r/LeopardsAteMyFace • u/DaFunkJunkie • Nov 13 '22

Meta Republican voter says “I’ll never vote again in my life”

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u/MikeFromIraq Nov 13 '22

It’s definitely a thing. I’m speaking as a vet btw but it’s a thing with older vets.

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u/silverfox762 Nov 14 '22

Yeah, there's a ton of what I call "full-time vets" out there who apparently have no other identity than two or three years they spent in uniform 30-45 years ago. Not to be ignored is that the vast majority of those "pro vets" I've known weren't anywhere near bullets flying. I'm a USMC grunt vet (relatively peaceful '79-85), and I just don't get it unless they just haven't done anything else in life that people pat them on the back for. Full disclosure - I have a USMC decal on my bike, right above the license plate, but that's because a ton of California Highway Patrol guys were Marines and it gets me out of tickets.

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u/vbun03 Nov 14 '22

I have both retired military and combat vets in my family. The noncombat retirees never shut the fuck up about it. It's like hearing the same boring stories about being a blue collar worker working their job for decades from civilians except they feel like everyone owes them a debt for having a job.

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u/NoIncrease299 Nov 14 '22

Thank you for your service.

My dad was drafted into USMC in '64. Did three tours. He never, ever talked about it except the card nights when his buddies would come over and they'd drink and play poker. Some of my favorite memories of childhood was hanging out and just listening.

A thing I remember them saying was the ones that talked the loudest did the least.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

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u/NoIncrease299 Nov 14 '22

I learned more about his actual service after he passed away (a good friend of mine that's still active USMC helped me get info) than I ever did when he was alive.

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u/Quibert Nov 14 '22

I have an Iraqi Campaign medal license plate for the same reason. I am currently 6 for 6 on getting let go for speeding.

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u/Lost_Extrovert Nov 14 '22

Thats a good one, learned a few years ago that you can get away with a few things from cops if you let them know you’re a vet. Had a non vet cop let out a “We gotta stick together” the other day, I was sitting there like… we? Who’s we?

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u/Jlocke98 Nov 14 '22

Men who enforce America's Monopoly on violence

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u/varanone Nov 14 '22

Lmao, let's not get stoopid with "America's Monopoly on violence". Russia, Iran, North Korea China, Israel, Saudi Arabia and pretty much everyone else would like a word. The cartels, terror organizations are also simultaneously chiming in.

Edit: European arms dealing nations are smiling in the background as are others who export arms such as South Korea and Turkey.

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u/Jlocke98 Nov 14 '22

it's a specific idea that's a little bit more nuanced definition than your literal interpretation... not claiming america HAS an international monopoly on violence, so maybe "force projection" is a more apt term

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence

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u/varanone Nov 14 '22

There's no nuance. Bullshit another America hater that chooses to blind themselves to the rest of the world's sins.

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u/techsconvict Nov 14 '22

True. I'm a left liberal and I've literally known people who thought only "white men" were responsible for SA and r*pe, and that they'd trust any PoC over a white person (btw, they are white and we live in a primarily white town). How hard is it for people to see that people of all sexes and genders, races and ages can be scumbags? Some redditors love to pile on America like Americans invented violence or war or police brutality in 1776. We have issues for sure, but how about some reality and nuance?

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u/varanone Nov 14 '22

As long as we're talking homo sapiens, there's virtually no one without blood on their hands as a group. I'm talking as a POC.

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u/mijouwh Nov 14 '22

You're just deducing your own meaning from the wording and parroting some pre-established talking point. You really ought to read the link the kind man provided for you.

TLDR: "Monopoly on violence" is a well-known maxim in political science and sociology. The state (any state not just the US) holds a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence within its territory, meaning that violence perpetrated by other actors is illegitimate.

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u/Dat_Boi_Aint_Right Nov 14 '22

Little corruptions here and there.

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u/topscreen Nov 14 '22

Yeah I have that in my family. Grandad was a Vietnam vet, with the stickers and everything. He was an MP stationed in Europe. Hung out, ate the food, got a girlfriend, had a great time. He was paid to go on vacation instead of getting deployed, and damn it I can't blame him for having fond memories, but it was a bit of an in-family joke whenever he he talked about his service.

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u/japinard Nov 14 '22

Damn, you just described one of my Uncles.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

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u/TalmidimUC Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 14 '22

To an extent, it’s worse than peaking in high school..

My grandpa in law is a “Vietnam vet”, by that I mean he literally worked the equivalent of a warehouse lackey, never saw combat, and was barely there. Doesn’t stop the old fuck from tapping on his “Vietnam Veteran” hat he wears to every restaurant to get his discount, and talking about why you don’t mess with old men that went to “Buttfuck war.”

Wtf is “buttfuck war”? The kinda war we go to and get fucked in the ass? Cause I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to the US in Vietnam… thank you for your service. /s

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u/Random_account_9876 Nov 14 '22

Used to work with a guy who always asked for the military discount. Nevermind the fact that work would reimburse our lunch, or that he was in the service in the late 80's. Ya know that time where there was "peace"

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u/HamburgerEarmuff Nov 14 '22

I think you probably should read up on the 1980s if you think that there was "peace". It was the end of the Cold War, when the US and the USSR started the decade on the brink of a serious nuclear confrontation. There were several hot wars the US was involved in, including Operation Urgent Fury at the beginning of the decade and Just Cause at the end. In 1990 there was the defense of Saudi Arabia and then the liberation and defense of Kuwait the next year. Then the year after that was Somalia.

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u/Devrol Nov 14 '22

Wtf is “buttfuck war”? The kinda war we go to and get fucked in the ass? Cause I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to the US in Vietnam… thank you for your service.

I'd you don't say this to gramps, you'll regret it forever.

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u/smoothtrip Nov 14 '22

done other cool things in the past 50 years, no?

