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.Stabbed in the back! The Past and Future of a Right-wing Myth Kevin Baker; Harper's Magazine; June 2006 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:
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?
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".Generation at the Crossroads: Apathy and Action on the American Campus; Paul Rogat Loeb; Rutgers University Press; 1995; pgs. 77-80 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".Beamish, Thomas D., Harvey Molotch, and Richard Flacks. 1995. "Who Supports the Troops? Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Making of Collective Memory." Social Problems Journal 42 (3):344-60 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."Whose history?; Jewish World Review; September 2, 1998
Given this complete lack of evidence that spitting occurred, but acknowledging that it is impossible to prove something never happened, Lembcke set out:
to show how it is possible for a large number of people to believe that Vietnam veterans were spat upon when there is no evidence that they were. In effect, my strategy was to set aside the question of whether or not such acts occurred and to show why even if they did not occur it is understandable that the image of the spat-upon veteran has become widely accepted. Indeed, given the manipulation of information and images that began with the Nixon administration and continued at the hands of filmmakers and the news media during the 1970s and 1980s, it would be remarkable if a majority of Americans had not come to believe that Vietnam veterans were abused by the anti-war movement.
Synopsis At the time he wrote The Spitting Image, Lembcke had not found a single substantiated media report to support the now common claims of spitting. He theorizes that the reported "spitting on soldiers" scenario was a mythical projection by those who felt "spat upon" by an American society tired of the war; an image which was then used to discredit future anti-war activism and serve political interests. He suggests that the manufactured images of pro-war antipathy against anti-war protesters also helped contribute to the myth. Lembcke asserts that memories of being verbally and physically assaulted by anti-war protesters were largely conjured, noting that not even one case could be reliably documented. He further suggests the "baby-killer" and "murderer" components of the myth may have been reinforced, in part, by the common chants by protesters aimed at President Lyndon Baines Johnson, like "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"
The Spitting Image asserts that the image of abuse of soldiers by anti-war demonstrators only really became ingrained in the American consciousness years after the war had come to a close. Lembcke attributes part of the legend's growth to films relating to Vietnam, notably First Blood, in which a "spat-upon veteran" image is popularized. He writes that the myth of the spat-upon veteran was later revived by President George H. W. Bush as a way to help suppress dissent when selling the Gulf War to the American people. Lembcke believes that resurrection of the myth was useful in promoting the yellow ribbon Support our Troops campaign, as it implies that for one to support the troops, one must also support the war. It conflates the ideas of anti-war sentiment and anti-troop sentiment, despite a common anti-war chant being "Support the Troops: Bring them Home!"
The "spat-upon veteran" meme became so pervasive that some found it hard not to believe. In 1989, Bob Greene's book Homecoming reprinted letters he had solicited, asking to hear from veterans if they had been spat upon. Greene's book includes 63 alleged accounts involving spitting, and 69 accounts from veterans who do not believe anyone was spat upon after returning from Vietnam, among other stories. Greene admits he couldn't validate the authenticity of the accounts in the letters he received, but he did believe spitting must have occurred, stating, "There were simply too many letters, going into too fine a detail, to deny the fact." Greene concluded, "I think you will agree, after reading the letters, that even if several should prove to be not what they appear to be, that does not detract from the overall story that is being told."Homecoming; When the Soldier Returned from Vietnam; Bob Greene; G. P. Putnam's Sons; 1989; Pgs. 10-16 "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. Lembke said, "These stories have to be taken very seriously, but as historical evidence they are problematic. In the first place, stories of this type didn't surface until about ten years after the end of the war. If the incidents occurred when the story tellers say they did, in the closing years of the war, why is there no evidence for that? Moreover, many of the stories have elements of such exaggeration that one has to question the veracity of the entire account."
Lembcke points out that there were several newspaper accounts of pro-war demonstrators spitting on anti-war demonstrators and suggests that these oral accounts could easily have been reinterpreted and inverted and made into stories about activists spitting on veterans. 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. Lembcke also notes how it was older vets from previous wars who most often scorned the returning Vietnam Vets; in 1978 the Vietnam Veterans of America vowed in its founding principle: "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another".A More Perfect Military: How the Constitution Can Make Our Military Stronger; Diane H. Mazur; Oxford University Press, 2010; Pgs. 98-101
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.The Spitting Image; Lembcke, Jerry; New York University Press; 1998; pg. 68 "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."
Reception and influence Reviews A review published in the Los Angeles Times reads: "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 been documented. It is instead, says Lembcke, a kind of urban myth that reflects our lingering national confusion over the war."