Was disrespect for Vietnam veterans just confined to the Left?

[bluestateguy]

Once again, this is another of those matters where I need information from the people who lived through that era.

We always hear, mostly from the Right, how Vietnam veterans were mistreated by anti-war Americans upon their return from the war. Perhaps this is true, perhaps it is not, or maybe the evidence is very spotty and anecdotal. In any event, I can remember back in high school (this was in 1992) when my history teacher brought in two Vietnam veterans to speak to the class. I remember one of them saying how he was also verbally abused by right wing war hawks just as much as from lefty anti-war activists. He said that the right wingers would sometimes trash him for being the "first Americans to lose a war" and that they "let America down".

So to you Boomers and earlier generations, I ask, did Right wingers engage in this kind of abuse of Vietnam veterans as you remember it? Mind you, I'm talking about ordinary citizens, not politicians.

[LynnTheDem]

1. Another rightwingnut MYTH.

The anti-war protestors didn't disrespect the troops and the ONLY documented abuse was by RIGHTWINGERS who spat on & threw things at ANTI-war WWII soldiers who were marching AGAINST the war.

[Pinboy]

19. Absolutely NOT a myth

After having half my jaw and teeth blown away by AK fire in Vietnam, I was riding a bus on my first pass from Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco when a woman on the bus began yelling at me, calling me "baby-killer" and other names. I know a lot of other vets who were abused by people who who could not "separate the war from the warrior."

At the same time, Vietnam veterans were not considered eligible for membership in the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) for several years because the organization held that that war was a "police action" rather than a "declared" war. When we were admitted, I often heard comments from vets of WWII that "WE didn't lose OUR war," and that Vietnam vets were just a bunch of "whiners" and "crybabies". And those specific quotes are ones I heard in the late '80s.

It's not a matter of villifying or defending the left or the right, but of being intellectually honest about the things that did occur in those times.

[LynnTheDem]

24. Absolutely a myth.

Can you find one single news article from the time that documented even one single incident?

I'm sure there were the isolated occurances. VERY few. Otherwise at least ONE such incident would have been reported. And none were.

[bowens43]

2. Many of those anti-war protesters WERE Vietnam vets....

[izzie]

3. My problem was I lived in the middle of the biggest military ------

place in the US at that time. The service was treated very well. That was in SC. We were seeing service people who were getting mad at the war. Low key but it was around. We and the service man seemed to see the fibs of the govt. and how it was killing and hurting the service.I recall the scuttlebutt around was if you are going to protest do not wear your uniform.

[porphyrian]

4. If the Right had respect for the soldiers they sent to Vietnam...

...they would've sent enough to win, or they wouldn't have sent them at all. However, the Right is far less concerned about humanity than they are about their own profit. The crime of the Left was to blame the soldiers for what happened, and most of us have figured that out by now.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. A RW lie

My brother served two tours in Viet Nam, and when he came home, either I or my parents met him at the airport. I was an anti-war protestor at the time, and I guarantee if ANYTHING disrespectful had been done to my brother, I would have seen it or heard about it right away.

What I DID hear and see were movies and TV shows showing Viet Nam vets as being warped in some way--but these came on, as I recall, years after we were out of Viet Nam. Can't say I know whether the writers of such stuff were right or left wing.

My neighbor is a Viet Nam vet who came back from 'Nam in '68 and joined VVAW. I think he had a lot of hassles in Texas from his anti-war activies, from what he's said.

[nashville_brook]

6. this is a fairy tale. hippies didn't spit on GIs.

Salon, I think had a piece on this a coupla years ago.

[Blue_In_AK]

11. I was a hippie, anti-war protester

and I never even came close spitting on a returning GI -- I dated a few, but that's another story.

[nashville_brook]

12. they asked for it

;)

[DefenseLawyer]

7. There was an interesting book

written on this very subject in the late 90's called The Spitting Image. It does a very thorough job of debunking the myth about war protesters.

http://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=215

[nashville_brook]

14. i think the salon piece i was referring to was a review of this book

or an interview with the author.

[TomClash]

8. It was the liberal dems who did the most to help vets after the War

[Warpy]

9. NO! The right was far worse.

The shattered human beings who came back from that war didn't fall into line and go back to work at the local gas station. They forgot to keep up their buzz cuts, drank to try to get some sleep uninterrupted by nightmares of what they'd been through, petitioned the VA for help that was not forthcoming, both for PTSD and for the aftereffects of being sprayed with Agent Orange, and were despised by the Archies on the right as a bunch of crybabies.

The right failed to index the GI Bill to inflation, fully fund the VA system, acknowledge their debt to the kids they'd sent to be ruined by that war (if they survived it), and worked to suppress wages so that they never had any hope of a better life, even if they did manage to come to terms with what they'd been through.

Stupid children on the fashionable left (mostly high school brats, from what I saw) called them names. What the right did was make sure their lives would stay ruined.

I think that's worse.

[illflem]

10. When I returned disgusted from 'Nam in 1967 San Francisco

after two tours there were tons of protesters at the airport, none were spitting. Many came up and welcomed us home. Since I had no family in SF I ended up going home with some protesters. The rest was 180° turn in my personal evolution.

[Ready4Change]

13. Returning Vets were between a rock and a hard place.

If they returned and didn't protest the war, anti-war activitists hated them. If they returned and DID protest the war, pro-"america" activitists hated them.

Guys go to a foreign land to do their duty, and return to a homeland turned foreign. Many of them still haven't been allowed to really return home.