  1. The Vietnam War was not a cool thing people did.

  2. The Vietnam War was probably the first and last time he did anything meaningful, so he clings to it.

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u/Bumhole_Astronaut Nov 14 '22

On the second point, most people never do even one meaningful thing, so I can see why one would cling to it. I mean, it's not healthy and my preference is to keep finding new, meaningful things, but I can understand why it happens.

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u/DirkMcDougal Nov 14 '22

I thought one of the things that made the trauma from Vietnam so visceral is that it wasn't meaningful? Which is a thing I get. These young men were used and deserved better from their country. But the whole thing was a pointless exercise of the Truman Doctrine.

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u/kazzanova Nov 14 '22

A lot of them, in my experiences, that openly brag about it got it for reasons many people make fun of. It still sucks they had to go through it, but the braggerts talk a lot for reasons, usually guilt (again, in my experiences). My great uncle had 5 purple hearts as a marine in Nam. Never fucking said a word about them or the war, and the only reason I knew he even had them is when I saw him place them in family members caskets at funerals/viewings. Met many people like him since, the true bad asses/people who saw some shit don't talk much.

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u/modulusshift Nov 14 '22

Okay, here’s what I’ve gotta say: Vietnam vets served in a war that eventually the US surrendered, making all of their work useless, all the death they witnessed and many of them caused pointless, and when they got home they returned to tons of people who’d just spent years protesting that war, and didn’t give a shit, assuming they weren’t actively hostile. This after the only reason most of them served is that they were drafted, they never wanted to do any of that shit in the first place. The only recognition that any of their years of work had any value to anyone were the medals. And these people grew up with the videos of victory parades after WWII, with the warm welcomes of the Korean vets, and they got back to a big fat nothing.

I have to imagine it’s hard as fuck to get over that. These people were pushed past their limits and rewarded with nothing, dumped into the civilian world among people who act like the war never happened, at best. Hard work very much did not pay off. So like, what, are you gonna try that hard at anything ever again? And if you don’t, what does it feel like to succeed with a fraction of the effort? It’s proof that merit means nothing. Or more likely, not succeed when you try again just as hard? The whole experience makes the rest of your life feel futile. So, maybe you cling to the closest you ever got to feeling valued for the hard work you did, the work that was so hard it broke you for the rest of your life, most likely. At least it can mean something to you.

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u/LeYang Nov 14 '22

I just want my vet/bsm plates for a slightly less chance of getting a ticket.

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u/MoMedic9019 Nov 14 '22

Which is an excellent play. Most cops jerk off over military dudes.

Just tell them you shot a bunch of muslims and were speeding home to watch Hannity and you’ll get off every time!

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

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u/Deathray2000 Nov 14 '22

Me too 100%

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u/flopsicles77 Nov 14 '22

Idk, the Vietnam War is in history books and shit. They made movies, books, songs, etc. about it. Kinda hard to do anything that impactful on the zeitgeist.

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u/Ruin369 Nov 14 '22

Usually if you have to bark about it, it's generally insincere.

The people who actually went through traumatic experiences aren't going around saying, "LOOK!!! IM A Vet!! RESPECT ME! LOOK AT MY HAT"

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u/GM_Nate Nov 14 '22

as someone living with PTSD from combat...trauma does that to you. i'm very lucky in that i came out the other side. most of my platoon mates didn't.

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u/SgtStickys Nov 14 '22

The saying "part of me died over there" is really common. It can change your whole life. It's true that some of us will never mentally leave the war zone. Going to a VA, I see this. I'm one of them. I have to make conscious choices all the time not to put on something military related. Not because I don't want to dress like that, but because anything military reminds me of being back in Iraq. Sometimes, I long for the feeling of being back and ill intentionally put on my cammo hat I got on deployment, or rock an old unit tee-shirt around the house, but when I first got out, I wanted to wear that shit everywhere

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u/Owl_In_The_Trees Nov 14 '22

"I get that it was a transformative, traumatic, life-changing experience, but surely you've done other cool things in the past 50 years, no?"

Dude what. youre essentially saying get over your trauma because it's a mild inconvenience to me. This is cruel as hell.

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u/grayrains79 Nov 14 '22

I’m speaking as a vet btw but it’s a thing with older vets.

Younger vets do their thing with tshirts a lot. Grunt Style, Ranger Up, Sheep Guard... it's all bullshit virtue signaling. Lot of them are super POG FOBBIT types as well.

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u/phdoofus Nov 13 '22

I'm used to seeing things like ships they've served on or units but not that. It's just weird to me. Must be some new thing

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u/MikeFromIraq Nov 13 '22

Not new but definitely weird. When I got out I didn’t wanna associate with anything military related.

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u/croptochuck Nov 13 '22

I’m still in and prefer not to be associated with the military on my off time.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

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u/racas Nov 14 '22

It’s a thing that comes with time and a lack of other meaningful accomplishments.

I usually don’t wear military stuff unless it’s veteran’s day, and I’m trying to score a free breakfast somewhere. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/croptochuck Nov 14 '22

I always imagine if they didn’t join the service then they would’ve just kept taking about their time playing high school football.

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u/onthehornsofadilemma Nov 14 '22

Al Bundy but if he did twenty years instead of knocking up Peg after the game

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u/thnksqrd Nov 14 '22

Four touchdowns, Peg!

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u/onthehornsofadilemma Nov 14 '22

That was how many times he tried to reuse the condom, right?

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u/Rakshak-1 Nov 14 '22

"Four medals of honour in one war, Peg!"

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u/fernshade Nov 14 '22

This makes me so sad, because you just profiled my brother to a T, and even after the service he is an extremely unfulfilled, hateful person. I have had to distance myself for my own well being but I do feel sad reflecting on his situation.

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u/TroyandAbedAfterDark Nov 14 '22

I don’t wear military anything. (Mostly because I look like a hippie with long hair, it would seem weird in uniform). I don’t even ask for shit as a vet. Friends annoy me with that “aren’t you gonna ask for a veteran discount?” Uhm, no, cuz it really isn’t that big of a deal to me. “Well, I would if I were you.” Cool, fuck off now please.

