The Myth of the Spat-Upon Veteran
by W.D. Ehrhart I have been speaking about the American War in Vietnam in high school and college classrooms ever since the spring of 1973. Over the course of half a century, I have probably spoken in 250 to 300 classrooms. Maybe more. In all those years and all those visits, I have never had a single person make the kind of fuss that a student made a few years ago in response to remarks I had made refuting the mythology of the spat-upon Vietnam War veteran. This young woman, a high school senior honors student, lodged a major complaint with the upper school head …