Rehash the Vietnam War? Bring It On! (3 of 3)

Continuing the Franklin quote:

Of course it is possible that isolated instances may have occurred. But if antiwar activists were frequently spitting on veterans or otherwise abusing them, why has nobody ever produced even the tiniest scrap of contemporaneous evidence? According to the myth, spitting on veterans was a regular custom as they arrived from Vietnam at the San Francisco and Los Angeles airports. We are supposed to believe that these men just back from combat then meekly walked away without attacking or even reporting their persecutors, and that nobody else, including airport security officers, ever noticed what was going on. For there is not one press report, airport security report, police report, court record, diary, video shot, or photograph of a single incident at these airports or anywhere else.

As Franklin goes on to point out, that popular version of the folklore about the specific airports is easily debunked, because soldiers returning from Vietnam did not come to those civilian airports, but to military airports not open to the public.

But this story isn't just interesting because it's a case study in urban folklore. It's become a politically useful myth, not least in demonizing the antiwar movement against Vietnam. As Franklin notes, "Before the myth arose, years after the war, the only veterans who ever reported or who were observed being spat on were antiwar veterans - by prowar partisans." (my emphasis) And he adds, "a 1975 survey revealed that 75 percent of Vietnam veterans were opposed to the war."

In other words, John Kerry and antiwar veterans like him were prominent leaders and activists in the movement against the war. Compare the newsclips of Kerry testifying before Congress, read some of the accounts of the veterans protesting against the Vietnam War, and see if they bear any resemblance to the drug-crazed derelicts described in the Chuckie quote in Part 2 of this post.

Hayden is right in his closing paragraph:

If I were George W. Bush, I would be terorrized by the eyes of those scruffy-looking veterans, the so-called band of brothers, volunteering for duty with the Kerry campaign. They look like men with scores to settle, with a palpable intolerance toward the types who sent them to war for a lie ... and who are determined that this generation hear their story anew.