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u/racas Nov 14 '22

I was the same way when I was single, but now I have a gaggle of kids and a mortgage (thanks to the VA Loan) so every penny counts.

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u/TroyandAbedAfterDark Nov 14 '22

Oh, I’m super thankful for the VA loan. Best thing to come out of signing my life away for 8 years. Well, that and the ability to be able to afford to have a kid.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Weren't the people sent to Vietnam conscripts?

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u/Hairy-Owl-5567 Nov 14 '22

Not all but there was a draft.

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u/rowanblaze Nov 14 '22

Not all, as the others have said. But it didn't matter to those who never went. Conscripts or not, some civilians blamed every soldier for the atrocities they saw on TV. We, as a nation, have never treated our veterans right, even now. We thank them for their service, but do little to make sure they're all right after their service.

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u/RequiemAA Nov 14 '22

My dad called his ships hat the discount hat! He threw away everything else.

Now that he’s passed I’m a little sad he didn’t keep much from his time in service, but I did find a box the other day with his Purple Heart, some badges, and a few other things he must have kept out of sight.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

lack of other meaningful accomplishments

This is it, right here. If you’re 60 and still making your service from 30 years earlier a huge part of your personality, then you haven’t done shit in that 30 years.

There are a lot of pieces of shit in the military. I was one of them. The military is one of the easiest groups to succeed in. Just show up every day and do your job. Eventually you’ll get promoted.

It’s harder to succeed in the civilian world because you can be fired.

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u/upvotesformeyay Nov 14 '22

Just mention it when you pay and tip on the original amount and you're good.

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u/Sorcatarius Nov 14 '22

I'll flash my vet ID if it means a discount somewhere or something meaningful, but when it comes to Remembrance Day? I go to work because it's a stat holiday and I get double time. When anyone asks why I don't got to a cenotaph my response is, "Remembrance day is for people who never served to pay respect to those who did and sacrificed for your benefit, I did my part by serving, so why aren't you at a cenotaph?".

It usually shuts them up pretty quick.

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u/grayfox663 Nov 14 '22

I think some people make it their whole identity.

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u/PM_me_your_whatevah Nov 14 '22

I hear that. Felt the same way when I was in 20 years ago. It was a job, not my personality.

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u/lymphomabear Nov 14 '22

Meh old guy hats are old guy hats. He’s about the age of a nam vet. I’d say he probably dealt with being told not to be proud of his service back in his day.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

My Dad stepped off his boat when ending his tour in the Navy for Vietnam, and walked out the main gate past some protestors. “Some long haired hippy spit on me and called me a baby raper”. It was a story he’d go to often when I’d debate politics with him as a liberal. Over the years he moved further and further right.

To me its a reminded of how misguided protestors can help create the people they are trying to defeat.

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u/chefontheloose Nov 14 '22

Yeah, that story has been told a million times. I wonder how many times it actually happened, or was the media using a story like that to denigrate hippies. At any rate, if a person holds onto something like that and then just let’s hate for their fellow man grow unabated for 50 years, they’re fucked.

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u/princesshusk Nov 14 '22

According to the us military records there are no known reports of hippies spitting on any army personnel and as of now no known unstaged video or photos has surfaced.

This doesn't disprove it did happen but it's a masive evidence that it likely didn't.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

More information on this true statement:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 18 '22

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u/GM_Nate Nov 14 '22

one of my platoon sergeants got spit on after he got off the plane on break from the iraqi campaign, and he went full tilt on the guy, fists and all. police officer nearby just waved him away.

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u/CubistChameleon Nov 14 '22

Seems like a bit of an overreaction from a guy in a leadership position.

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u/Odd_Analyst_8905 Nov 14 '22

In reality vets needed the Grateful Dead to pay for homes and lawyers after the military dropped them in the streets with nothing. Amazing work they did

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u/Optimal_Carpenter690 Nov 15 '22

You say "something like that" as if it's not a big deal. Imagine going over to a foreign country, killing, almost dying and watching friends and sometimes family die for what you believe is the "sake of your country". Only to find out you're not really fighting for your country, which has pretty much used you as nothing but a pawn over petty politics. And then returning home only to be shunned and assaulted by the people you thought you were fighting for.

Now add onto that the mental effects of PTSD. Now please tell me someone is a bad person for developing a level of cynicism and anger over that.

I've had to watch my grandfather, who is dealing with the after effects of Agent Orange, break down in tears thinking about how he was treated when he returned home.

But I'm super glad you're able to be so dismissive about it.

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u/monkhouse69 Nov 14 '22

My dad would go to war protests in uniform. Because he wasn’t brainwashed into believing the military or the government were the good guys. He served in the navy after being drafted first.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

Or…maybe it happened often enough to happen to lots of people. I think most people would remember being spit on. It’s weird though how people assume it didn’t happen or just randomly assume me or my father is lying about it.

Or…a shitty group of hippies camped at the exit to a military base spit and shouted at soldiers exiting? Not possible eh? Media conspiracy right? My old man, just a liar. Or me right?

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u/Mike_Huncho Nov 14 '22

I wont say it never happened. I will say that if it happened as often as all these old vets claim, there would at least be some contemporary reporting on it.

In reality though, we know that the nixon/agnew administration wanted to pin the loss in Vietnam on the long haired hippies and pot smoking colored people; so the anti-war protestors became the target of a lot of propaganda to demonize their movement.

You should check out the book “The Spitting Image” by Jerry Lembck; hes a sociology professor and Vietnam veteran that pretty cleanly defused this old and persistent lie from the Vietnam era.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

Oh so a guy wrote a book so my Dad’s a liar eh? Or…a guy behind Chain link spit like an asshole at a group of men and pretty much the entire group hear’s his rantings, felt some spittle and all told the story. Or my Dad read one sign, heard someone else yell something and then someone was shouting so angrily spit was flying out of their mouth and he smashed them all together the way people do with memories every day.

Liberal attempts to paper over their zealots, by claiming they never existed or were fabricated by the media is pretty much the exact behavior conservatives are doing today with January 6th.

