Jack Shafer: Were Vietnam vets spat at?
Were veterans spat upon as they returned from serving in Vietnam? When Holy Cross College scholar Jerry Lembcke studied the allegations for his 1998 book Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam, he found no evidence to back the claim.
Since 2000, I've been using this column to track Vietnam vet spit allegations as they appear in the press, and have found nothing that contradicts Lembcke's basic assessment. On Jan. 30, when I wrote a column criticizing a current Newsweek story that offhandedly asserted that vets had been spat upon as if it was established fact, I asked readers to forward to me accounts from the Vietnam era they found reliable. On Feb. 5 and Feb. 12, I published pieces that looked at newspaper stories everybody's research had unearthed.
The news stories undermine Lembcke's belief that the spat-upon-returning-vet meme didn't really start circulating until about 1980, but none documents a spit incident with any specificity. I still believe the stories deserve the "urban legend" status assigned to them by Lembcke.
But a spit tip offered by reader Kevin Bowman proves difficult to dismiss. Bowman sent me a link to the Television News Archive at Vanderbilt University that describes a segment about returning veteran Delmar Pickett Jr. from the Dec. 27, 1971, edition of the CBS Evening News. The abstract to the segment reads:
Headline: Vietnam Veteran
Abstract: (Studio) January, 1971, report on medics in Vietnam recalled; retd. medic featured.
REPORTER: Charles Collingwood
(Manhattan, Kansas) Delmar Pickett, Junior, hero, returns from Vietnam, finds US indifferent to war; vets' unemployment high; returns to school at Kansas State University as better student than before Vietnam experience. [Student Gwyn STEERE - speaks of Pickett's modesty.] [Vietnam film from earlier feature shown.] Pickett home is in Olsburg, Kansas. [PICKETT - tells of being spit on in Seattle, WA.] Disillusioned but not downed by Vietnam experience. [PICKETT - tells of experience as medic in Vietnam.] [Father Delmar PICKETT, Senior - says son more settled.] [MOTHER - says son a much better student than formerly.] Drugs no problem for Pickett. 2 1/2 million Vietnam vets. ...
Read entire article at Slate
Since 2000, I've been using this column to track Vietnam vet spit allegations as they appear in the press, and have found nothing that contradicts Lembcke's basic assessment. On Jan. 30, when I wrote a column criticizing a current Newsweek story that offhandedly asserted that vets had been spat upon as if it was established fact, I asked readers to forward to me accounts from the Vietnam era they found reliable. On Feb. 5 and Feb. 12, I published pieces that looked at newspaper stories everybody's research had unearthed.
The news stories undermine Lembcke's belief that the spat-upon-returning-vet meme didn't really start circulating until about 1980, but none documents a spit incident with any specificity. I still believe the stories deserve the "urban legend" status assigned to them by Lembcke.
But a spit tip offered by reader Kevin Bowman proves difficult to dismiss. Bowman sent me a link to the Television News Archive at Vanderbilt University that describes a segment about returning veteran Delmar Pickett Jr. from the Dec. 27, 1971, edition of the CBS Evening News. The abstract to the segment reads:
Headline: Vietnam Veteran
Abstract: (Studio) January, 1971, report on medics in Vietnam recalled; retd. medic featured.
REPORTER: Charles Collingwood
(Manhattan, Kansas) Delmar Pickett, Junior, hero, returns from Vietnam, finds US indifferent to war; vets' unemployment high; returns to school at Kansas State University as better student than before Vietnam experience. [Student Gwyn STEERE - speaks of Pickett's modesty.] [Vietnam film from earlier feature shown.] Pickett home is in Olsburg, Kansas. [PICKETT - tells of being spit on in Seattle, WA.] Disillusioned but not downed by Vietnam experience. [PICKETT - tells of experience as medic in Vietnam.] [Father Delmar PICKETT, Senior - says son more settled.] [MOTHER - says son a much better student than formerly.] Drugs no problem for Pickett. 2 1/2 million Vietnam vets. ...