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The Spitting Image (click here)

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam (1998) is a book by Vietnam veteran and Sociology professor Jerry Lembcke. The book is an analysis of the widely believed narrative that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by antiwar protesters upon returning home from the Vietnam War. The book examines the origin of the earliest stories; the popularization of the "spat-upon image" through Hollywood movies and fiction literature, and the role of print news media in perpetuating the now iconic image through which the history of the war and antiwar movement has come to be represented.

Lembcke contrasts the absence of credible evidence of spitting by antiwar activists with the large body of evidence showing a mutually supportive, empathetic relationship between veterans and antiwar forces.

The book documents the efforts of the Nixon Administration to drive a wedge between military servicemen and the antiwar movement by portraying democratic dissent as betrayal of the troops, effectively redirecting blame for failure in Vietnam onto protesters.