Is it true the idea of Vietnam War veterans being spat on and treated ba

First, allow me to qualify my opinion. I have a father who served in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and I was born in a military hospital while my father was in flight training. I have many family members who have served in the military from WWII to the Iraq War. So, if there was any actual incidents of civilians spitting on returning veterans? I would feel very angry and outraged if that actually ever occurred.

However, there's several big problems with the story about the hippie anti-war protesters spitting on veterans at airports after returning from Vietnam. For one thing, if it ever did happen? The incident was never reported by a single newspaper during the entire time America was involved in the Vietnam War.

While that's no proof that the incident never actually happened. However, for any accusation to be proven true, it requires at least some amount of evidence in order to render a verdict of guilty, or not guilty. Both, in a court of law and the court of public opinion. So, without at least one reported eye witness to an actual incident of a veteran being spat on by a protester. Then, we are forced to accept that the incident never happened until it can be proven otherwise.

Secondly, military flights transporting troops from Vietnam to the US never landed at commercial airports. Surprise everyone, troops returning from a war zone always landed at military airfields. It wasn't until after returning soldiers arrived at various airbases (usually on the west coast) would they be free to perhaps catch a commercial flight to where ever they needed, or wanted to go next.

Which makes it a lot harder to believe the claim that groups of anti-war protesters were spitting on returning Vets at airports, because it's pretty safe to assume that there weren't any anti-war hippies hanging around military bases waiting to spit on soldiers as they disembarked from their military transport planes.

And, unless the protesters knew in advance what commercial flights the vets would be taking after leaving their bases? Then, how would the protesters know where to go to protest returning vets at commercial airports?

Were the protesters just hanging out at airports all day in hopes that a returning vet would eventually disembark from random flights, just so they could spit on him? I doubt it.

For these reasons, I believe that the story of the spitting hippie protesters at airports never really happened and, it's quite possible that the whole story was completely manufactured in order to demonize the anti-war movement by demonizing the protesters as unpatriotic spitters.

Then, the unproven manufactured story gets repeated so many times over the years that it takes on a life of its own until it becomes real.

So, NO.... I seriously doubt that any veterans were ever spat on after returning from Vietnam.

[deleted]

Utterly absurd. Any allegations of spitting are invariably third-hand, anecdotal hogwash. The test of such claims is simple enough; just ask anyone claiming first-hand experience with being spat-upon a few basic follow-up questions, like: Specifically how and where did it happen? What was your exact response? Did you punch the attacker? Wrestle him to the ground? Call the police? What was the response of nearby bystanders? Did they join with the attacker and attack you? Did they leap to your defense and hold the attacker for the police? Etc., etc. The person's response to your cross-examination will usually be something articulate and specific - like, "Hummanahummana" or the like.

In short: It's bull. Never happened.

-- Infantryman, 1st Cavalry Division, Vietnam, 1969-70

It's all anti-hippie/peace movement propaganda from war-mongers/right wing nuts. The same people who tried to ruin John Kerry's presidential campaign because of his anti-war testimony and for throwing away his medals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_military_service_controversy

It happened. However, this movie is really set 10 years too late to be realistic. By the 80s, people were patriotic again, and Vietnam vets were thought of better than is portrayed in this movie, especially is a small town like this one. They should have set the movie in the 70s, but for budgetary reasons they didn't want to backdate all the cars and clothes and such.

Completely true, Hippies treated the vets like dogshit.

read this book , https://www.amazon.co.uk/Killing-Zone-Life-Vietnam-War/dp/0393310892 one of the best ive read, Fred Downs lost his arm in Nam, a man asked him if he lost it in the war, Downs replied yes, the man said "good" and spat at him

Vets were treated terribly , by the goverment and the people.

Of course this film is nothing but a pure propaganda pushing its own narrative to fit their own agenda, unlike Rambo III and IV which were more like allegoric documentaries, but it doesn't mean that there's not been some occasions when things like this could have happened in the states.