Did anyone here see a vet in a wheelchair get spit on at Saturday's rally?

[jmowreader]

Oh, you guys are just going to LOVE this.

Yesterday's Fayetteville Observer carries an editorial by one Myron Pitts about a valiant, pro-war, veteran of Operation Iraqi Liberation who came back from Iraq missing a leg. He's still in favor of the war, so he decided to come out on Saturday from Walter Reed and join the counterprotest.

He sat in his chair in the freepers' area.

Now check this out: This young paratrooper claims that the antiwar protesters were verbally abusive to him personally, and that one of our number spit on him.

I'm thinkin' one of three things happened: a liberal actually did spit on him (the least likely of the three options, but possible); he's completely full of shit and is just using the "someone spit on me" line to turn the morans in this town against the antiwar movement; or this kid agreed to let a freeper dressed as a war protester spit on him so he'd be able to claim one of us did it.

Therefore! Did ANYONE here, anyone at all, see an antiwar protester go after a veteran in a wheelchair, or anyone else in a wheelchair, in the freeper containment area?

I'm about ready to inform Mr. Pitts as to exactly what freepers are. Could someone please help?

[niyad]

1. will find the alternet link. seems josh sparling isn't exactly what that article would have him be.

this was covered extensively here on sunday, I know others will be able to help.

[seemunkee]

2. send a PM to proud2Blib or evlbstrd

I think they have more information on this. I believe it was proud2blib that talked to a NY Times reporter who claims they saw it.

[CC]

3. On Countdown last night

Keith mentioned it. Seems the guy changed his story to spit on the sidewalk near him then withdrew his story completely.

Sounds like the guy that was with the freepers that showed (all 10 to 40 of them) that the freeps tried to say was berated and heckled by protesters. Course the freeps said they had 2 bull horns to yell at passing protesters so no wonder people shouted them down. Sounds like the same old freep bs.

[Emit]

5. Reminds me of this piece on "Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam"

Here's the overview of this guy's book subject on the claims of Vietnam vets being spat on:

~snip~

Although Nexis overflows with references to protesters gobbing on Vietnam vets, and Bob Greene's 1989 book Homecoming: When the Soldiers Returned From Vietnam counts 63 examples of protester spitting, Jerry Lembcke argues that the story is bunk in his 1998 book The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam (click here to buy it). Lembcke, a professor of sociology at Holy Cross and a Vietnam vet, 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.

~snip~

Lembcke uncovered a whole lot of spitting from the war years, but the published accounts always put the antiwar protester on the receiving side of a blast from a pro-Vietnam counterprotester. Surely, he contends, the news pages would have given equal treatment to a story about serviceman getting the treatment. Then why no stories in the newspaper morgues, he asks?

~snip~

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.

~snip~

http://www.slate.com/id/1005224/

[DRoseDARs]

4. Oh, so now it's a vet IN A WHEELCHAIR. Methinks Myron Pitts is embellishing the story...

There's a thread around here somewhere regarding the protest and a DU'er who actually spoke with Pitts there. The vet in question has a bit of a history for "incidents" like this, so it's likely he's up to his old tricks again ands Pitts is helping.

[Sweet Freedom]

6. Here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=284x310

[Warren Stupidity]

7. It seems that everywhere josh sparling goes

nasty antiwar types attack him. The man is a virtual magnet of hatred. The only problem is that none of the abuse hurled at him can actually be documented by anyone other than josh sparling and his friends. He appears to be a rightwing political operative. Google josh sparling for some insight.

And to answer your question: nobody credible saw the alleged incident, which fact has not stopped its being reported over and over again.

[Jeanette in FL]

8. Here is a link to proud2blib thread on it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=80613

Lots of info here.