BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Troll
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 06:00 AM

"Nothing is sacred" is OK but some people go out of their way just to be nasty. There is a big difference between the two concepts.
One indicates a sense of irreverence.
The other indicates a defective personality.

troll

'Spaw, Mick, right on.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 11:43 AM

Ah yes, Real Warriors, Real Bards, manly men. Complete with long suffering women who perpetually grieve for them as their preferred form of worship. Heroes and sheroes all, those who are on the side of the Real Warrior. And for those who aren't, well it is obvious. They are The Enemy the Real Warrior must hunt down in thread after thread, to "regularly go after" until victory is his. For the Real Warrior has the unshakable certainty of their own moral superiority, and the certainty of victory. In an internet discussion forum.

There are now over 150 repetitive posts to this thread. A reasonable person might consider giving it up and letting it go.

A bit of a quagmire syndrome taking hold here, perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Big Mick
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 12:12 PM

Go back to the Crumb thread. At least there you have some depth. Seems as though you can be quite coherent, even intellectual, when you want to be. You are the one who keeps this thing going.

As far as your condescending comments about my wife; it is fortunate for you that you didn't say them with her around. She would immediately peg you for the self righteous ass that you are. She neither grieves for me in a "enabling" way, nor is she indifferent to vets and the problems many face.

You have finally said what it is that really bothers you. You are a very cynical person, hence you don't deal with sincerity very well. It really bothers you that someone would claim the title of Warrior, and Bard. Perhaps the terms have come to mean something to you, that they don't mean to me. I use them in the street level sense. A warrior, to me, is simply a fighter in a cause. A warrior has achieved a certain level of competence in the fight, and pursued that with honor. Now.....there is another term that will cause you a problem. Honor. I don't apologize for valuing this. It is what separates Gandhi from Hitler, the bully from the decent person. If you are a Celt, then you should understand why I use the term Bard to describe those that try to make a difference with their music. If you are not, try to find out. I am not trying to create a romantic vision with either term. Rather I am trying to use them in the real, working, sense that they are meant to be used.

Tired of the quagmire? Quit contributing to it. But you won't be able to help yourself. That's OK. Tell you what. You stop posting, and so will I. In fact, I think I will no matter what you do. You have shown yourself for what you are.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 01:17 PM

If you truly believe I have shown myself for what I am Big Mick, then nothing I say should bother you. Then, you wouldn't feel compelled to respond to my posts, or to hunt down posts by anon. guests in different threads. Which is what makes this whole sordid thing an obsession with you, and this charade your personal vendetta, not an honorable crusade. There is a fine line between the two. Look behind you.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: mg
Date: 18 Nov 02 - 10:30 PM

ah you left the ladies out again. I hate it when they do that. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 10:16 AM

An attack of last worditis, Mary?

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 05:47 PM

I think it's interesting that in Adam's post he points to what the spitting "stands for." What people don't bring up much is that "spitting on" people is both a real activity (expectorating saliva) and a metaphor. If you read this long thread, you'll see that many people, in arguing that VV were spit on, are speaking metaphorically.

It is impossible to tell when someone says "I came back to peace activists spitting on me" whether this is literal or metaphorical, and this is surely a factor in the accounts of this activity being so much more widespread than the documentation plausibly supports. The author of "The Spitting Image" also explains the spitting in terms of what it stands for, psychologically, mythologically, metaphorically. This is crucial to understanding the meaning of all these stories.

Stories about getting spit on, whether they are true or not, hold certain meanings for and to people in our society. The image of the spit-on VV is a myth, not in the sense of a misconception, but in the sense of story that cuts to the heart of our society and exposes some crucial meanings. It is also a "mythology" in Barthes's sense, that is, not a falsehood but something that comes to stand in a grand way for the ultimate in something: Einstein's Brain is a mythic representation of intelligence, just as the spitting anti-war protestor is a mythic representation of betrayal. Einstein really was smart, and some assholes really did spit, but why do these images mean more than, say, Tesla's brain or anti-war protestors embracing veterans? We don't say "who do I look like, Tesla?" when we can't figure something out, and we don't picture weeping people embracing uniformed soldiers when we think of anti-war activists, but both images would be appropriate, just as "true" are their mythic counterparts.