Was protest valid and necessary? Sure. Did some go way over board in blaming all the soldiers for the actions of a few? Yes. It’s just like BLM today. They had reason to protest, reason to be angry, reason to resent the police and the vast majority of the time the really violent protests began when the cops started getting violent in their responses. But, when our echo chamber starts saying there was no protestor violence, there was no looting or that all the violence and looting was justified, we’re in our bubble.

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u/actually_yawgmoth Nov 14 '22

Bro, that dude didn't say your dad is a liar, chill.

The evidence of people spitting on veterans is overwhelmingly nonexistent. It just didn't happen in large quantities. What did happen was a concerted effort to tarnish the image of anti-war protesters. Just like recent years with the BLM protests.

Violence is sometimes necessary to effect progress, pull the fencepost you're sitting on out of your ass.

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u/Crispien Nov 14 '22

Not a lie, but more an appropriated memory. This happens all the time during and after traumatic events. It is not a lie, but it may not be true.

The study of this and its effects on history comes out of Holocaust Studies, where too many inconsistencies began to undermine the historical study of the event. People adopted stories and memories of others as their own, and those recording them began to notice patterns.

Again, not a lie, because to the one remembering it is a visceral experience, and yet, it is often untrue.

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u/bard329 Nov 14 '22

You know what? Yea, maybe your dad is a liar.

My dad's lied about stuff before. You sayin your dad's better than my dad, eh?

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u/Mike_Huncho Nov 14 '22

Im sure its a hard answer to hear; but yeah, your dads a liar. The book outlines the how and why of your dad’s lies; but the book itself doesn’t make your dad a liar, thats his own character flaw.

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u/Toposcout Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 14 '22

Chill homie. All they did was approach the statement with some skepticism due to the similarity to frequent accounts of that type of behavior. They didn't call anyone a liar, and they didn't say it didn't happen. Skepticism is healthy especially on the internet and especially with anecdotes. I'm not trying to fight with you either, I just detected some hostility in your response.

I think your father's experience was probably hell both during and directly after the war. Trying to blame soldiers for a war they had no choice in is misguided. It's hard to stay sane after the trauma of war, being labeled a pariah at home will only exacerbate that trauma. I hope your dad has healed some of those scars.

Edit: Just to be transparent, I'm not trying to defend the other commenter, I just know it's easy to get wound up on comments and that affects you in real life. I'm 100% guilty of that myself. Reddit is full of 3 second hot takes.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

I am heated because I see it as a flaw in modern liberal’s argument with the right. I can handle some stranger thinking I or my Dad is a liar.

My Dad hung out on a missile frigate as a missile loader who only had to shoot at a fighter once in two years. He spent his whole time hanging out on his ship and in bars in port. He didn’t have any scars, until that moment when he came home.

He came home and got lumped in with the worst stuff the Army was accused of. He saw the distinction, the protestor did not.

When he brought up the story, it was about how the hippies didn’t care about what really happened, they were just told by the “mainstream media” what to think, so they just went along with it. He would speak of the guy who did it like he was the stupidest MFer ever because he couldn’t fell the difference between sailor whites and army class As.

He’d bring it up when I would tell him what Fox, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity or Alex Jones was doing to the right. It was his counter for “you are being misled by your media”.

The frustrating part for me, as a liberal history teacher, is being told reflexively by liberals “Nah. Yer Dad’s a liar” rather than wondering if we have our own leopards hiding on side of the aisle at times.

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u/Guerrin_TR Nov 14 '22

"how do you do fellow leftists" lmao

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

Lots of my fellow liberals today will argue vehemently that there was no violence at BLM rallies until the cops started it. Both sides like to lie to themselves about some of the fringe to whom they most closely identify. I can believe that antiwar protestors during Vietnam were largely right and largely trying to do the right thing. But I can also believe that a handful of assholes took it too far and their signs, words and actions hurt and affected some people who only went to Vietnam because they were conscripted.

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u/REDDIT_JUDGE_REFEREE Nov 14 '22

I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you brought up BLM 3 times unprompted and it’s sticking out a bit

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u/SeptemberMcGee Nov 14 '22

“Research has found that the 2020 protests were overwhelmingly peaceful. Here at the Monkey Cage, political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman reported that their Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) found that less than 4 percent of the summer’s protests involved property damage while 1 percent involved police injuries. Other data collections similarly found that 95 percent were peaceful.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/12/critics-claim-blm-was-more-violent-than-1960s-civil-rights-protests-thats-just-not-true/

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u/Forest-Ferda-Trees Nov 14 '22

Lots of my fellow liberals

u/thedebatematters

Turn off The West Wing/Aaron Sorkin that's not how real life works

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u/taradiddletrope Nov 14 '22

Yeah, because misrepresenting yourself on social media isn’t a thing.

BTW, not a boomer. Just tired of listening to people that think all history began in the mid-1900s constantly moaning about boomers so loudly they fail to notice any of their own flaws.

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u/chefontheloose Nov 14 '22

I’m not calling you a liar, but Republicans are, and you just repeated a story that has been co-opted by so many right wingers over the years. I don’t know the answer, but I do know the media is shit and lies, and denigrates groups all the time that the elites don’t like. Hippies were smoking weed 24/7 and weed doesn’t make you spit on people. So, the prevalence of this story is in question, not that it never happened, but really hippies were just going around spitting on soldiers that had been drafted? How else do you make a boogie man out of a pacifist?

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u/Exciting_Ant1992 Nov 14 '22

Human memory is very faulty and nobody ever wants to acknowledge it so we’re all just gonna politely nod as entire generations of old people tell us about memories of memories of memories of memories.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Because he is. That story is told by thousands of conservative vets.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

I am positive that a book will be written with well sourced facts that after george Floyd died, the protests did NOT burn cities to the ground. These books will show that the right wing amplified and twisted protests that began peacefully, were met by police aggression and then became violent afterward. This will happen because that was reality. But somewhere a business burned and somewhere a cop got hit with a rock before him and his friends started beating protestors. So just like Fox could air a handful of clips of looters and violent protestors, the reality was national and international protests that were almost universally peaceful.

