Jerry Lembcke

THE SPITTING IMAGE THE SPITTING IMAGE MYTH, MEMORY, AND THE LEGACY OF VIETNAM Jerry Lembcke Consulting Editor: Harvey J. Kaye a New York University Press New York and London NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS New York and London Copyright ᭧ 1998 by New York University All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lembcke, Jerry, 1943– The spitting image : myth, memory, and the legacy of Vietnam / Jerry Lembcke. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0-8147-5146-6 1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961–1975—Veterans—United States. 2. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961–1975—Public opinion. 3. Public opinion— United States. I. Title. DS559.73.U6 L46 1998 959.704'3373—ddc21 98-9048 CIP New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. Manufactured in the United States of America 10987654321 For Carolyn and Molly Del CONTENTS All illustrations appear as an insert following p. 92 Preface ix 1 Introduction: The Spitting Image 1 2 Yellow Ribbons and Spat-Upon Veterans: Making Soldiers the Means and Ends of War 11 • Reasoning about the War, 12 • Reason Abandoned: Toward War with Iraq, 16 • Against the Coalition against the War, 18 • Fighting the Vietnam Syndrome, 24 3 Dear Spiro Agnew: About Soldiers, Veterans, and the Anti-war Movement 27 • War Veterans and the Vietnam War, 29 • Veterans for Peace and the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee, 30 • Veterans, Soldiers, and the Peace Movement Reach Out to One Another, 33 • Turning the Guns Around: GIs and Veterans against the War, 37 • The Moratorium Days of 1969, 44 4 The Nixon-Agnew Counteroffensive: ‘‘Good Veterans’’ vs. ‘‘Bad Veterans’’ 49 • Agnew vs. ‘‘An Effete Corps of Impudent Snobs,’’ 49 • ‘‘Good’’ Veterans vs. ‘‘Bad’’ Veterans, 53 • Vietnam Veterans Against the War, 57 • Like Fire and Water, 66 5 Spat-Upon Veterans: The Evidence (or Lack Thereof) 71 • Disproving a Myth, 72 • Grist for the Myth, 76 vii viii Contents 6 From Odysseus to Rambo: Coming-Home Stories 84 • The ‘‘Dolchstoss Legend,’’ 85 • Les Centurions, 87 • From the Fantasies of Robert Welch...,91 • . to the Fantasies of Richard Nixon, 93 • The Nixon-Agnew Strategy: Smash the Left, Capture the Center, 94 7 From Badness to Madness: The Mental Labeling of Vietnam Veterans 101 • The New York Times and PTSD, 102 • The Psychiatrists, 105 • The Dwight Johnson Story, 107 • Charlie Clements: The ‘‘Right Stuff’’ Gone Wrong, 111 • Warrior Dreams, 115 8 Women, Wetness, and Warrior Dreams 127 • Spit as an Icon, 128 • Female Fluids and (Male) Fears, 129 • The ‘‘Evil Eye,’’ 133 • Betrayal: The Alibi for a Lost War, 136 • From Times Square to San Francisco: Memories of Homecomings, 139 9 Myth, Spit, and the Flicks: Coming Home to Hollywood 144 • Vietnam War Movies before 1978, 148 • 1978, 161 • The Road to Rambo, 174 • The Return of the ‘‘Political’’ Veteran, 177 10 We Are What We Remember 183 Notes 189 References 199 Filmography 207 Index 211 About the Author 217 PREFACE In February 1991, I was asked to speak at a teach-in on the Persian Gulf War. My presentation to the teach-in focused on the image then being popularized in the press of Vietnam-era anti-war activists treat- ing Vietnam veterans abusively. I told my audience that the image was inaccurate and that the media and the Bush administration were using it as a propaganda device to dissuade people from opposing the Gulf War. Drawing on my own experience as a Vietnam veteran who came home from the war and joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), I called the image of spat-upon Vietnam veterans a myth. Following the teach-in, my comments were published as a newspaper opinion piece, and I got encouragement from readers to write more. My initial research interest was simply to find out where and when, during the fall of 1990, the idea of spat-upon veterans was first invoked. At the time, I thought I might be able to say something interesting about how the image functioned and what political inter- ests were exploiting the image. It wasn’t until I saw Bruce Franklin’s article in the December, 1991, Atlantic on the myth of the POW/MIA that I began to think there was more to this than I had imagined. I had never met Franklin before I called him, and he virtually answered the phone saying he had just been thinking about the myth of the spat-upon Vietnam veteran. He was ecstatic about my interest in the subject and his enthusiasm for what I have tried to do has never waned. This book is obviously indebted to him. My decision to research the role of film in the making of the myth was also a turning point. A conversation with sociologists Jim Russell and Richard Ratcliff planted the idea that I