In the end, it doesn't necessarily matter "how true" a myth is, or even how often it really happened. If you, like troll, were one of the victims then you may be justifiably angry. But this is true of someone who got robbed by a black person, too, and it is still true that the mythic image of the thieving black person is unfair. No, what really matters is how we process it. Is resisting the government's attempt to make war REALLY tantamount to spitting on a veteran, or is that just what Nixon and/or Bush would want us to feel?

With respect to all who lived through that era, as I did not.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Nov 02 - 06:07 PM

What a lucid post, Nerd. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Troll
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 04:42 AM

Nerd, if I gave you the impression that I was spat upon, I was not. When I said "some of US were", I was lumping myself with the whole body of veterans.

I hope this clears up and confusion that my choice of phrasing may have caused to you or anyone else on the Forum.

The two veterans that I know who were spit upon were physically spit upon. There was nothing allegorical about it. One was called a "baby killer" and the other was just spit on.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Nerd
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 09:34 AM

Thanks Troll. As I said, some were physically spit at. But others (like Larry Otway) have used the spit image as a metaphor (I believe he said you could change the p to an h and it would still be true!)

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST,The O'Meara
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 12:25 PM

"For every complex question, there is an answer that is simple, elegant, and wrong."

OK, I'm a Vietnam Veteran. I was also active in the Vietnam Vets Against the War, in the Washington, D.C. area in the very early 70s. Please note that it says Against THE War, not Against War. I have never been a pacifist, but I could not allow more people to be killed in a war we would never win if I could help it.

As for being spit on, that has been used often by VVets as a symbol of the attitude we felt from those around us when we came back from Vietnam. Those who supported the war, the John Waynes, suspected people were dying for no good result, and the anti-war people, the Jane Fondas, suspected their activities were in fact prolonging the war. None of them could handle dealing with their own guilt and the last thing they wanted was an actual Vietnam Vet around to bring up the problems. So we were pushed away.

The attitude I felt was a subtle but effective shunning, especially devastating when it came from my immediate family and old friends. ("Call me sometime, we'll do lunch.") My old buddies wanted to drink beer and talk football, but running through my head were memories of blood and death and thoughts of betrayal and unanswered questions. Their response was to push those things, and me, away. "You don't know how to have fun anymore."

There's no "fault" involved here, no one knew what was going on down in the mind's secret corners. None of us understood that for the first time in history the private soldier was being held accountable for his actions in the insane world of combat, and being blamed for somehow causing the war in which we were, at best, victims.

Thats too much for most of us to explain, or even to understand, so instead we said we were "spit on."

I'm sorry, but I can only talk about Vietnam in short bursts, and I have to get away from it now. Maybe I'll have more later.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 01:38 PM

Nerd and O'Meara........Thank you both for some excellent postings.

I was trying to make that point earlier and you have both phrased it far better than I was able to do. There were peace people who saw every vet as a "baby killer" and vets who saw every protester as someone spitting on them.

O'Meara, I understand your friends reticence as many I'm sure had no idea how to even begin to talk about it with you. As for me, in many of the groups I was in, vets against the war had a special status. Perhaps too, that was because I was never too involved in pacifism or pacifist groups either, but rather I was against THAT war...as were most vets. And as far as people talking to you, I ran into the same thing from the other end. When I was released from Petersburg, no one knew what to say to me......different reasons of course, but you do feel alone.

