before Christmas and advocated non-violent civil disobedience.” The VVAW New England and the East Coast were Kerry’s delegations to the VVAW Steering Committee, yet the SwiftBoating Liars used the violent claim against Kerry in the 2004 election, all LIES!
It was the Texas VVAW who helped the GIs in the Oleo Strut Coffee House in Killeen. We were not “intolerant of anyone in a military hair cut,” we were there to help and support them. If you felt that way, I suspect it was your own projection that made you feel that way, because it did not come from the VVAW.
Peace, Terry J. DuBose, 1st Lt. US Regular Army, Airborne, Vietnam 1967-68; Texas VVAW State Coordinator & National Steering Committee, 1970-1972.
Category: Antiwar crowd, Iraq Veterans Against the War
James Dunnigan and Alfred Nofi pretty much destroyed the “overwhelming draftee” Army myth through the judicious use of facts and research. I guess you just can’t teach a hippie
If one wastes the time to read what Mr. Smith wrote, that’s time you’ll never get back.
Smith says this, “The CIA and some U.S. military personnel and political advisers remained in diminished South Vietnam assisting the right wing government in Saigon until April 1975 when the entire country was liberated.” You can’t argue with an asshat who thinks that South Vietnam was “liberated”.
Then there was this, “I was heavily involved in the movement against the War in Vietnam from its earliest days through its duration”, I think the fool meant through it’s conclusion.
But, you could have miles of video of what he says didn’t happen, and show it to him, and he’d a.blame it on the Pentagon. b. say again it didn’t happen.
I forgot to add, this is just yet another attempt to re-write history to conform to what the left wants everyone to think the truth is.
I know this issue was debated here a while ago, but outside of personal anecdotes, I don’t know if it was ever conclusive that there were rampant and specific acts of anti Vietnam veteran hate back then, such as being spit on.
The “Peace Movement” my ass. Waving the Viet Cong’s NLF and North Vietnamese flag during demonstrations along with the shit they pulled was hard to comprehend. They are rewriting history and changing the true story. The flag stuff is conveniently edited (removed) from the sound/picture bites. Fuck them. They are the liars and hypocrites, not the POWs that Jane Fonda accused of being.
Yeah, the vast majority of Nam vets say you peaceniks were mostly acting like scumbags, I’m gonna side with them.
What’s Bill Ayers up to these days?
Adding to UpNorth’s & Beretverde’s comments with this bit of information: Those “returning vets” that were involved in the anti-war movement of the 60’s & 70’s, numerous were known to have been problem child’s in the military to begin with. Usually they caught several AR-15’s in a row and or other non-judicial punishments like burning the outhouse pits, KP duty, ect.
Others went AWOL or escaped from LBJ and headed to Saigon, immersing themselves in the black market, forming or becoming part of any one of the criminal gangs roaming the streets of Saigon, the surrounding area, and the RVN hijacking supply convoys when they could do so safely. Not too many of the gangs cared to risk getting into a firefight with the MP’s escorting the convoy’s.
Troop morale and anti-war sediment within the ranks? Yea, sure there were a few bad apples in the barrel but, this man Smith is full of shit right up to his eyebrow’s. His ilk was and still are, fully funded and supported by communist’s and is one thing that will never change.
As long as Scott Swetts http://www.wintersoldier.com website remains standing and the hippies own 60’s Project website, the truth will always be out in the open and available for anyone wishing to refresh or learn more about the so-called “Peace Movement”.
Echoing Beretverde’s sediment, “Fuck them”!
There are simply too many firsthand accounts of (or firsthand accounts of witnessing) being spit on , being pelted with bags containing urine/feces/blood/paint/etc . . . , and the like to believe the left’s claim that “it never happened” to Vietnam vets. It in fact happened. That’s documented fact.
What’s being attempted by the left here is an Orwellian “rectifying” of history. Thankfully, we don’t yet live in an age where Big Brother controls all forms of information.
Did anyone else notice the one phrase that permeates all anti-war/anti-military thinking? It’s one of the mainstays that you will find in the thinking they use in their literature, movies, protests, and all other manner of their existence. It still lives today and the phrase is: victims of the system.
It’s interesting that someone can claim to have been a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, and yet cheered on the “liberation forces” whose tanks stormed Saigon.
The so-called “peace movement” is a fraud. It always has been.
Vietnam didn’t become a “workers’ paradise” until years later, when Nike built a factory there.
Victims my ass! The enemies of freedom are those idiots.