should look into film. I recalled the idea a short time later while listening to a public radio ix x Preface program about war films. I called one of the scholars featured on the program and got the name of Tony Williams who had just published the definitive filmography of Vietnam War films. His six-hundred- entry volume, coauthored with Jean-Jacques Malo was a godsend. With it, I was able to identify and view approximately 120 films portraying relations between Vietnam veterans and the anti-war movement. Still, I would not have pursued the film study without the help and encouragement of Steve Vineberg at Holy Cross College, who made me believe that I could do it even though I had no formal training in film. He told me about the film holdings at the Library of Congress and encouraged me to go to Los Angeles to use the film archives at UCLA and the Margaret Herrick Library to study the 1978 movie Coming Home. At those institutions, Madeline Matz and Roger Walke, Brigette Kueppers and Dale Treleven, and Faye Thompson, respec- tively, were very helpful. Michael Gordon facilitated my appearance at the Milwaukee Oral History Conference, where I presented findings from that research. The film study was the key to recognizing the connection between the general cultural disparagement of Vietnam veterans and the evo- lution of the psychiatric category, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Seeing that PTSD appeared on the screen before it appeared in the journals of the mental health professions was a clue that the legitimation of PTSD as a diagnostic category was indebted to more than science. Heather Brown and Christine Greenway led me into the constructionist literature on mental health that eventually framed the chapter on PTSD. Lucy Candib shared some informative journal arti- cles on PTSD with me, and conversations with Amy Wolfson in the final days before this book went to press increased my certainty that my hunches about the origin and function of PTSD have been right all along. Sharon Moore at Dinand Library at Holy Cross College was very helpful, as were the librarians at the Wisconsin State Historical Society Library, who led me to archival material on anti-war organizations. Preface xi Margaret Post took care of innumerable research-related details. The students in my 1995 Holy Cross seminar on the book read and com- mented on draft chapters and helped sharpen my argument on many points. The efforts of several students are acknowledged in notes throughout the book. I appreciate the special interest that Jeff Drew took in the project. He found the only image of a spat-upon veteran I have seen in a GI Joe comic book. Dave Hummon suggested some readings that deepened my understanding of myth. The Holy Cross research and publication committee supported my work with travel grants and summer research awards. Early conversations with Vietnam veterans Joe Urgo, Barry Romo, and Tom Gottschang made me feel as if this book was worth doing. Bill Howe and Kathy Howe took time to read drafts and offer their comments. Gary and Mary Lou Fisher provided friendship and hos- pitality during my research stints in Washington, D.C., Sara Cooper did the same in Los Angeles. I thank Richard Schmitt, Bob Craig, Gary DeAngelis, Jim Nickoloff, and Martin Hart-Landsberg for their friendship and intellectual support. My daughter, Molly Del Howe- Lembcke, kept me current on the images of Vietnam veterans in film. Because of her, two important films, Forrest Gump and Independence Day, are in the book. I thank my agent, Nan deBrandt, for her confi- dence in the book and Harvey Kaye, my friend for many years, for taking me to Niko Pfund at New York University Press. Despina Gim- bel provided superb editing. I can’t imagine there is a better editor anywhere. Carolyn Howe read endless numbers of drafts and endlessly dis- cussed with me the political and conceptual issues in these chapters. Her presence in my life enabled me to juggle teaching, writing, trav- eling, and parenting so I could write this book. She has been my constant companion since the early 1970s, and I thank her very much for her loving support. ONE Introduction The Spitting Image My flight came in at San Francisco airport and I was spat upon three times: by hippies, by a man in a leisure suit, and by a sweet little old lady who informed me I was an ‘‘Army Asshole.’’ —Barry Streeter, Vietnam veteran Spat-upon Vietnam veterans? That’s an urban myth. —Sharon Moore, college librarian Barry Streeter returned from Vietnam in November 1971. His account of an unfriendly homecoming was collected, along with many like it, by newspaper columnist Bob Greene for his 1989 book, Homecoming.

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