Vietnam Veterans Spit On, part 2

(This is a continuation of Real Facts About Vietnam Veterans.)

Among some of the specific stories of Vietnam veterans being spit upon that are excerpted from Chicago syndicated columnist Bob Greene's book, Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned from Vietnam:

• "Yes, I am a Vietnam veteran who was spat upon -- literally and figuratively. By hippies? I don't know. In the airport? Yes. San Francisco International Airport on October 11, 1971 at 3:15 p.m., and yes, I was still in uniform. To be exact, it was the same uniform that I wore during the last Fire Support Mission I was involved in, just 36 hours before landing in San Francisco Airport. No, I didn't have mud, dirt, or gunpowder on my uniform. A very kind Vietnamese woman at the Transit Company washed and ironed it for me so that I could come home to the country I love looking nice. This was one hell of a lot more than I received upon arrival.
  
  If I were the only one to be spat upon, the score would be: not spat upon, 1,999,999, spat upon, 1. Of course, I know this score to be wrong. Literally because I saw others spat upon, and figuratively because to spit on one Vietnam veteran is to spit on them all.
  
  The person who spat on me was wearing a shirt that said 'Welcome Home Baby-Killer.' ...
  
  About that image of a burly Green Beret walking through the airport and being spat upon by a war protester -- let's also remember that most war protesters or hippies or whatever name you want to attach to them were also becoming very aware of their rights as U.S. citizens, and they knew that if this burly Green Beret did nothing they (protesters) had won, and if the burly Green Beret retaliated, they (protesters) still won. How could they lose?"
  
  -- Robert E. McClelland, Massillon, Ohio



• "I think the date was March 7, 1972. I was in the San Francisco airport. I had just showered and put a fresh uniform (Air Force) on for my first leg home. Walking out to my gate I passed a 'hippie' who spat upon me and continued walking in the opposite direction, without a word.
  
  I made nothing of the incident for two reasons:
  (1) I was happy to be going home after 367 days in Thailand, and didn't want anything to screw it up, and
  (2) Officers who get in public fights, while in uniform, are dealt with in a fairly severe fashion."
  
  -- Chris Ramel, Denver, Colorado



• "I am a retired Catholic chaplain who served the Air Force community for twenty years. I had two tours in Vietnam (Phan Rang and Bien Hoa). I left Bien Hoa on November 18, 1968, flew military contract aircraft to Philadelphia, and then on to New York for two weeks' leave.
  
  While I was leaving the JFK airport to catch a bus to the city, a lady (around 43 years old) told me that 'I napalm babies' and she spit on me. I didn't take her for a 'hippie' though.
  
  Needless to say she ruined my two weeks' leave."
  
  -- Father Guy Morgan, Fort Collins, Colorado



• "I am a female veteran of the U.S. Air Force -- 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1970. I was in Southeast Asia though not actually in Vietnam.
  
  I returned to the States in 1970 through Travis Air Force Base, and from there I visited a friend for a week and then flew back to the Midwest through O'Hare. I worked at a vegetable canning factory and at a local ski resort before returning to college at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the fall of 1971. This is where my spitting story takes place.
  
  I had joined a veteran's group called Vets for Peace. We were active in anti-war protest marches in Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago. We usually marched with a group of veterans from Chicago called Vietnam Veterans Against the War. It was in Madison, on Veterans Day, 1971, as I was walking to the Capitol building from campus (all alone). I was wearing my Air Force overcoat and my Vets for Peace hat when a man about 19 or 20 years old looked me in the face and spit right into my face. He was a normal looking man, nothing to distinguish him from a thousand other people. But I will never forget what he did to me."
  
  -- Rose Marie McDonough, Green Bay, Wisconsin



• "Late at night in mid-August 1969, I was spat upon in the San Francisco airport by a man in his early twenties. I had just returned from my tour of duty in the Republic of Vietnam, processed through the mess at the Oakland Army Depot, and was waiting at the airport for an early morning flight to my Denver home. The man who spat on me ran up to me from my left rear, spat, and turned to face me. The spittle hit me on the left shoulder and on my few military decorations about my left breast pockets. He then shouted at me that I was a 'mother-f*ing murderer.' I was quite shocked and just stared at him, probably with a stupid look on my face. The spitter then called me a 'mother-f*ing chicken-sh*t.' He was balling up his fists when he yelled this.
  
