The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam is a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran and sociology professor Jerry Lembcke. The book is an analysis of the widely believed narrative that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by anti-war protesters upon returning home from the Vietnam War. The book examines the origin of the earliest stories; the popularization of the "spat-upon image" through Hollywood films and other media, and the role of print news media in perpetuating the now iconic image through which the history of the war and anti-war movement has come to be represented.
Lembcke contrasts the absence of credible evidence of spitting by anti-war activists with the large body of evidence showing a mutually supportive, empathetic relationship between veterans and anti-war forces. The book also documents efforts of the Nixon Administration to drive a wedge between military service members and the anti-war movement by portraying democratic dissent as a betrayal of the troops. Lembcke equates this disparagement of the anti-war movement and veterans with the similar stab-in-the-back myth propagated by Germany and France after their war defeats, as an alibi for why they lost the war. Lembcke details the resurrection of the myth of the spat-upon veteran during subsequent Gulf War efforts as a way to silence public dissent.
Origins
A persistent but unfounded criticism leveled against those who protested in opposition to the Vietnam War is that they spat upon and otherwise derided returning soldiers, calling them "baby-killers". During the late 1980s and early 1990s, years after the Vietnam War ended, the proliferation of these spitting stories increased greatly. As both a Vietnam veteran and a member of the anti-war movement, Lembcke knew this criticism ran counter to what he personally experienced and witnessed. To the contrary, one of the hallmarks of the period's anti-war movement was its support for the troops in the field and the affiliation of many returning veterans with the movement. Lembcke was motivated to look further into the truth and origins of this spat-upon veteran myth, and the contradiction between historical fact and popular collective memory. Other observers had already noticed the proliferation of stories and questioned whether the spitting stories even made sense. In 1987, columnist Bob Greene noted:
<blockquote>Even during the most fervent days of anti-war protest, it seemed that it was not the soldiers whom protesters were maligning. It was the leaders of government, and the top generals—at least, that is how it seemed in memory. One of the most popular chants during the anti-war marches was, "Stop the war in Vietnam, bring the boys home." You heard that at every peace rally in America. "Bring the boys home." That was the message. Also, when one thought realistically about the image of what was supposed to have happened, it seemed questionable. So-called "hippies," no matter what else one may have felt about them, were not the most macho people in the world. Picture a burly member of the Green Berets, in full uniform, walking through an airport. Now think of a "hippie" crossing his path. Would the hippie have the nerve to spit on the soldier? And if the hippie did, would the soldier—fresh from facing enemy troops in the jungles of Vietnam—just stand there and take it?</blockquote>
By 1992, the Director of the Connelly Library and curator of the Vietnam War Collection at LaSalle University listed the spitting myth as one of the "Top Six Myths" from the Vietnam era, and observed the myth "derives from the mythopoeic belief that returning GIs were routinely spat upon at some time during their repatriation to the USA. This particular round of tales has become so commonplace as to be treated reverently even among otherwise wisely observant veterans." In 1994, scholar Paul Rogat Loeb wrote, "to consider spitting on soldiers as even remotely representative of the activist response is to validate a lie", and noted that myths like that of anti-war activists spitting on soldiers have rewritten or "erased history". An academic study into the making and shaping of a collective memory found that evidence of antiwar activists targeting troops was virtually nonexistent. Instead, it found popular memory was manipulated by national security elites and a complicit news media by frequently labeling resistors to U.S. war efforts as "anti-troop". As observed by Clarence Page after interviewing Lembcke and Greene, "the stories have become so widely believed, despite a remarkable lack of witnesses or evidence, that ironically the burden of proof now falls on the accused, the protesters; not their accusers, the veterans. Antiwar protesters must prove the episodes didn't happen, instead of the veterans having to prove they did."
Given this complete lack of evidence that spitting occurred, but acknowledging that it is impossible to prove something never happened, Lembcke set out: "Greene was too willing to suspend disbelief", says Lembcke, who cited Greene's book as an example of how prolific the stories had become and also for the patterns that appeared in them. He highlights the contradictions between the collective memory of today and contemporaneous historical records, like the results from a 1971 poll showing over 94% of returning Vietnam soldiers received a "friendly" welcome.
In The Spitting Image, Lembcke acknowledges that he cannot prove the negative—that no Vietnam veteran was ever spat on—saying it is hard to imagine there not being expressions of hostility between veterans and activists. "I cannot, of course, prove to anyone's satisfaction that spitting incidents like these did not happen. Indeed, it seems likely to me that it probably did happen to some veteran, some time, some place. But while I cannot prove the negative, I can prove the positive: I can show what did happen during those years and that that historical record makes it highly unlikely that the alleged acts of spitting occurred in the number and manner that is now widely believed."