One other thing O'Meara.......Welcome back...Glad you made it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 02:12 PM

If you have ever had cancer, you have likely suffered from the same sort of alienation and disconnect from friends and family as Vietnam Vets experienced. For those who experience such painful life altering events, there is always an adjustment period, when they learn to accept no one, except those who have also been through the same experience, will ever be able to understand their experience.

People with cancer often describe how, once they have "come out" about having cancer, they are treated like lepers. People the cancer patient once considered reliable family, friends, and colleagues, often disappear and are mysteriously no longer available when needed. The cancer patient, or the divorced person, or parent of a murdered child, or person with a SO murdered, or survivors of concentration camps, of being bombed and living in a war zone--any number of people who have gone through such traumatic, life changing events, knows when they are being ostracized because of it, and can easily identify it when it is happening to them.

That said, for survival sake, most people who have survived such experiences also learn they must move on, and do just that. If they don't, they become lifelong sufferers of acute and chronic diseases, and mental health disorders.

The problem I have with this whole VV thing here in Mudcat is this. It has been just over 27 years since the last guys came home from Vietnam. I know PTSD, and health problems associated with their service (like Agent Orange exposure) has lasting effects. But so do many other life altering experiences such as those I describe above. Vietnam Vets don't own the market for suffering, or for being shunned.

My position is, after 27 years, anyone getting as vociferous as those here claiming military service in Vietnam, getting all up in people's faces with these "we were spat upon" sort of claims, is merely using the Vietnam Vet as victim ploy for manipulative power mongering and point scoring in arguments in internet discussin forums.

If I seem unsympathetic to the Vietnam Vet as victims here in Mudcat, it is because I am unsympathetic to people using their service in this way online. There is no shortage of VV wannabees in the web world, and I take all Mudcat claims of military service in Vietnam with huge grains of salt, just as I would in any online discussion forum where the diatribes got busy dissing each other.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: dwditty
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 06:52 PM

Oh Baby

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From:
Date: 20 Nov 02 - 07:10 PM

The reason the horse is still getting flogged is, it isn't dead. We're still fighting Vietnam over here, in the sense that I get 80% young republicans, probably parroting parents, sitting in my composition class saying it was a noble cause, or we lost because we fought a limited war, or because of Jane Fonda et al. I don't think anybody who wasn't there is entitled to an opinion about the veterans' experience (I was, I thank God, too young), but all Americans need to think through the experience, as we show signs of getting ready to repeat at least some of the errors. And not just Americans -- when we sneeze, the rest of the world gets pneumonia. So talk it up, those who know; decent folk will recognize those who don't for the sacks they are, and listen respectfully.

Adam

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Troll
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 05:24 AM

GUEST, may I suggest that you look at your post of 02;12 PM and in place of "Viet Nam Vets" put the words "rape victim" or "victim of sexual (or child) abuse".
Gives it a different read doesn't it?

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 08:12 AM

Actually troll, it doesn't give a different read at all. I expect that after 27 years, trauma has either been integrated into one's life experiences, or the psyche has disintegrated, and the identification of self as victim has become pathological. That is the mark of a disturbed individual.

Adam, I question your "80% young republicans" figure, and I rather think your class time would be better spent teaching composition, than discussing Jane Fonda.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From:
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 09:30 AM

The students do the discussing, and I never thought it was my place to silence them, though I'll grant there's a substantial body of opinion that insists the function of education is to prevent thinking. I'll further grant there are those who think that the teaching, specifically, of writing should avoid dealing with ideas, especially difficult ones, and stick to grammar and punctuation. But it is very difficult to find any such who actually teach composition. A lot of them teach business, and would not be happy if I were to insist that economics courses should stick to teaching these people to balance a checkbook. Occasionally, they will approve controversial prompts like: "Resolved: dogs on the loose are a nuisance" (actual topic from my high school text). And most of the people who think this way are, no surprise, cultural conservatives, Republicans.