  
  
  A cop or security guard then showed up and grabbed the man from behind. I did not see where he came from, nor do I have any notion of how much time went by between the spitting and the cop's arrival, though it could not have been too long. A pretty good struggle went on between them for a few seconds, and then two more cops showed up. All the time the man who spat on me was calling me (and, I suppose, the cops) names, indicating we lacked bravery.
  
  Having talked to other servicemen during the remainder of my service, I found two other young men who told me that they had similar experiences, one in an airport, the other in a bus station. I have no reason to doubt them.
  
  I also related my experience that same night to the man at the San Francisco airport who was running the USO center there. He confirmed what the police had told me: that a number of similar confrontations had occurred there recently."
  
  -- Douglas D. Detmer, Farmington, New Mexico



• "After a year of unbelievable hell in Vietnam, I was at the "repo depo" in Long Binh awaiting my flight out. The last thing I was told by the sergeant in charge as we boarded the aircraft was not to expect any welcome home committees when we got off the plane.
  
  I arrived at Oakland Air Force Base {sic, more likely it was the military terminal of the Oakland airport} on April 14 (my mother's birthday), 1970. I had sat near the front of the plane, and therefore was one of the first to get off. As I looked out toward the terminal, I noticed a large crowd, maybe 200 or so people, on the far side of a cyclone wire fence. In front of them, on our side of the fence, were MPs, wearing ponchos. As we started to file out of the plane, the MPs shouted to us to move quickly, and began holding up their ponchos.
  
  We were in khaki short-sleeved uniforms, and I was surprised that it would be raining in California. As I got closer to the MPs and the crowd, I still could not make out what they were yelling. Then the first egg landed near my foot. At first, like a fool, I looked up in the air, still not putting together what was going on. As my ears popped, adjusting to the change in pressure, I began to hear for the first time the chant: 'How many babies did you kill today?'
  
  Several of them were leaning against the fence, spitting at us and at the MPs blocking their view. Others were heaving eggs over the fence and into our midst. The MPs were covered with spittle and eggs, which explained the ponchos. They were obviously used to this ritual. The fellow behind me said, 'Jesus, I wish I had brought my M-16!,' and my stomach dropped as I realized for the first time what was going on.
  
  I stopped to ask one of the MPs who these people were, and as I did so a woman about forty years old, not a teenager by any stretch of the imagination, leaned back and spit on me with all her strength. It landed on my shirt pocket, near the ribbons that I was wearing for the first time. 'Bull's-eye!' she yelled. An MP lieutenant took my arm and said, 'Go inside, son, and ignore them.'"
  
  -- David McTamaney, Newburgh, New York



• "It happened to me, and it was no joke. In September of 1967, I was called to active duty with the U.S. Army Medical Corps. I was a neurosurgeon then (as I am now), and had recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California at Berkeley. I was fortunate during my military service (two years of active duty) to be stationed at a large hospital facility stateside -- although I did not actually go to Vietnam, I was responsible for the treatment of a large number of wounded Vietnam soldiers.
  
  I was stationed at Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco, and I commuted between the hospital and my home in Berkeley. ... In any case, when I would come home from the hospital (of course wearing my uniform, which was required), I would receive many negative comments from other residents of Berkeley. One afternoon a youngster, approximately twelve years old, who lived across the street from us, literally spat on me as I got out of my car. He shouted, 'How many did you kill today?'
  
  You can imagine how I felt -- especially since I had spent that day trying to reconstruct the skull of a Vietnam soldier who had suffered severe shrapnel wounds, and who had recently been transferred back to the United States for surgery."
  
  -- Dr. Robert A. Fink, Berkeley, California

(Continued in Vietnam Veterans Spit On, part 3.)