A review published in The Berkshire Eagle called the book "Well-argued and documented."
Christian G. Appy of The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote that "Lembcke's debunking of the spitting stories is quite persuasive. But he has much broader aims. Not only was there no spitting, he argues, but there was no hostility or tension at all between veterans and protesters. In fact, he characterizes their relationship as 'empathetic and mutually supporting.' ... My own view is that the spitting stories are largely mythic, but that the myth itself reflects the deep anger and animosity that many veterans harbored toward the antiwar movement. Their anger often reflected a sense of class injustice that gave their more privileged peers greater freedom to avoid the war. ... I base my conclusions on extensive interviews I have conducted with Vietnam veterans since the early 1980s. Lembcke, however, gives no credence to the possibility that veterans themselves played a role in creating the myth of antiwar spitters, or that the myth teaches us anything meaningful about the class and wartime experiences of veterans. For him, the myth is almost entirely a product of Hollywood and right-wing politicians."
Mary Carroll of Booklist wrote that Lembcke "makes a strong case that tales of antiwar activists spitting at returning vets are myth. ... He notes that contemporary media, government, and polling data show no evidence of antiwar spitting incidents; the few events reported had supporters of the war targeting opponents. But later studies reported hostility toward veterans; "the spitting image" epitomized that narrative. Similar images were common in post-World War I Germany and France after Indochina; Lembcke suggests the Nixon administration cultivated this notion of betrayal because it stigmatized both the antiwar movement and veterans against the war." 2004, and again in 2007, journalist Jack Shafer rekindled firestorms when he berated news media outlets for uncritically repeating the myth of the spat-upon veteran. Shafer's Slate Magazine online articles on the matter, which frequently cited Lembcke's research, generated enormous feedback; the May 2000 article alone received nearly 300 postings on the subject in just a few days, one of its largest-ever responses.
According to Shafer, the myth persists primarily because:
- "Those who didn't go to Vietnam—that being most of us—don't dare contradict the 'experience' of those who did;
- The story helps maintain the perfect sense of shame many of us feel about the way we ignored our Vietvets;
- The press keeps the story in play by uncritically repeating it, as the Times and U.S. News did;
- Because any fool with 33 cents and the gumption to repeat the myth in his letter to the editor can keep it in circulation. Most recent mentions of the spitting protester in Nexis are of this variety."
Shafer acknowledges that it's possible that a Vietnam veteran somewhere might have been spat upon during the war years, and notes that Lembcke concedes as much because nobody can prove something never happened. Shafer announced a challenge to his readers, "Indeed, each time I write about the spit myth, my inbox overflows with e-mail from readers who claim that a spitting protester targeted them while they were in uniform. ... If you can point me to a documented case of a returning Viet vet getting spat upon, please drop a line."
Likewise, Lembcke joined the discussion and also commented on it in the Humanity & Society journal, saying the stories just keep getting better, and asking for any evidence to be raised. The discussions spawned yet another round of more than 60 stories, yet only one was credible. Lembcke provided an 18-point response to Lindgren's research, offering rebuttals to most of his claims and expressing interest in one of them.
Some second-hand news accounts that mention spitting do actually exist, although there has been no evidence to support the narrative that anti-war demonstrators were responsible. Documented accounts exist where the anti-war demonstrators were actually the victims, not the perpetrators. Other commentators have since addressed the myth to various degrees, even referencing the debate spawned by the Slate files.
In his 2009 book War Stories, historian and Vietnam veteran Gary Kulik devoted a whole chapter to the myth of "Spit-upon veterans". He closely examined Greene's book of letters and the Slate files, as well as the research by Lindgren and Lembcke. Kulik noted the contradictory nature of the stories in Greene's book and concluded that Greene arrogantly dismissed the "surprising number" of veterans who "refuse to believe" the spitting stories, and wrote, "Greene was not just credulous, but negligently irresponsible." Kulik also criticized Lindgren's research, writing, "Lindgren's evidence includes only one single first-person ("I was spit upon") account—the stories that are at the heart of Lembcke's book—and it appears the none of the accounts he cites were actually witnessed by a reporter. Moreover, Lindgren does not cite a single case of a Vietnam veteran spit upon as he returned home, and that was the story that would ultimately be repeated and believed." Kulik concluded that the spitting stories were formulaic and unbelievable, and were propagated to serve the political goals of those who wished to vilify the anti-war movement. "The image of 'hippie' men and women hawking up gobs of phlegm to hurl at the ribbons of veterans, as a pervasive and commonplace act, is surely false."