Were Vietnam War Veterans Spit On?

Well, maybe? We likely don't know. And yet, the myth that Vietnam War veterans were spat on by anti-war protestors a lot persists.

Produced by Matt Beat. Filmed by Matt Beat. Music by CreatorMix.com

Sources/further reading:
Lembcke, Jerry (1998). The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam. New York, NY: New York University Press. ISBN 9780814751473.
Beamish, Thomas D.; Molotch, Harvey; Flacks, Richard (August 1995). "Who Supports the Troops? Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Making of Collective Memory". Social Problems. 42 (3): 344–360. doi:10.2307/3096852. JSTOR 3096852.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/02/searching-the-news-archives-for-evidence-of-spat-upon-returning-viet-vets.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-vietnam-protester.html
https://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=350
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANDKEOalGjY

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I used to believe that MANY Vietnam War veterans were called “baby-killers” and even spat on by anti-war protestors when they returned home from the war. I bet many of you watching this right now believe this, too. In fact, there are videos on YouTube that bring it up.



But that’s another historical myth.

There is no conclusive evidence of this ever happening, despite many historians trying to uncover such evidence. In fact, according to one poll, only 1% of Vietnam War vets said that their homecoming was “not at all friendly.” Now, I’m not saying a spitting incident didn’t happen at all, but if it did, the evidence proving it is shaky.

So how did this myth originate? Eh, it maybe started with this G.I. Joe cartoon from the 1980s, then was later repeated by politicians making fun of anti-war protestors.