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10/15/2017 12:23 pm  #11


Re: The Spitting Protester

Watch the Vietnam War on PBS. I am sure some Vietnam Vets received not a nice welcome, but on the other side of the coin Nixon was taped asking his admin to help paint protesters as Communists and ant-American. What the government (R and D) over the years foisted on the American public as well as the fighting men was an abomination. I can see why many returning veterans threw their medals in a pile at the WH which also was portrayed in the documentary. 

Unfortunately there are many parallels to then and now. 


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

10/15/2017 12:28 pm  #12


Re: The Spitting Protester

Question for posters on this subject: did any of you personally witness these actions against military personnel returning from Vietnam Nam? Is anyone posting about this outrage actually a veteran from this era?







Nah . . . I didn’t think so.

 

10/15/2017 12:56 pm  #13


Re: The Spitting Protester

Rongone wrote:

Question for posters on this subject: did any of you personally witness these actions against military personnel returning from Vietnam Nam? Is anyone posting about this outrage actually a veteran from this era?







Nah . . . I didn’t think so.

No, Ron. I was 15 when Saigon  fell, so obviously I did not serve. Curiously neither my brother or any of my cousins did either. I can only think of two people that I am well acquainted with who served in that conflict, and they were in medical units away from the fighting.

I never witnessed any of these spitting "incidents" here on the home front.

I am curious because I have long heard these anecdotes, and seen depictions in popular culture.
I also remember, even very recently, reading pieces that argued that the Hanoi government was "weeks away from collapse" but those nasty hippy protestors destroyed our morale, and lost the war for us.
When I discovered that this was simply not true, I became interested in how many other things that I "knew" about the conflict were not true either.

Hence my interest in this article.
 

Last edited by Goose (10/15/2017 2:18 pm)


We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
     Thread Starter
 

10/15/2017 7:11 pm  #14


Re: The Spitting Protester

 I don't doubt that somewhere a returning soldier could have been spit upon, but the people doing research into this have debunked that this was NOT a common happening. 

Listining to the Vietnam PBS Series (10 shows 1.5 hr each) certainly gutted a lot of what we THOUGHT we knew about Vietnam and laid bare the lies told by both R and D Administrations. 

The returning vets in 1971 finally organized a protest move that took place in Washington. Nixon tried to present the demonstrators as Communist and anti-American. Approx. 900 of the demonstrators showed their DD-214s to dispel Nixon's lie. The Supreme Court actually ruled against the March, but it went on despite the ruling. They went to the steps of the Capitol which Nixon had barricaded with woden barriers. On
 April 23 with about 1,000 veterans throwing their combat ribbons, helmets, and uniforms on the Capitol steps. On April 24, a massive rally of about 200,000 took place on the Mall in Washington, D.C.





To MY mind, the people spitting on the veterans were all those sitting in the WH along with their advisors telling lie after lie to the American people and the fighting soldiers they were sending to the War in Vietnam. 
 

Last edited by tennyson (10/15/2017 7:19 pm)


"Do not confuse motion and progress, A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress"
 
 

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