[nashville_brook]

15. and they get back with PTSD and the military denies their condition is

service-related. lived in a VA town. had lots of Vietnam Vet friends. they taught me a lot.

[Coastie for Truth]

16. Subtleties about the right wing

In 1968-1972 the nation was in turmoil over "quotas" and "affirmative action" - especially at the most prestigious medical schools and law schools. This was just as the biggest cohort of VietNam veterans were trying to get their heads together.

"Affirmative action" and "quotas" was the racially divisive excuse thrown at many returning vets when they did not get into law school or medical school. This should be compared to the aftermaths of WW2 and even Korea - where the discrimination was in favor of the returning vets.

Also, this was before these institutions had female and African-American and Latino admissions counselors. The admissions deans were - predominantly - Andover/Exeter blue blood preppies who had gone on to Yale or Princeton.

The perception among the returning vets was that these blue bloods were discriminating against them as veterans, were not really admitting minorities, and were instead favoring their own non-veteran blue bloods (like Bush).

Additionally, a standard line for veterans at job interviews (from clearly "Organization Man" GOP interviewers) was "If you are so smart and so well qualified -- how come you were dumb enough to volunteer/be drafted?"


AND DON'T BELIEVE THE "SWIFTIES FOR TRUTH" - THAT THIS WAS A RESULT OF KERRY'S TESTIMONY ---> THIS WAS GOING ON WELL BEFORE KERRY'S TESTIMONY BEFORE CONGRESS -- AND KERRY'S TESTIMONY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH

--"COASTIE FOR THE TRUTH" IS TELLING THE TRUTH ON THIS ISSUE


BEEN THERE - DONE THAT - BOUGHT THE T-SHIRT

[Warren Stupidity]

17. its bullshit

a huge segment of the antiwar movement was vets. This was all part of the mythology the right concocted (successfully of course) to divert away from the fact that we fought the wrong war for the wrong reasons and we lost. It was part of 'the lefty liberals made is lose the war' bullshit.

The other half of the diversion was the POW-MIA crap. Somebody explain to me what frigging motivation Vietnam had for keeping POWs after the war was over.

[penpal7]

18. got home in 69 after two tours

got into treasure island in the wee hours of the morning, they shoved us on a bus and took us to processing where we got a choice to be mustered out at any base we chose, then we were loaded onto a bus and taken to the airport where we were dispursed all over the unites states, a week later I was home in the woods wondering just what the fuck happened , no thanks, kiss my ass from the government, no support the troops pat on the back, people back home just wondered where i had been and asked what't it like over there, most of the protesting I saw was done over in viet-nam by us when we were trying to figure out what the hell we were doning over here. Oh about two years later the government sent us all a coupel hundred bucks for some reason, guess they felt guilty we went through that shit, I didn't join the protesters and I didn't blame them for what they were doing, there was no reason to be in viet-nam, much like Iraq, I feel sorry for those kids comming home, we will pat them on the back give them parties but you can't erase what the saw or did that they will have to live with. After 2000 years we still can't figure out how to get along without killing each other.

[illflem]

20. Belated welcome home fellow VV

and welcome to DU!!!!!!!!!!!

[penpal7]

21. thanks man

you know in over thirty years thats the first "thanks" i've gotten, there are more of us out there, anyway thanks for the thanks.

[Pinboy]

22. Welcome Home, Brother!

And welcome to DU, from another "newbie".

We're still working toward the goal: " . . . where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning."

[hamerfan]

23. Thank you Vets, and Welcome Home...

I was living in Oakland, CA from 1970-1975. This is where most troops flew in to. I was age 15-20 during this time and a dope smoking anti-Vietnam War protester/patriot. What I remember:
No, no one I knew (or saw on TV) ever degraded or disrespected the troops coming home, although there were lots of anti-war protesters around. Can you imagine what would happen to some wasted anti-war type who tried spitting on a returning serviceman? Again, no one I knew wanted to get the snot stomped out of him by some war-hardened soldier. As much as we were against the war, our self-preservation instinct was still in control and we knew better than to blame the troops for the actions of their commanders!
I do remember the VFW not allowing the Vietnam Veterans to join their outfit as the Vietnam War (in their eyes) was not a war. Go figure....

[Cleita]

25. I don't remember any vets being mistreated and I lived in

a very liberal area, Santa Monica, California. I think though they weren't treated like returning heroes as they had been in previous wars. They were ignored and most returning vets didn't want to talk about it anyway.

I was bartending at the time and every now and then one of them would open up after a few beers and talk about their experiences. No one was ever rude or disrespectful to them that I recall. I also remember the Jane Fonda debacle in Hanoi and every guy to a one disapproved of what she did although she would end up living in our community in the future because Tom Hayden, her future husband, was our Congressman for many years.

[pretzel4gore]

26. what was the war about?

i know indo china was a french colony and france wasn't able to muster political will against 'communists' and lost out at bien bien phu(sp) etc...so US had to step in during eisenhower era...but what did the US hope to gain? Ho Chi Minh was a commie, and a nationalist, but he also was an admirer of the US, western culture and so on, and it seemed the war was wrong just from the fact vietnam was a poor ex colony and US was a nuke power which would soon put men on the moon....
i think vietnam vets have tried to figure out the answer, some of them, and only answer truly is some kind of exploitation right hiding behind the anticommunism which was what the western powers called everyone who wanted control over their own land...

[Cleita]

27. There was a belief at that time that no nation could go

Communist, no matter what. The French warned us not to go in, that the regimes we would be backing were very corrupt, but we did it anyway. Go figure.