The Pro-War Myth of the Spat Upon Soldier

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News stories, letters to the editor and speeches at pro-war rallies repeat claims that US soldiers returning from Vietnam were routinely spat upon by peace protesters. Its repeated in large papers like USA Today , on TV talk shows and by radio broadcasters. Don't believe it, its a propaganda myth. Professor and Vietnam veteran Jerry Lembcke's 1998 book The Spitting Image: Myth Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam reveals that "stories of war veterans being spat upon occur frequently in modern histories. According to some historians, the image of abused veterans was an important element in the Nazi propaganda that fanned the flames of patriotism and led the German masses into World War II. In the US, the idea that Vietnam veterans had met with malevolence gained prominence during the fall of 1990, when the Bush administration used it to rally support for the Persian Gulf War."