I think I’m pretty much done listening to hippies like that. The “peace protesters” were anything but and claiming otherwise indicates a person whose personal reality filter won’t accept facts.
The traitors still demanding that they be heard and taken seriously. What a crock.
So, those of us who were there, those of us who have read the first-hand accounts, those who have interviewed people on BOTH sides of those attacks upon our returning warriors, those who have read the court proceedings against the attackers are just to be ignored? Really?? Dream on!
Assuming that his account is even truthful, saying that just because he didn’t personally participate somehow means that an event did not occur is rather like my saying that the murder which occurred last night somewhere CONUS did not happen since I didn’t participate. Again, really?
Believe it or not, you traitors are not the center of the universe which exists only to provide you with whatever makes you feel good about your evil selves. Yeah, I used the e-word to describe you. That is the only word which accurately portrays your complete and willful disregard for the pain you cause others or your intentional desire to inflict pain upon others.
Lying POS. Pardon my French, that’s the most polite response I cold come up with to this garbage. “Cold War” vets of the later 1970s should remember similar if slightly less heated treatment from these scum as well. My older sister was heavily involved in the “peace” movement, one of her boyfriends ended up with the Weathermen. The day I volunteered (in 1976) she told me that, as her brother, she guessed that she still loved me on some level, but that she would never speak to me again because I “had actually volunteered to become one of the baby killers.” Several friends had similar experiences with their lib older siblings, underscoring the intense and rabid hatred these peaceniks had for soldiers. Honorably serving soldiers, that is.
I’m about to leave for my dad’s funeral, followed by internment in a national cemetery – he was a WWII USAAC vet. To be honest, my main thought this morning is how that hallowed ground will be somewhat besmirched by her presence. Yes, the anger is still there, on both sides.
John–I experienced similar to what you said, and while I was never spat upon, the words of ignorance directed towards me and my brothers/sisters at times was no less wounding, insulting, or venomous.
And that was just over a decade ago.
Whenever I run across one of these hard core anti war folks, especially the Vietnam War apologist type I like to recommend a book I read eons ago but which is, at least to me, a fascinating insight in the Soviet Union and the KGB in particular. It is entitled “KGB – The Inside Story” and it is written by a former KGB station chief Oleg Gordievsky. It is a large tome and can make for some dry reading at times but in it you will find such gems as, yes, the Rosenbergs were Soviet agents and everytime somebody ran to their defense it would provoke chuckles within the KGB. Many of the anti Vietnam War groups were funded, encouraged, and in some cases actually created by the Soviets. They didn’t start the anti war movement but when they saw the Americans reaction they couldn’t help but get in on the act. For me the most startling revelation in the book was the reaction inside the KGB and the Kremlin to our invasion of Grenada. That little excursion created more shockwaves inside the Soviet Union then anybody realizes. Suddenly the Soviets realized that the United States had not retreated into a shell and they were not afraid to project their military power. So an event which is pretty much treated as a footnote in American history caused a lot of sleepless nights inside the Kremlin. The book may be hard to find now, it was written over a quarter of century ago, but at a time when the events were still fresh and like I said it won’t be for everybody, but for those who lived through the Cold War it makes for a good read. And even though I’m not a Vietnam era vet, I joined in ’77, I still have a story about some hippie who tried to spit on me in the Atlanta airport in ’78 when I was in my Class A’s with the parents in tow. I was headed to Germany. I say tried cause when he leaned over all that came out was a… Read more »
Quite frankly, I think he is lying about what happened when he was involved with the anti-Vietnam War movement. Leftists routinely lie about factual, historical events if it serves their politics. I don’t believe a word of what he claims.
@14: Remember when we were told to wear civilian clothes, instead of our uniforms, when we traveled? Granted, by the time I entered, that sentiment was starting to change, but it was still there with the old timers.
@ 14 John, I too served in that era. I’m listed as a Viet Nam ‘Era’ veteran, on my DD-214, and got the “old” style GI Bill. I was never spit on but, as Sparky said, the insults still hurt. I think what hurt the most was, when I enlisted, the oath I took didn’t allow me to signify who I wouldn’t defend. I couldn’t say “except for filthy hippies or retarded hair heads”! I swore to defend the United States of America and every citizen here or abroad and the lobs were telling m i was bad or wrong.
Ooops! *LIBS not lobs.
“This is a terribly destructive myth and a disgraceful — and highly political — reinvention of history.”
Agreed. The Rag Blog is doing exactly this when it tries to deny how the “anti-war” movement has treated servicemebers and veterans.