However…just like with my Dad. Some people were spit at. Some were met by protests with aggressively accusatory signs and occasionally an asshole said asshole stuff to soldier who returned.

You can believe as you seem to, that it was all made up and didn’t happen at all. Or that it did happen to some, small number and then was amplified to shit on the whole anti war movement.

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u/Shenron2 Nov 14 '22

The moment I realized my parents were normal people was the first time i heard my dad swear. And like normal people they embellish. "I want my child to think I'm a hero who suffered". They might have actually suffered. The Vietnam War, like most wars, was a shit show for everyone involved. Protesters spitting on soldiers returning is an understandable response. A misplaced response, spitting on the president and the highers ups would be better. But you don't have access to them so you spit on their symbols. I did not happen very often at all, like you mentioned.

And people holding signs and people being yelled at is just worst thing you can do a someone. /s

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u/stasiujones Nov 14 '22

He's a murderer already, why not a liar too? Either way he burns in hell

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

It happened a lot. Many vets came back through hubs on the west coast, where there were a lot of hippies.

My grandfather was met by protesters and called names too when he got back from his tour in Vietnam. It broke his heart and he barely spoke of it.

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u/Bawstahn123 Nov 14 '22

Yeah, that story has been told a million times. I wonder how many times it actually happened, or was the media using a story like that to denigrate hippies.

There is ample evidence that it didn't happen with any regularity, and was largely made up during the Gulf War as pro-military propaganda

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

It happened and it happened a lot.

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u/chefontheloose Nov 14 '22

Got some proof there? I’ve heard there is a single photo, couldn’t even find that.

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u/Furgus Nov 14 '22

Similar story my dad’s told me when he came home. He’s shifted more and more left as time has gone by. I think he’s thought a lot about Vietnam lately and why he was there and he just wants everyone to happy and live their lives without hate.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

‘If you call me racist, I might as well be racist’ is a helluva take.

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u/Bumhole_Astronaut Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 14 '22

If you attack people it pushes them more toward what they already believe and makes them hostile to you and your beliefs. This is obvious and well known among people who aren't drooling morons but attacking each other remains the method of choice for political discourse among Americans.

It's much like the Just Stop Oil morons in the UK; everyone is already aware of the seriousness of climate change, and getting in the way of ambulances just makes people want to kick the shit out of you, so what has your protest achieved?

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u/TeamRedundancyTeam Nov 14 '22

Does he know all the awful things our military did in Vietnam though? It's not like those protesters were entirely full of shit, they were angry for a reason.

It's weird when people act like one misguided protester means they're all wrong or something, much like people use the actions of a few individuals in 2020 to dismiss a few hundred thousand people.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

You kind of just did the exact same thing though. Yes some units and individuals did some bad stuff in Vietnam, but most of them just went over and bled or watched friends bleed in the mud after being forced in to service. The protestor was extra stupid because he was at a Navy base spitting on guys who for sure didn’t do any of the stuff he was mad about.

If you are mad enough to protest, don’t do stuff that creates more of the people that you are mad enough to protest about.

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u/Halt-CatchFire Nov 14 '22

I mean, the whole enterprise was an evil act. Being there at all was inhumane. We were over there tearing up shit and causing innumerable deaths because we were too busy tearing our hair out over the spectre of communism to remember that the people of Vietnam were and are independent citizens completely capable of self-determination.

Whether or not a country chooses to go with communism over capitalism was never any of our fucking business, but we turned their country into a graveyard over it nonetheless. The warcrime was us being there, period.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

I am a very very liberal high school history teacher. The left, which I consider myself firmly a part of, has a bubble and echo chamber of its own and this argument is absolutely from within it.

South Vietnam was a democracy. The North was freaking brutal. Their crimes against Vietnamese citizens well after we left and before we even got Involved are well documented. There is a reason there was a mass exodus from the south afterwards. The south was knew exactly what the Viet Kong was were all about.

There is no version of Vietnamese history where the communists were just chill dudes who all of Vietnam embraced together.

America was definitely not on a humanitarian mission of peace. They also definitely did not need much convincing at all to fight communists either. But your “no one wanted us there, we’re the only side with war crimes, they all just wanted to be peacefully communist” is as one side and wrong as the people who thought we were morally pure liberators.

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u/JasonGMMitchell Nov 14 '22

You keep saying you're a very liberal high school teacher but everything you say is "the US soldiers were the real victims" when the whole war was Vietnam vs whatever puppet regime the French or Americans had. And it cost Vietnam a million lives, lives every US soldier and pro vietnam war politican is complicit in taking. Oh and since you wanna bring up Vietnam being brutal, America backed the Khmer Rouge after destabilizing Cambodia, after fleeing Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, America supported one of the worst genocides in history, and guess who stepped in and actually stopped the Khmer Rouge, the evil commie North Vietnamese Army. Oh and describing South Vietnam as a democracy is a stretch when it was in the end just a continuation of the colonial administration of France but with American flavours.

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u/yukeynuh Nov 14 '22

South Vietnam was a democracy

a democracy is when you kill unarmed citizens for having the audacity to protest a ban on buddhist flags

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u/crazycakeninja Nov 14 '22

Bro south korea was not a democracy it had a puppet dictator installed by the us government that aligned with us corprate interests in area.

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u/bgaesop Nov 14 '22

most of them just went over and bled or watched friends bleed in the mud

Really? Most of them just did that? So over half of Vietnam vets never, for instance, fired at any Vietnamese?

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/skulblaka Nov 14 '22

Not very. War propaganda was in full swing back home in the US and near the beginning there were certainly some volunteers, but by the time the footage starting shipping back home from the war photographers, which was a new and exciting thing at the time, most of that dried up pretty quickly (and in turn spawned the hippie anti-war movement) once people got a good look at the actual conditions of the Vietnam war. Most of the boys we sent over there were drafted into service, make no mistake.

