A clip from an interview I did recently and published on Counterpunch with Jerry Lembcke on the relevance of the myth of spat on Vietnam Vets to the antiwar movement today and the obsession with 'supporting the troops' as an 'anti-war' strategy...
http://counterpunch.org/philion10132006.html
Q: Yes, it seems to be a good strategy to distract from the main issue, namely the policy of making war itself. I never quite understand why it's so important to focus on the supporting the troops as so central an issue. It doesn't really matter, since the troops in fact have little, in fact no say, in war policies to begin with.
Lembcke: Yes, it confuses the means and ends of war, it becomes a form of demagoguery. It makes a non-issue an issue, 'support or not supporting the troops'. At a humanitarian level, none of us wants to put people in harm's way. The people who oppose the wars are most strident in that objective of keeping people out of the war. That's not an issue, but it keeps us from focusing on the war itself and talking about it. And one of the things I'm concerned about now is a certain strain of the anti-war movement ahs gotten caught up in this itself. There's a certain group of antiwar types who focus on what happens to the soldiers, how they're damaged psychologically, physically,I've been to a number of anti-war rallies now where all they talk about is PTSD and what happens to 'our boys' when we send them off to war. It's sort of a mirroring of the political right's approach. They make the 'support the troops' ideology the basis for supporting the war, and some strands in the anti- war movement now mimic that we need to oppose the war by 'supporting the troops' and, I've been to some antiwar protests where very very little is said about the war itself!
We hear instead about getting the troops the help they need and heart rendering stories of parents of sons who have committed suicide after they come home, etc. That stuff from the anti-war left is as beclouding as similar rhetoric from the right, in that it takes us away from a political discourse, which we need in order to focus our energies around stopping the war and its causes.
Q: What's your sense in terms of how this myth is replayed now with vets coming home from Iraq and claims of their being 'abused' by the antiwar movement or sentiment?
Lembcke: I've heard a few of these stories. Again, in the spring of '03, stories circulated about soldiers being spat on. In New Hampshire a story went around that a woman in the National Guard had been pelted with a box of stones by antiwar teenagers. None of these stories have turned out to be supportable by any sort of evidence. And then, periodically, other stories like one in Seattle of a guy who was back from Iraq marching in a parade, 'spat on', 'booed', 'called baby killer', etc. The same, no serious evidence.
Occasionally then I get reports of these, but I've always suspected if the war goes down as a 'lost war', we'll hear more such stories, but the more important point, I think, is that the image of spat on Vietnam Vets is so engrained and part of the American memory and cultural sub-text, it almost doesn't have to be reaffirmed through stories of Iraq Vets being 'spat on' or 'mistreated'. It's almost as though the Vietnam Spitting myth is a background that everyone 'knows' about and when the President talks of Democrats not supportive of the war or otherwise baits antiwar people, the background that makes that resonant is the belief that something untoward happened to Vietnam Vets.
So it's not necessarily good news for the anti-war movement if we don't hear stories of Iraq Vets being 'spat on'. My fear is the mythical spat on Vietnam Vet is now so internalized as something that "happened', it doesn't have to be spoken anymore as a contemporary phenomenon.
Q: What's the significance of the documentary "Sir! No Sir" , which tells the story of the GI antiwar movement during Vietnam, in terms of what that film can tell students trying to organize antiwar movements on campuses across America today?
Lembcke: Oh, I think it's terribly powerful. Even thought there's no mention of Iraq, Afghanistan, or the War on Terror in the film, it seems that everyone that sees the film can extrapolate from it to the ways it applies to the wars that we're currently involved in. Probably the greatest impact it has is on young people in the military today. I've done quite a bit of public speaking at showings of the film.
First of all, it reminds even those of us involved in the antiwar movement as vets of stuff that they had forgotten about or informed us about things that were going on at that time that we didn't know about. They're kind of surprised to find out quite a few things about the GI antiwar movement that they didn't know.
Q: One of the things I was surprised to learn of was the extent of support shown to Jane Fonda by American soldiers stationed in Asia during the war at the "Free The Army" tour that she, other famous actors such as Donald Southerland, and soldiers/vets organized at US bases. Considering all the media discourse about vets' anger at Fonda , I had no idea that some 60,000 soldiers had attended and enthusiastically received her at those shows, which served as an alternative to Bob Hope's pro-war tours at the time. Also the extent of African American soldiers in the antiwar movement was something I never fully heard about in histories of the antiwar movement, which the movie makes clear was very deep and militant.
Lembcke: I was in Vietnam in 1969 and got involved in Vietnam Veterans Against the War once I returned and yet there were things in that film that I had not known about at the time. On the one hand there was a lot in the news in the papers about the vets antiwar movement at the time, which I know now just from researching it. I don't think there was a blackout at all, often it was front page news and people knew about it. One of the things I found interesting was looking at Stars and Stripes, the civilian published but military supported publication that soldiers got in Vietnam and it was all antiwar stuff. It reported the story of Billy Gene Smith, the GI accused of fragging an officer, which is featured in Sir! No Sir!. It had stories about soldiers in Vietnam wearing black armbands in support of the 1969 anti-war Moratorium back home. It turns out Stars and Stripes is a pretty good source for information on the vets' and soldiers antiwar sentiment and movement back then!
So people knew of these things then. The more important story is what's happened to that in people's consciousness and memory. It certainly is gone now, even from people who were active in the vets antiwar movement then. Sir! No Sir! has helped to bring it back into the public memory and showing that a vets antiwar movement can happen now is very helpful for people teaching in college and high school. They can take this knowledge into the classroom and that part of the history can get back into the curriculum. Younger people will now get a different view of what happened then.
I've talked to a few soldiers back from Iraq, one a Holy Cross University Law School graduate who was an ROTC cadet who is back from Iraq and has spoken after showings of Sir No Sir! and likewise didn't know about the GI antiwar movement during Vietnam. She reports that there is a lot of opposition to the US occupation of Iraq among US soldiers in Iraq but it doesn't express itself because there's no organization, no organized communication between people. Maybe the film will play a catalyst role, if people see this film about organized GI opposition to the Vietnam War, it might inspire and even spark their imagination about the kinds of thing that can be done to oppose the war from within the military.
Q: And the significance of that for today?
Well, the GI antiwar movement became a vitally important part of the antiwar movement during Vietnam. And that is likely to be the case today also. Lots of people are asking what's the difference between today and Vietnam? Why isn't there a movement today? One possible answer is that the movement within the military is not quite congealed yet, but that the potential is there. Hopefully Sir! No Sir! can have an effect on accelerating that development a bit.
Stephen Philion Assistant Professor Department of Sociology and Anthropology St. Cloud State University St. Cloud, MN
http://stephenphilion.efoliomn2.com/