09-05-2023, 11:51 AM
(09-05-2023, 11:12 AM)Dill Wrote: Actually I was living in Germany from '83 to '93. And what you "believe" doesn't much matter.
In debates with me it is about what can be proven.
What is the date and issue # of your comic evidence?
I can only tell you it was before the summer of 1984, because we moved to Europe then when my father was stationed at AFCENT (Allied Forces Central).
(09-05-2023, 11:24 AM)Dill Wrote: LOL I just quoted myself "phrasing it that way" (from #64) in my post to OtherMike above, #120. Same direct "phrasing" in posts #68, 69, and 80. Two notes to maybe reduce the drama:
1. For me this discussion is about the value/ethics of historical inquiry, whether researchers are allowed to follow the facts wherever the facts take them, without ideological obstruction. Demanding that we not insult and demean the "lived experience" of returning troops by inquiring into whether soldiers were actually spit on, whether that was a common experience, and whether the claim it was a common experience has become politically useful to those who want a freer hand in military actions abroad, is just that sort of obstruction. And rather ironic given that those taking the lead in such "demeaning" inquiries have always been Vietnam vets themselves. Whether your father or his friend actually "lied" is uninteresting to me and has never been my focus. Framing my inquiry as a personal attack on your father or his friend (who aren't even mentioned in my posts), for which you can then demand a "manly" apology, is just that kind of obstruction--manufactured outrage to stop inquiry into the historical question, to protect the "myth."
2. Especially when speaking for "almost everyone," you should extend them and me the courtesy of showing us what you are talking about. This is not about masculinity, but accuracy, consistency and integrity. Where are the "outright lies" and "wriggling"?
If the claim is that I "got caught claiming [your] father's friend lied," and I "literally stated several times it never happened," then you ought to be able to quote at least two such statements and post #s, right? Not something like "the question is raised in college courses," or "The myth of the spitting protestors seems to have emerged in the 90s," all of which sound like someone pursuing a historical discussion about the "myth" that spitting was a common experience, and not at all interested in your father or his friend. And you can't quote something from a source and attribute it to me unless I have singled out that quote to agree with.
So in the interest of accuracy and integrity, where did I claim your father or his friend lied?
Show whomever it is you mean by "we" and "everyone" the exact quotes for which I should "apologize."
If you actually can produce the asked for evidence, take it back to the Ramaswamy thread, or to "our" A-stan thread. It's off topic here.
Of if you can't produce it, then maybe just stop telling people that I attacked your father and lied about the myth "multiple times."
It's already been done several times, but here you go, since you need consistent reminders.
(08-09-2023, 10:17 PM)Dill Wrote: Could very well be. The question of whether such things happened is often raised in college history courses on the '60s. From my memory, protestors and hippies and the like were more worried about being beaten up by gung ho active duty types. I do remember returning vets being largely welcomed into protests movements, which many eagerly joined. They became one of the most important constituents of the anti-war movement.
As far as the myth of the spitting protestors, it seems to have emerged in the '90s.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/opinion/myth-spitting-vietnam-protester.html
“So where do these stories come from?”
The reporter was asking about accounts that soldiers returning from Vietnam had been spat on by antiwar activists. I had told her the stories were not true. I told her that, on the contrary, opponents of the war had actually tried to recruit returning veterans. I told her about a 1971 Harris Poll survey that found that 99 percent of veterans said their reception from friends and family had been friendly, and 94 percent said their reception from age-group peers, the population most likely to have included the spitters, was friendly.
A follow-up poll, conducted in 1979 for the Veterans Administration (now the Department of Veterans Affairs), reported that former antiwar activists had warmer feelings toward Vietnam veterans than toward congressional leaders or even their erstwhile fellow travelers in the movement.
There are several books on the subject. Could be written by "leftists" though.
Spat on Veterans: An Enduring Myth
https://www.fromthesquare.org/spat-on-veterans-an-enduring-myth/
The Los Angeles Times editorialized that it was a mythical image—an edifying myth, said editor Michael McGough, but still a myth.
Apparently, Wall Street Journal editors did not get the memo. Its January 30, 2023, pages carried Jerry Davis’s “Vietnam War Veterans Deserve an Apology.” In the article, Davis claims that “veterans were often advised not to wear their uniforms lest they become targets for mistreatment. Some were cursed, spat on, and worse.” He goes on to say that “Vietnam veterans often had trouble getting jobs.”
Little in what Davis says is true. To fly home free on a commercial airline, returnees from Vietnam had to be in uniform. Employers were required to hire-back men drafted for Vietnam upon their return. It is true that plant closings in the auto and steel industries in the late 1970s hit Vietnam veterans hard—but that is not what Davis is writing about.
There is no evidence that Vietnam veterans were spat on. Nor could they have been, at least not in the manner described in the most often told stories. Those stories tell of landing at San Francisco Airport and being met by groups of spitters, often hippies. But flights from Vietnam landed at military airbases like Travis outside San Francisco; protesters could not have gotten on the airbase, much less near deplaning troops.
Legend of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/legend-of-the-spat-upon-vietnam-veteran/
In his exhaustive book entitled “The Spitting Image,” Vietnam vet and Holy Cross professor Jerry Lembcke documents veterans who claim they were spat on by anti-war protesters, but he found no physical evidence (photographs, news reports, etc.) that these transgressions actually occurred. His findings are supported by surveys of his fellow Vietnam veterans as they came home.
For instance, Lembcke notes that “a U.S. Senate study, based on data collected in August 1971 by Harris Associates, found that 75 percent of Vietnam-era veterans polled disagreed with the statement, ‘Those people at home who opposed the Vietnam War often blame veterans for our involvement there’ ” while “94 percent said their reception by people their own age who had not served in the armed forces was friendly.”
Meanwhile, the Veterans’ World Project at Southern Illinois University found that many Vietnam vets supported the anti-war protest, with researchers finding almost no veterans “finish(ing) their service in Vietnam believing that what the United States has done there has served to forward our nation’s purposes.”
In the face of such data, why would the current president nonetheless repeat the apocryphal myth about spat-on Vietnam veterans? Because — facts be damned — it serves a purpose: to suppress protest and perpetuate the ideology of militarism.
This objective is achieved through the narrative’s preposterous assumptions. Metaphorically, if not explicitly, the mythology equates anti-war activism with dishonoring the troops; implies that such protest is kryptonite to the Pentagon’s Superman; and therefore insinuates that America loses wars not when policies are wrong, but when dissent is tolerated.
In this post you literally state that soldiers being spat upon was a "myth" that emerged in the 90's. You said this, not a quoted source. Since you seem to have memory issues I have conveniently bolded and underlined the relevant section above. You also cite sources that claim it was a "myth", that it could not have happened, is a "legend" and that such stories are apocryphal. When you state that what someone claims is a "myth" you are saying they are not telling what really happened, i.e. they are lying. Literally no one said it was a "common experience" either before or after the above post, so don't bother dissembling that you were addressing any claims that it was.
It's there in black and white for everyone to see, so kindly own it like a man and stop prevaricating on this issue.