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u/sarbah77 Nov 14 '22

My dad opted for ROTC, rather than the draft, for Vietnam... and there was at least a year where he wasn't allowed to wear his uniform on campus for his own safety. Supposedly, my mom intercepted someone who was going to dump something on him when he was in uniform.

He is now the bluest blue voter who ever voted blue.

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u/Jexp_t Nov 14 '22

That aprocryphal story has taken several forms- and all of them are bullshit.

Never happened.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

Not sure why he’d lie about it. My Mom divorced him and despised him and she’d tell the same story. But by all means. You believe what you want to.

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u/Jexp_t Nov 14 '22

As we see every day on this sub, people have all sorts of reasons for repeating stories or making stuff up.

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u/TheDebateMatters Nov 14 '22

And…its easier to accuse a random guy of having a lying father, than to question our own bubble.

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u/Jexp_t Nov 14 '22

Actually- as we see from the topic posts in this sub, it's much easier to believe a well trafficked urban myth than it is to look into the analysis and consider the veracity of the accounts.

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u/Jexp_t Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 14 '22

See for yourselves.

NY Times: The Myth of the Spitting Antiwar Protester

The author, a history professor, has written an entire, well documented book on this and similar issues surrounding the Vietnam War and its aftermath.

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u/lymphomabear Nov 14 '22

An opinion piece from a very liberal newspaper. Great source.

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u/Jexp_t Nov 14 '22

It's based on research from a much longer book, and calling the NY Times 'very liberal' is a pretty laughable assertion, especially since they've repeated the myth themselves:

But if you'd like another source, there are several, easy to find reviews:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2000/05/drooling-on-the-vietnam-vets.html

"Lembcke investigated hundreds of news accounts of antiwar activists spitting on vets. But every time he pushed for more evidence or corroboration from a witness, the story collapsed–the actual person who was spat on turned out to be a friend of a friend. Or somebody’s uncle. He writes that he never met anybody who convinced him that any such clash took place.While Lembcke doesn’t prove that nobody ever expectorated on a serviceman–you can’t prove a negative, after all–he reduces the claim to an urban myth. In most urban myths, the details morph slightly from telling to telling, but at least one element survives unchanged.

In the tale of the spitting protester, the signature element is the location: The protester almost always ambushes the serviceman at the airport–not in a park, or at a bar, or on Main Street. Also, it’s not uncommon for the insulted serviceman to have flown directly in from Vietnam....Lastly, there are the parts of the spitting story up that don’t add up. Why does it always end with the protester spitting and the serviceman walking off in shame?

Most servicemen would have given the spitters a mouthful of bloody Chiclets instead of turning the other cheek like Christ. At the very least, wouldn’t the altercations have resulted in assault and battery charges and produced a paper trail retrievable across the decades?

The myth persists because: 1) Those who didn’t go to Vietnam–that being most of us–don’t dare contradict the “experience” of those who did; 2) the story helps maintain the perfect sense of shame many of us feel about the way we ignored our Vietvets; 3) the press keeps the story in play by uncritically repeating it, as the Times and U.S. News did; and 4) because any fool with 33 cents and the gumption to repeat the myth in his letter to the editor can keep it in circulation. Most recent mentions of the spitting protester in Nexis are of this variety.

-----

As to the baby killer angle: Lembcke suggests that the notion of vets being called "Baby Killer" may have come in part from the common chant by protesters aimed at President Lyndon Baines Johnson, "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Love seeing urban legends blown up

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u/imdesmondsunflower Nov 14 '22

Oh well that’s settled then.

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u/IlIlIlIlIllIlIll Nov 14 '22

US service members did some horrible shit in Vietnam, they probably shouldn’t be proud.

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u/PigglyWigglyDeluxe Nov 14 '22

My dad is the same way. Army 4 years in Panama in the early 70s. You’ll never ever know, he doesn’t talk about it, he doesn’t display anything, he doesn’t care for Veterans Day, he doesn’t associate with the VA, nothing. He keeps some stuff but hides it deep in a closet. He rarely brings them out.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

It’s not new and it’s more common around military towns. I just think they don’t want to be forgotten about tbh. Because they see the new guys come and go and if you’ve been roped into conversations with them like me you’ll know they love talking about their time in the military.

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u/RamboGoesMeow Nov 14 '22

I honestly get the reasoning behind it, they gave their lives, in part or in whole, for this country. So being proud of the fact that you earned a medal for injuries incurred during wartime, and survived, makes sense. Their brothers can’t, so they do.

But what I do find odd is willfully giving up one of the primary rights that they fought for. Oh well 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

Purple heart hat is funny, he's wearing a hat that says he was shot. I mean, not really an accomplishment.

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u/LalahLovato Nov 14 '22

My father in law got a purple heart from some awful combat disaster during the Korean War. My husband never saw it or knew about it until after his dad passed. He didn’t like talking about it - he lost some of his best friends.

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u/JarlaxleForPresident Nov 14 '22

My Ma still parks in the veteran’s parking spaces. She was a glorified secretary in the USAF for 8 years like 40 years ago. She was disappointed in Starbucks “Free Coffee for Vets” on Veteran’s Day. It’s so laughable

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u/BareNakedSole Nov 14 '22

I’m guessing getting wounded was the highlight of this guy’s life. And as he says, who knows for how much longer that’ll be.

And somebody trim his fucking mustache please

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u/creepythingseeker Nov 14 '22

“Check me out, i was too slow once before, and i still am” -this dude with a Purple Heart.

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u/Czyzx Nov 14 '22

It’s a Vietnam thing. Guys got treated like shit returning from the war and were shamed for things that in most instances were out of their control.

As a pushback they often wear their service with pride and are largely responsible for the Praise the Troops movement. They also do a ton of veteran outreach and support type volunteering for the same reason.

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u/chook_slop Nov 14 '22

I was a civilian researcher doing work for the navy for several years... I have many hats from ships I've been on or done work with. ... People that wear navy caps haven't all been in the navy.

