It's funny though - in those days, we're talking draftees. In other words, plenty of people who did not want to partake in the murder schemes of the US (which was largely in competition with the USSR on who could kill off more people). Demonizing those soldiers was a horrible thing to do - considering that they were largely enslaved by the state. They should have been pitied more than anything else.
The soldiers of the today, however.. let's just say the whole 'support the troops' rhetoric should have been applied to Vietnam vets - while the spitting and swearing should have been left for today's troops - who are volunteers/professionals - who should know better than to partake in the numerous war crimes USA commits today against the world and humanity.

I'll give you my take on it, for whatever it's worth.
I turned 18 in 1971, and believe you me, I was terrified of the notion of being drafted to go fight in a theater 15,000 miles away for a reason no one in authority could make clear - other than we have to stop the communists.
The communists had already taken over the two largest countries on the planet. Why should we go die in a little place called Vietnam?
As has been noted several places elsewhere on this board, media coverage of Vietnam was far more detailed than ever before and in living color. The horrors of war became all too apparent and at what benefit? And this, just referring only to what it was doing to our young men.
Later it was revealed, this was a war by attrition. Whole villages of old men, women and children were being wiped out. If not by napalm, then up close with an M-16. Many soldiers like Kovic openly admitted their role in following orders to "when in doubt, kill.". Meaning, murder.
The public, already dubious about the merits of something our fearless leaders (who made sure none of their sons went there) continually assured us was only a temporary "conflict" to keep the "dominoes" from falling, finally had enough.
People in those times actually had a conscience about the ethics of destroying another people's whole country for a dubious cause. And so they expressed it as vociferously as they could and sometimes without complete understanding and mercy. But it got the attention, finally, of the administration. Especially when students became the targets of overzealous riot squads and the National Guard.
It was one thing to kill people and destroy villages thousands of miles away, but now students were dying by American guns.
And so, many soldiers were reviled as criminal because following orders is never an excuse for murder. If it were, that argument would have won the day at Nuremberg.
Fortunately for me, my draft status changed just prior to my birthday. While I personally never witnessed a Vietnam vet being abused, I can certainly understand the motivation behind it.
Now, people say "protest the war but support the troops". The pendulum has swung so far the other way, perhaps as an over correction to the reviling of troops 40 years ago, that every man and woman in fatigues gets congratulated and thanked for their "sacrifice" for our country, whether or not they've actually done any "sacrificing". Worship of the military is now standard procedure and anything to the contrary is grounds for suspicion of being unpatriotic at best, or treasonous at worst.
I much prefer it the way it was when this country had a conscience.
Democracy is the pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. H.L. Mencken

Such urban legends are absurd, but refuting them in detail has gotten to be a bore. Believe them or not, as you please.
Infantryman, 1st Cavalry Division, Vietnam, 1969-70

Why even bother limiting it to the pacific theatre?
The Japanese liberation of colonized peoples etc. was no skin off America's nose
And moreover they made such bloody good cameras

Yeah so?
How many innocent people has Amerika killed all over the globe?
All the right wing dictators propped up and regime changes.
Yes Hitler declared war on the us, he was an idiot, without his stupid decisions we would have won.
How many merchaant ships were sunk i wonder? they were probably supplying England, which they were warned not to do.
piss off you yid.
Eat the Neocons.

Only the Pacific, you say?
Germany declared war on the U.S. on 11 December 1941 and was sinking American merchant ships before and especially after this declaration, let alone murdering millions in Europe. The assertion you're making that we only had business in one theater is extremely unintelligent. Wherever you got your education, you should ask for a refund.

Very true in that regard
Haters gonna hate

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Yeah we should have let our allies be wiped off the map and let the war progress another 4 years and have deaths in the millions. Good call
A waste is you mentioning Grenada, and Panama.
If you dont like it here then go see how free you are somewhere else. Just sayin
Yeah Vietnam was a mistake. Hindsight is 20/20. It was a different time then in the cold war and the threat to the world was nuclear war. We thought the Vietnamese were puppets of China wanting to expand communism when in fact them and China HATE each other. The Vietnamese were fighting for nationalism, not communism
Haters gonna hate

Free?
Free from what
America had no business in ww1, should only have been in the pacific theatre in ww2.
Vietnam was a waste. Grenada? please, Panama?
Its just propaganda
Eat the Neocons.