@4 A few months ago I watched a documentary on Viet Nam, I was a child then so I was oblivious to what was going on. I didn’t purposely set out to watch it but it was on and I became riveted and continued to watch. Anyway, the documentary was shown over several nights and there were interviews with Veterans. The raw emotion these vets displayed when commenting on their homecoming was heart wrenching…I was sobbing along with them. There is no way, that a person could make that up!
Did my first two years of ROTC at Kent State (1988- 90) where we got called a “Baby killer!” and harassed on a daily basis… that crud lingered on (“bring the war home” and all that) until 9/11. Right after I enrolled, one of our guys put on his uniform and self-inflicted in his dorm room. Revisionist left/libtards can kiss my ass.
God forbid that my son has to go to war, but if he ever does he will be given the same welcome home that I got from my generation. I remember getting off the plane in Dallas for leave and then again in Bangor Maine again when I came home for good. There was a line of the generations of vets that had come before me that vowed that shit that happened to the Vietnam guys would never happen again. I’ll be damned if it ever happens again.
The only reason that things from the Vietnam generation hasn’t happened again with this generation is that they have learned the right things to say and do.
As others have said that shit continued into at least the early eighties. While stationed at Lowry AFB in Denver from 1977 to 1979, we were also warned about wearing the uniform off base. While walking back to base from downton Denver a couple times had water balloons and a soda cup thrown at us.
So these revisionists conveniently forget the hijacking of an airliner in June 1985, in which a US sailor was killed by the hijackers and dumped out of the plane at the Beirut airport?
Here’s part of the story, from “Stars and Stripes”:
“Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert Dean Stethem was posthumously promoted [in 2010] 25 years after Lebanese hijackers aboard TWA Flight 847 singled him out because of his military status, killing him when their demands were not met.
Stethem’s brother, retired Chief Petty Officer Kenneth Stethem, accepted the honor on Robert’s behalf, according to a Navy news release.
Months ago, the USS Stethem commander, Cmdr. Hank Adams forwarded the promotion request to the master chief petty officer of the Navy after the ship’s chiefs’ mess recommended the honor, the news release said.
Robert Stethem, 23, a Navy Seabee diver, was returning from an assignment when his flight was hijacked by Shiite Muslim extremists of Hezbollah, or “Party of God.” He was shot in the head and thrown on the tarmac at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon.”
It must be nice to have such convenient short-term memory loss.
Concerning the update: Yeah, well, is anyone surprised that he didn’t get spit on at in TX? Shocking. But then, he’s probably lying about that, too.
Stupid, delusional hippies. Wish they would all just quit sucking down air that many of us would prefer to not share with them. Idiots.
I wasn’t in Vietnam, only Iraq…
And I’ve been called baby killer to my face when I turned down a well intentioned peace activists offer to get me out of the rest of my deployment (Sacramento Airport on my way back to Dix following the leave between my mobolization training and departure). If you look online at past protester posters (those in the SF/Berkley area or those outside Walter Reed) you’ll see plenty of the them talking about how soliders are baby killers.
So I guess my point is, that for something that apparently never hapened it sure seems to have been a tool of the tools when President Bush was in office.
I went to the Rag Blog and tried reading some of the stuff they put over there and it is concentrated DU only these people claim to have some scholarly pedigree. As someone once put it what I read there was a level of stupidity that can only be attributed to higher education.
BS meter pegged to the max. I was spit on in LAX. Hippie hit the floor. Voice from behind me(LA LEO)he better be more careful on these slick floors and don’t you have a plane to catch. Back in Texas,People I went to school with from the 8tfh till gradutating high school ,those that went on to college turned their back on me. those went into the work force were still my friends . To tell me this did not happen is a outright lie. Joe
I was in the midst of a break in service when Iraq kicked off. I had fulfilled my 8 years and was getting deeper into my leftyness. I make no apologies for being a liberal, but I started abandoning the shittastic groupthink the left has embraced over the last twenty years after experiences in 2003-2004.
I marched in the anti-Iraq War demonstrations in Rochester, NY. I still had my backpack with all kinds of 101st things sewn on, and some of the twatwaffles from what I can only believe was Code Pink came over and started calling me all kinds of names. The only spit I got on me was from the froth they sprayed whilst yelling at me. If ever I had to resist the urge to kick a woman in the fish, it was that moment.
A year later I went back in. One thing I don’t believe in is that movements or people change. If a Vietnam vet says he was spit on, I believe it, because today’s Summers Eve-alikes certainly do a good job or reproducing the same mentality.
[…] But don’t worry in thirty years people will say that this here was all a myth and never really happened. […]