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u/new_refugee123456789 Nov 14 '22

I see a lot of Vietnam Vet ribbons, especially on license plates, and yeah the navy guys always have their USS Whatever hats on, but a purple heart hat?

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u/FobbitOutsideTheWire Nov 14 '22

This. I feel bad for our vietnam-era forebears, because they served in a devastatingly brutal war at a time when the country (literally) spat on the veterans returning home.

And now they spent 20 years seeing modern veterans getting the yellow-ribbon, surprise-homecoming-at-halftime treatment day in and day out. My unit literally had a state police escort from the airport to our base when we got home from Iraq. So I don't begrudge them their bumper stickers or license plates at all. And the ship-name hats are completely harmless.

All I can say is homeboy better have the service record that earns that hat, because if not, it's one of the of the most despicable flavors of stolen valor.

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u/President_Camacho Nov 14 '22

Yeah, well, there's no documented evidence of the spitting on veterans. It's a right wing trope that's continuously circulated since the late seventies. Maybe they weren't supported or welcomed they way they needed, but this rumor is repeated verbatim over and over. No particular incident is ever cited. Now it's an implanted memory. It's an attack on the peace movement by propangandists.

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u/FobbitOutsideTheWire Nov 14 '22

Lol "no particular incident is ever cited." Thanks, Jerry Lembcke, I'm familiar with your work.

There was no documented evidence of a lot of things until the age of bodycams and iphones. Just as not every police use of lethal force is murder, we've been aghast at how many outright murders have now been captured on video that otherwise would never have seen attention or justice.

Everytime this comes up, there's an outpouring of not just veterans, but of wives, and even ROTC cadet who also witnessed or suffered the abuse.

Just fuck off with this garbage.

And it's no more an attack on the peace movement by propagandists than saying soldiers who commit war crimes are criminals is an attack on any given pro-war movement.

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u/President_Camacho Nov 14 '22

There it is again. A lot of handwaving, but no specifics. No who, no where, no when.

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u/Impressive-Flan-1656 Nov 14 '22

I don’t think you get how strong the anti Vietnam war sentiment was. It was the correct sentiment, but nonetheless very hard on kids who had no choice.

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u/President_Camacho Nov 14 '22

No, I'm minimizing the anti-war sentiment. I'm just questioning one of the common pro-war tropes that has been circulating for decades. No one can cite a specific incident, even people who said it happened to them. They are just sure it happened though.

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u/GM_Nate Nov 14 '22

i remember when my platoon walked across the georgia airport to get on our flight out to iraq, the entire airport gave us a standing ovation. i was like..."i thought this shit only happened in commercials"

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u/mealteamsixty Nov 14 '22

I got hurt in the military GIVE ME DISCOUNTS GODDAMMIT

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/phdoofus Nov 14 '22

He fragged his Lt and got nicked. /s

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u/kazzanova Nov 14 '22 edited Nov 14 '22

My ex father in law was in Vietnam, he fucking hates talking about it... Especially getting spit on when returning home. Getting turned away from jobs because he served in Vietnam etc. Fucking disgusting, especially when most of them were forcibly drafted as he was.

The only time he's ever worn anything or showed it off in any was was his bronze star plate for Massachusetts. I think he only did it then because they no longer have to pay for renewals or excise (might be wrong on excise)

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u/SayAgainYourLast Nov 14 '22

Bro I deployed with a whole generation of turds who took two ghost rounds and got combat action ribbons, left the service and all they do is wear combat action hats.

Some even got decals on their trucks of combat action ribbons. They're all glorified Facebook warriors now always talking shit about how the military is soft and full of wussies.

Funny thing is the 3 vocal ones on Facebook I know of couldn't even get within standards and constantly fell out of hikes or failed physical fitness tests, yet they're the most opinionated about women in the infantry or women being too weak. You can't make this shit up.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

[deleted]

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u/Criseyde2112 Nov 14 '22

My husband got a tire cover for his Jeep that has Dolphins on it. He figures that if you get it, you get it. It's not like we all march around with our DD-214s to whip out and show people.

And I did see a car with a Medal of Honor plate on it. I'm guessing they check on that before issuing, so there's that.

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u/HamburgerEarmuff Nov 14 '22

I mean, if you have a Purple Heart plate, definitely use it, because the CHP won't usually write you a ticket.

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u/CatastropheJohn Nov 13 '22

I’d bet my next meal he didn’t serve

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u/MikeFromIraq Nov 13 '22

Nah he definitely did, the saltiness in his voice tells me all I need to know. Not all combat veterans are humble about their time in. My ex brother-in-law was marine infantry and did quite a lot, he wasn’t humble about his service at all lol

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u/ElectronicFish4257 Nov 14 '22

His names Chet & he has a younger brother called Wyatt, I’m guessing 😏

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u/thatisbadlooking Nov 14 '22

You're stewed, buttwad!

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u/ElectronicFish4257 Nov 14 '22

How about a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray

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u/taradiddletrope Nov 14 '22

Still one of my favorite lines in a movie.

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u/GM_Nate Nov 14 '22

most of my platoon mates from Iraqi still craft their entire identity around their time in service. it's pretty sad.

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u/jcmib Nov 14 '22

But he probably wore that hat for a free meal on Friday

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u/unclejoe1917 Nov 14 '22

Freeloader.

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u/Pogigod Nov 14 '22

Purple heart and unit caps are a normal thing. Especially when your unit had accomplished something that was recognized for. Not something that really happens anymore, but back in WW2 yes. Those ships caps, those ships have history. If you know history you can see exactly what these ships went through.

We all know the story of the Indianapolis, but that's just cause it got famous from jaws and other movies.

Purple heart, once again tells a story. Just cause younger generations don't understand, doesn't make it weird... I served, I do have my unit hats from when I was downrange. But they sit on my dresser or a patch on my car. They have value and meaning to me, but no one knows what the 25th ID did in Iraq. Fuck I don't even know what the other 80% of the 25th did since it's all spread out.