Composition is the inheritor of rhetoric, and discussion of controversial topics is used to explore the arts and techniques of proof, demonstration and persuasion, what's valid and effective, and what's the reverse. I assure you, 80% is no exaggeration. The current generation is remarkably blinkered. But when the disproportion is on the other side, then the socratic method/devil's advocate role requires me to switch. For classroom purposes, I do my best to check my own beliefs at the door -- if I'm doing my job as I think I ought, they'll end the semester with no clear idea what my beliefs are. But that doesn't stop me from expressing my frustrations elsewhere.

Adam

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 09:59 AM

Adam, while I applaud your commitment to quality education, your claims of "80% Republican" still suggests your grasp of statistics to be in the rudimentary manipulative stage. BTW, one of the many worst things you can do as a teacher is check your beliefs at the door. That just makes you an empty suit of clothes, doesn't it?

Seems to me you are more worried about your opinions influencing your paycheck, than anything else.

I would be quite pleased if my children's composition teacher was using meaningful, timely topics for assignments. While I can appreciate some teachers do work in Republican controlled precincts, creative minds have been getting around cultural conservatism in the classroom for decades. It isn't nearly as large an obstacle as your fear of speaking your mind in your workplace seems to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Nerd
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 11:11 AM

GUEST do you teach college classes? I do, and I think I know exactly where Adam is coming from. It's not that he's "afraid to speak his mind" or "afraid to lose his job," it's that once your students know exactly what your position is, many of them will start to mirror it in hopes of getting an A. This kills effective discussion of the issue.

Students, even at great Universities, are grade-driven rather than idea-driven these days, and will repeat whatever you tell them, even if you hint that they should not do so. In some areas, where I will be quite clear that my theoretical position is unusual or innovative (after all, I have my own research), my students will answer exam questions as though my own position were the accepted and normative one within my discipline.

In short, Adam is protecting the discussion, not his ass. In my own classes, I usually also avoid directly stating my political positions for this reason. If a student asks me privately, or if it comes up in a discussion where it's relevant, I will own up to my positions, but generally I keep them out of discussions.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From:
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 02:02 PM

Well, I hadn't offered the statistic as scientific, just as illustrative of why the meaning of Vietnam remains a live issue, especially in an academic setting, where arriving at some rational basis for interpreting events is important. It's what we do. I'm very sure that a substantial majority of our students interpret Vietnam in ways that offer no real challenge to a traditional understanding of the U.S. as occupying the moral high ground, and those who were critical of the war as somewhere on a spectrum ranging from misguided to treasonous.

I'll amend to, "my perception, based on the positions taken by those speaking in class, is about 4/5 identify with culturally conservative positions." Our campus has a student voting precinct, and they go very heavily republican, though not quite to the degree the surrounding (rural) areas do. A really systematic approach would want to correlate party affiliation/ideological identification with indices of political participation, from reading through voting to letter-writing and active campaigning. But I'll stick to my guesstimate as such. Anyhow, studies indicate that 89.53% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Adam

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 02:14 PM

Nerd, I trust your (again) lucid post isn't a description of some of the best things about higher education?

I teach community ed classes p.t. geared to high school students on post sec options, including some writing classes for college application essays.   

It hasn't been that long since I was in college myself. My best classes were with professors and lecturers, tenured and non, who were open and honest about their beliefs--and not just their political beliefs. There was also no shortage of professors and lecturers who were dishonest about them, for whatever reasons, and those who were oddly silent. So my experience in the mid-90s was one where the openness/secretiveness about people's belief was no different than it is in any workplace. There is a widespread belief amongst teachers and professors, I think, that students will do anything for an A, but that was never my experience as a student either. There were plenty of students whose main interest was in getting their money's worth out of their education, considering the cost of tuition these days.

Obviously, people's mileage varies in this regard.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 02:31 PM

Adam:

Made up or not, 4 of 5 I think says more about your employer than 18 to 22 years old college kids in general. I went to Virginia Commonwealth University in downtown Richmond. VCU is a state supported university, with a high percentage of minorities in the student body and staff.

