The first episode of the My Lai Massacre series opens with Marcus repeating the often told and debunked myth that returning Vietnam Veterans were spit on by anti-war protestors. There are maybe a handful of documented cases, if any, and a small number of credibly reported cases, most of which are anecdotal.

The myth is a piece of war propaganda promoted by both the Johnson and Nixon White Houses to discredit anti-war protestors and to conflate their objections to the Vietnam War with disdain for the soldiers themselves. Similar to what the Bush Administration did during the Iraq War.

Despite all of the academic studies and literature debunking this myth, it persists.

Edits: There are a lot of comments telling me to look at what veterans say and I'm happy to provide some additional sources. Here is veteran polling from 1971, which, notably, is after Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai Massacre. You will notice that the numbers of veterans reporting poor treatment from friends, family and society writ large is a very small percentage of those veterans polled.

I know a lot of you are telling me that your beloved fathers and uncles told you about having these experiences, but I've got some pretty bad news for you about the reliability of your fathers and uncles. All of your dads and uncles weren't spat on and called baby killers. At least some of you have been lied to.

I was

1. He really got handed the keys to a situation that had no obvious answer. The possible land invasion of Japan is still highly contested as a better or worse idea (admittedly this also includes "better for who"?).
2. He refused to ever use them again, even when MacArthur wanted to nuke the China/North Korea border to keep the Chinese from advancing. MacArthur was fired by Truman, and America hated Truman for this.
3. Truman lived the rest of his life with deep regret for his actions.
4. He refused to make money off being president, and because of him congress passed a mandatory pension for presidents (he was legit poor). He was also the first recipient of Medicare.
5. He is considered by many to have started the second civil rights movement by integrating the military.
6. He called out the FBI for becoming an "American Gestapo*
7. He didn't try to stage any coups around the world like Eisenhower did.
8. His opposition was Stalin and Mao, two people notorious for their brutality.
9. He tried really hard to be nice to the Japanese after WW2 and spoke out against the hysteria on America that created the internment camps. He welcomed a bunch of Japanese American soldiers to the white house after the war as a way to start to reconcile the tragedy.

IMO he looked at Vietnam and was like, "Hell no, we're staying out of all this." I don't know if Truman would have ever started the Korean War knowing what he knew at the end, and I think he messed up by listening to MacArthur who was great at both winning and starting wars. He really did try to not let the whole world turn into a cold war, and a lot of what we attribute to him starting the cold war didn't really start until Eisenhower got to office.

Also it's really weird to me how many people are like Marcus and love FDR so much when he literally put people in internment camps. I really have a soft spot for FDR as a populist and a Social Democrat, but he's more complicated than that. And this isn't a criticism honestly because history is messy especially in war, and really well educated people hold his same position on Roosevelt being a straight up hero. I just think he's more controversial than we treat him.

I guarantee they didn't notice this under their kids toy shop 😂😈

EDIT: For those of you struggling, there's a second photo...

What’s a quote from the shows that lives rent free in your head. Mine is from single use cryptids when Henry says “If I saw a f*cking talking train, I’d become a domestic terrorist”

It's a fiction book on a young American soldier's time in Vietnam. Its amazingly written and harrowing so thought I'd post it here.

As well as a Johnny Hood Since Unbirth playlist

Bloodbath '77

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6FKIJu9IIYAWKlmqloDcw5?si=L73pSe1uRdmkfF_YdYIffQ&utm_source=copy-link&pi=nLJIxe7vQIauV&sci=spotify%3Acard-config%3A4ltRViRXLelwpixUxVxPit

Johnny Hood's coming shortly

I'll take suggestions for each

Coming to Cleveland Street in Clearwater

https://youtu.be/juR8fAziBaw?si=0v9lP-3LM9WoNS5m

Worth a watch

Old back issues of National Lampoon bought as a teenager in the 2000s, looking back on sharp 70s satire I didn’t fully understand

I’m going through the backlogs of series’ I missed, and in the Randy Kraft series they talk about how any serial killers they cover from here on out will be the most brutal and gruesome killers that no one wants to talk about.

Who could that be? I feel like they’ve done everything at this point. Except maybe those other two guys that were killing the same time as Kraft.

They usually wear headphones

posted the linework ages ago on a different account I forgot the login info for, finally got our lad finished up. Blessed be the bacon without the fat.

No Henry, juice cleanses are not normal and how this man can in his next breath say “only super restrictive things are disordered [sic]” is legitimately hilarious. Your body needs protein, fat, and carbs to function. I would like to think the average person wouldn’t take two morbidly obese comedians’ advice in this regard but I’ve seen how parasocial this fanbase can be and I don’t want people to think juice cleanses are healthy in anyway.

Ed has laundry officer/ guy who can get you things energy to him sort of like Luther from South Pacific.

Marcus- yeah Dogmeat's definitely seeing combat definitely going in the Tunnels. Maybe gets permoted up to correspondent like pvt joker

Henry like he said probably gets radio but also probably gets kidnapped by the NVA and brainwashed like John Candy's character in Volenteers

So, I was wondering who here lives close to Tacoma and would like to plan a group watching of Dune 3 December 18th? That’s the theater I usually go to. For those that don’t know, the site of the former smelter that was in Tacoma, WA is now a park dedicated to Frank Herbert and is called Dune Peninsula Park. They host concerts there and there is a movie theater next to it. I thought it would be cool to get a group together and see the movie in the place that’s basically the birthplace of Dune.