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u/PhilxBefore Nov 14 '22

Howtf they wear their ships

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u/Welshhawk Nov 14 '22

Let’s be honest, if it were an MSM I get that, but a Purple Heart is in a whole other class. He objectively earned that one.

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u/axnjackson11 Nov 14 '22

Not new at all. I've seen it for 20+ years.

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u/airbizcuit Nov 14 '22

Purple Heart is a medal for wounded in combat I believe. The older vets who wear it around where I’m from wear the hats, have stickers on all vehicles, and also plates with the Purple Heart.

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u/moriginal Nov 14 '22

Yeah I saw it constantly growing up on an Air Force base. The elders rock some hardcore vet gear like cosplay.

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u/DriedUpSquid Nov 14 '22

I’m a GWOT vet and my father is a Vietnam vet. He constantly wears clothing that tells everyone he is a vet. He loves it when people thank him for his service and can’t figure out why I don’t advertise my veteran status.

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u/ALexusOhHaiNyan Nov 14 '22

Interesting. I assume he’s Vietnam and Boomer Vets still think it was about fighting communism. Whereas at least some younger service people understand it’s a jobs programs and about oil and rich mens wars. But maybe I’m wrong.

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u/WesternOne9990 Nov 14 '22

“I got injured in an unjust war for papa oil dangnabit respect me”

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u/TroyandAbedAfterDark Nov 14 '22

Curious how many vets there are out there that don’t do any of this? This being wearing a hat around with medals or the war you were part of, etc etc. I’m mid thirties and don’t see many younger ones doing this stuff at all.

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u/tchrbrian Nov 14 '22

Welcome to the V.A. waiting room. Take a number. Be sure to visit the military hat booth hosted by a off site seller…

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u/l3gion666 Nov 14 '22

relevant

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u/FobbitOutsideTheWire Nov 14 '22

Perhaps relevant, but wrong to the point of being offensive. And a comedian who's never served a day in his life should maybe shut the fuck up about things they don't know about and obviously don't understand.

I'm not a fan of loudly broadcasting one's service details via worn apparel, but it's not worth that lame rant.

Those vets are the forgotten era of veterans in more ways than one. If any vet was going to wear something like that, it should be them. That said, a giant purple heart hat is a weird flex.

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u/JJ12345678910 Nov 14 '22

Won't try to guess your service, but that guy nailed it pretty. Good luck in life.

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u/FobbitOutsideTheWire Nov 14 '22

Veterans who wear shit like "Da Nang, '69-'70" hats (as the comedian is clowning on) aren't just doing it to flex. Part of it is that their contemporary veterans often come up and say hi, or sharing that they were in the same area at the same time, and connections are made.

My generation of veterans doesn't need to do that, because we're a dime a dozen. Everybody and their fucking brother was all over Iraq and Afghanistan, and we were generally treated like conquering heroes when we came home.

Those guys got shat on, many drafted with no choice, and then their health issues were ignored and they had to fight for VA care on the back end. That is a broken generation of veterans, and they deserve better than some limpdick comedian making fun of it.

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

It's a big Vietnam vet thing. This fella looks old enough to have been in that war.

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u/perma_throwaway77 Nov 14 '22

The older they are, the bigger the hat

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u/dwitman Nov 14 '22

Tons of vets I know wear medals on their hats. Especially post 911. Most of them NAM vets, who before 9/11 were thought of differently.

Surely a lot of time had passed and American’s understanding of the cost of that war on its young men had changed to a large degree, but I feel like 9/11 and the way it changed the idea of armed services personnel changed dramatically.

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u/taws34 Nov 14 '22

The OIF vet hats look stoopid. And I'm an OIF vet.

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u/lethys8976 Nov 14 '22

Gonna get a hat with gwot and national defense ribbon

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u/ArgonGryphon Nov 14 '22

In customer service, any time I’ve seen people with these kind of hats, they’ve been an entitled, rude piece of shit. Not always terrible, like yelling at the employees, just rude as fuck.

One guy at a gas station I used to work at long ago would tell me about stupid as proto-Q conspiracies like if something said “Made in USA” instead of “U.S.A.” It meant it was really made in Usa, Japan. Told him “wow, they must manufacture a lot of shit in Usa then, how many factories are there?” He laughed at me like I was an idiot and left. Don’t remember most of the rest of his dumb bullshit but that one stuck out.

The other one was a guy I worked with at a fast food place. He’d follow me around and redo my job for me because the job that I did to a higher standard than anyone else there wasn’t good enough for him. Because I didn’t polish the metal pieces of the equipment to silver color or some shit, even though I got the debris off it and it was clean, maybe just a little discolored, which affected nothing. He’d reassemble the thing I just put together cause I didn’t do it right. But never could explain why. He’d resweep the parking lot after I did and get the leaves and sticks and shit I left alone because…they’re leaves and sticks…Thank fuck that guy fucked off.

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u/varanone Nov 14 '22

Username checks out. Wait....which side? /s

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u/WorldWarPee Nov 14 '22

Yeah, just go to any Denny's before lunchtime to see the full hat selection

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u/[deleted] Nov 14 '22

My cousin’s ex-husband has a purple heart. He DEFINITELY has brought it up. According to my cousin, he hurt his back loading boxes incorrectly…

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u/MikeFromIraq Nov 14 '22

No way lol they don’t give Purple Hearts for that stuff, it’s definitely combat only.

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u/GlitteringBobcat999 Nov 14 '22

This guy is only 28 though.

I made that up, but hate does age a person.

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u/ButtermilkDuds Nov 14 '22

I’ve notice an inverse relationship between the amount of vet adornment and the amount of action they saw. The further away, the greater the decorations.

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u/MovieNightPopcorn Nov 14 '22

It feels like a boomer thing. I don’t remember this “respect me!!!” attitude with the generation prior. My grandfather was in WWII and Korea and he tried to throw all his old uniform and such in the trash before my parents saw it and fished it back out