I would think that percentage of conservative kids on your campus would be offset in the political leanings of the kids who now attend VCU.

And, no, I'm not getting back into this thread on the *spitting-non-spitting* issue, troll. Just thought since the thread has drifted, I drop in with my two cents worth.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From:
Date: 21 Nov 02 - 03:56 PM

Bobert, it truly does me good to hear it. I would be very glad to think of the situation I described as an outlier, and any generalization I might draw from it as distorted. I'm really not with the gloom'n'doom view; things do have a way of cycling back around. Just hope the lights don't stay out TOO godawful long this time.

Adam

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 01:05 PM

Adam, as to balancing your rural Republican students--there is not only the large urban youth votes going heavily Green and to the "democratic wing" of the Democratic Party. Look at who is in the streets demonstrating against the war on terrorism, globalization, and the war on Iraq. It isn't all middle aged hippies from the 60s by a long shot. The half million demonstrators in Europe recently were overwhelmingly in their late teens and twenties. Same with the demos bringing out the numbers around the US. The anti-war resistance movement is being led by youthful leaders as often as more experienced older leaders. And the confrontational anarchists have been successfully marginalised by the mainstream movement post-9/11, without having divided the movement or weakening it.

No, this is already a much more formidable movement today than the anti-Vietnam War movement was at it's post-72 height, when the anti-war movement's efforts began to take effect, and the war began winding down. This is a movement that I believe will be able to keep Bush in check, so long as the UN inspectors get enough cooperation from Iraq.

I just hope that the movement will then be able to turn itself to the seriousness of the need for a revitalized disarmament movement, to deal realistically with the post-Cold War realities of the arms race which is winding it self up, not down. I believe there is no greater danger to world security than weapons of mass destruction. But I was in the streets demonstrating against that, and working to pass ballot initiatives against the military build-up of weapons of mass destruction, throughout the 1980s. This business of going after Iraq for their weapons of mass destruction is nothing more than a smokescreen for the Bush administration to get into the Middle East, and control the oilfields. It has nothing to do with the administration's concern for the threat of weapons of mass destruction to world security. Nothing whatsoever.

Subject: RE: BS: Were Vietnam veterans spat upon?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Nov 02 - 02:56 PM

Hmmm - this is a complicated discussion. The "issues" are often not what they seem.

I figure that every war has at least two issues involved. One would be the issue that causes the Grand High Poobahs (those who play the King Game)to start the war, (economics, greed, territory, etc.) and the other a reason for the "common people" to support the war and fight in it. Often this latter issue is different for the adversaries. In the U.S. civil war, it was to abolish slavery for the north, but to halt northern agression for the south. (Please allow me to be a bit simplistic for the sake of discussion.) In the book "The Killer Angels" by Jeff Shaara, about the battle of Gettysburg, there is an incident in which northern soldiers capture some southern soldiers and ask them about slavery. The southerners say slavery is wrong, none of them would ever have slaves even if they could afford them, but that's not what they're fighting about anyway.

In the gulf war, there was the issue of oil, but there was also the issue of allowing a big country to invade a smaller one and take over by force of arms.

These "common people" issues have to be good ones, that hold water and stand on their own or they won't work. In Vietnam we were fighting to save the French rubber plantations, but we were also fighting to keep south Vietnam free from a communist takeover.

The question becomes which issues do you look at and which are valid? Should we have not fought the gulf war because the issue of who controls the oil is a bad one, or should we have fought it anyway because of Iraqi agression? Should us "common people" say ok, that's a good enough reason to fight, regardless of the the issues of concern to the Kings?

War is a horrible thing, and extracts a horrible price, as the Vietnam Memorial attests. Is the issue good enough to pay that price for it?

PS - GUEST, you have some excellent points in your messages, but I suspect many people disregard them because you come across as something of a vent for fecal matter. Try toning it down.

O'Meara