sociology and anthropology and former chaplain assistant in the 41st Artillery Group during the Vietnam War, published in the New York Times an op-ed on the background and stories of antiwar protesters spitting on veterans returning from Vietnam. In the op-ed, he presents data and accounts which cast doubt on stories that paint antiwar sentiments in such an insidious light. Ultimately, Lemcke believes these stories arose because of their ability to support “notions that the military mission had been compromised, even betrayed, by weak-kneed liberalism in Congress and seditious radicalism on college campuses.”
Professor Lembcke’s publication “The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam and Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal,” expands much more comprehensively on this era of American media sensationalism.
Read Lembcke’s op-ed here:
