The Spitting Image
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The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam is a 1998 book by Vietnam veteran Jeremy Lembcke which attempts to repudiate reports that American soldiers, returning home from the Vietnam War, were spat upon and derided with harsh insults by anti-war protesters. His conclusion is that there was not even a single media report to support the claims. Lembcke claims that the reported "spitting on soldiers" was a mythical projection of those who felt "spat-upon", and was meant to discredit future antiwar activism. He suggests the image of pro-war antipathy against anti-war protestors helped contribute to the image. He asserts that the claims of abuse of soldiers only became ingrained into the American consciousness some years after the war had come to a close; he attributes its growth to films relating to Vietnam, notably Rambo. He says that these claims were used by President George H. W. Bush as a way to help sell the Gulf War to the American people. Lembcke believes that the "myth" is involved in helping to promote the yellow ribbon campaign; it has lead some to think that for one to support troops, one must therefore also support the war, because it ties together the ideas of anti-war sentiment and anti-troop sentiment.
A persistent criticism levelled against those who protested the United States's involvement in the Vietnam War is the complaint that protesters spat upon and otherwise derided returning soldiers, calling them "baby-killers", etc. Lembcke says he found no evidence to suggest this ever happened, and suggests it may have come in part from the common retort made by protestors to President Lyndon Baines Johnson, "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids didja kill today?"
Review of Jeremy Lembcke's book
A Los Angeles Times book reviewer wrote:
- "The image is ingrained: A Vietnam veteran, arriving home from the war, gets off a plane only to be greeted by an angry mob of antiwar protesters yelling, 'Murderer!' and 'Baby killer!' Then out of the crowd comes someone who spits in the veteran's face. The only problem, according to Jerry Lembcke, is that no such incident has ever has been documented. It is instead, says Lembcke, a kind of urban myth that reflects our lingering national confusion over the war." [1] (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0814751474/104-4180380-1500727?vi=reviews)
Cinematic depiction of veterans' experiences
The notion of soldiers being spat upon was featured in a number of American movies, including the Rambo series. According to the Digital History Project at the University of Houston:
- In First Blood (1982), John Rambo captured the pain of the returning veterans: "It wasn't my war--you asked me, I didn't ask you...and I did what I had to do to win....Then I came back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting on me, calling me a baby-killer...." [2] (http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/film.cfm)
- The 1977 movie Tracks features a fictional anti war activist who spits on his opponents.