Its because that if it were not for the brave men who fought and died, we would not be here talking like this. They fought to keep us free.
Haters gonna hate

Now its gone too much the other way. America has this creepy military worship.
Where people go up and thank anyone in a uniform Seems the country is one goosestep away from being a 2 bit military dictatorship, especially when the tright is in power.
Eat the Neocons.

No, soldiers were never spat upon or abused by protesters. In fact, many joined the anti-war movement. War protesters however WERE abused, including anti-war veterans.
It's a bit like the "November criminals" urban legend in Germany after WW1. The purpose of these things is to silence war critics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spitting_Image

Well, firstly, all the abuse and disrespect DID happen, and I saw that with my own eyes. As to the why it happened, I think there were a few reasons. One was that, during the other wars, we had a definite role to play, we were there fighting against direct threats to our own way of life and freedom, and there wre other countries in the effort with us it all meant something, to be involved as a whole country.
But in Vietnam, it was so nebulous, our reason for being there. Yes, the political reasons were to quash Communism, fight for the underdog, etc., but it wasn't as clear cut as the other wars. And in no other war were children taught to throw grenades, or their strollers used to hide a gun or bomb. The same for the old women and children. Our Men were understaffed, fighting a cause they didn't understand, and fighting enemies they couldn't define.
As a result of social tensions in the counterculture, the images being broadcast daily of babies and women getting shot, the abuse of the military seemed bound to happen. Add to that the high incidence of alcoholism and drug abuse by the soldiers, which led to some bad behavior on their part, it all was one huge beep of social turmoil.
These aren't new ideas, but just a bit of what veterans will talk to you about, if they will talk at all. Unfortunately, many suffer from PTSD, depression and substance abuse and havent found many
willing audiences.

I am not sure but the way they were treated compared to vets before and after is utterly deplorable. The young men had just been through pure hell, many not even wanting to fight. They did so because they believed in their country or they HAD to and its kill or be killed. Vietnam being the first TV war had a HUGE affect on normal citizens, as they were able to see the carnage of war but not really WHAT the soldiers were experiencing, but rather the aftermath.
Anyone who did that is a pathetic piece of trash, spit on them or insulted them.
Haters gonna hate but trolls are pathetic

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I remember as a teenager asking my Grandfather, who was a commander at the local VFW and American Legion, why Vietnam vets couldn't join?he said because it was not a declared warwhich I scoffed and said a bad word, and got sent homebut they did change the ruling years later

And pray tell how do you document such a thing in that era? That this never happened has itself become a myth. Perhaps it was not as widespread as some believe, who can really say. But over two and half million US military personnel served in Vietnam during the war, and many say this kind of thing happened to them when they came home. Are they all lying? You can't write it off as some kind of urban myth, ask anyone who was alive during that time, or the many of us who have family members and friends who were spat upon or cursed in some fashion after they got home. It DID happen, sorry to say. Most war protesters were good people who just wanted to see and end to the carnage. But there were some very bad people back then as well.
As the movie notes, Vietnam vets also got some terrible treatment from the right, from veterans of WWII. They were condemned for losing the war as if they had any say in policy made in Washington DC. They took a lot of garbage for the drug use and break down of morale as someone close to more than a few Vietnam vets, I can tell you they took abuse from every side "tragic" doesn't even begin to cover it

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I assume (so I could be wrong) that it was because people didn't separate the soldiers from the war like they do today. These days demonstrators and opponents of the war will say "We support the soldiers, not the war" unlike war opponents of the past. Some Vietnam war opponents lumped the war and soldiers together as a single guilty villain, so they spat on them.

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