Spitting Image : Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam

by Lembcke, Jerry

• ISBN13: 9780814751473
• ISBN10: 0814751474
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-05-01
• Publisher: New York University Press

Summary

well-argued and documented-Berkshire Eagle 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 ever has been documented. It is instead, says Lembcke, a kind of urban myth that reflects our lingering national confusion over the war. --Los Angeles Times The myth of the spat-upon veteran is not only bad history, but it has been instrumental in selling the American public on bad policy. --Maurice Isserman, Chicago Tribune The best history I have seen on the impact of the war on Americans, both then and now. --David Dellinger Lembcke builds a compelling case against collective memory by demonstrating that remembrances of Vietnam were almost at direct odds with circumstantial evidence. --San Francisco Chronicle One of the most resilient images of the Vietnam era is that of the anti-war protester - often a woman - spitting on the uniformed veteran just off the plane. The lingering potency of this icon was evident during the Gulf War, when war supporters invoked it to discredit their opposition. In this startling book, Jerry Lembcke demonstrates that not a single incident of this sort has been convincingly documented. Rather, the anti-war Left saw in veterans a natural ally, and the relationship between anti-war forces and most veterans was defined by mutual support. Indeed one soldier wrote angrily to Vice President Spiro Agnew that the only Americans who seemed concerned about the soldier's welfare were the anti-war activists. While the veterans were sometimes made to feel uncomfortable about their service, this sense of unease was, Lembcke argues, more often rooted in the political practices of the Right. Tracing a range of conflicts in the twentieth century, the book illustrates how regimes engaged in unpopular conflicts often vilify their domestic opponents for stabbing the boys in the back. Concluding with an account of the powerful role played by Hollywood in cementing the myth of the betrayed veteran through such films as Coming Home, Taxi Driver, and Rambo, Jerry Lembcke's book stands as one of the most important, original, and controversial works of cultural history in recent years.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction: The Spitting Image	1	(10)
Yellow Ribbons and Spat-Upon Veterans: Making Soldiers the Means and Ends of War	11	(16)
Reasoning about the War	12	(4)
Reason Abandoned: Toward War with Iraq	16	(2)
Against the Coalition against the War	18	(6)
Fighting the Vietnam Syndrome	24	(3)
Dear Spiro Agnew: About Soldiers, Veterans, and the Anti-war Movement	27	(22)
War Veterans and the Vietnam War	29	(1)
Veterans for Peace and the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee	30	(3)
Veterans, Soldiers, and the Peace Movement Reach Out to One Another	33	(4)
Turning the Guns Around: GIs and Veterans against the War	37	(7)
The Moratorium Days of 1969	44	(5)
The Nixon-Agnew Counteroffensive: ``Good Veterans'' vs. ``Bad Veterans''	49	(22)
Agnew vs. ``An Effete Corps of Impudent Snobs,''	49	(4)
``Good'' Veterans vs. ``Bad'' Veterans	53	(4)
Vietnam Veterans Against the War	57	(9)
Like Fire and Water	66	(5)
Spat-Upon Veterans: The Evidence (or Lack Thereof)	71	(13)
Disproving a Myth	72	(4)
Grist for the Myth	76	(8)
From Odysseus to Rambo: Coming-Home Stories	84	(17)
The ``Dolchstoss Legend,''	85	(2)
Les Centurions	87	(4)
From the Fantasies of Robert Welch...	91	(2)
...to the Fantasies of Richard Nixon	93	(1)
The Nixton-Agnew Strategy: Smash the Left, Capture the Center	94	(7)
From Badness to Madness: The Mental Labeling of Vietnam Veterans	101	(26)
The New York Times and PTSD	102	(3)
The Psychiatrists	105	(2)
The Dwight Johnson Story	107	(4)
Charlie Clements: The ``Right Stuff'' Gone Wrong	111	(4)
Warrior Dreams	115	(12)
Women, Wetness, and Warrior Dreams	127	(17)
Spit as an Icon	128	(1)
Female Fluids and (Male) Fears	129	(4)
The ``Evil Eye,''	133	(3)
Betrayal: The Alibi for a Lost War	136	(3)
From Times Square to San Francisco: Memories of Homecomings	139	(5)
Myth, Spit, and the Flicks: Coming Home to Hollywood	144	(39)
Vietnam War Movies before 1978	148	(13)
1978	161	(13)
The Road to Rambo	174	(3)
The Return of the ``Political'' Veteran	177	(6)
We Are What We Remember	183	(6)
Notes	189	(10)
References	199	(8)
Filmography	207	(4)
Index	211	(6)
About the Author	217