REPEAT of Urban Legend (was Vietnam)

[ronbutters]

To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Dear David (wt al.),

I do't understand why my Blackberry message sometimes are in code and sometimes not.

Here is the message.

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So what? True or not, vilification was a shared belief between Blumenthal and his audience. It was obviously the premise for his statement, and therefore the context for interpretation of what "we" meant. As far as understanding Blumenthal's intended reference, there is no "monkey wrench"--unless Larry means to add further to the list of B's sins by holding him responsible for the putative urban legend. 

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry 

-----Original Message----- 
From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> 
Date: Sat, 22 May 2010 00:00:48 
To: <ronbutters at aol.com>; <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> 
Subject: Re: Vietnam 

At 3:40 AM +0000 5/22/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote: 
>Actually, in that poisonous atmosphere, anyone wearing a uniform was 
>subject to the sort of abuse that Blumenthal described. A Marine 
>would have been particularly vilified, and a Marine who had not 
>actually served in Vietnam would surely have felt solidarity with 
>those who did: "we Marines" in other words. 
>Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry 

Just to throw another monkey wrench into the works, it has been 
claimed with some evidence that the reports of vilification of 
Marines and other Vietnam vets during that period were grossly 
exaggerated, to the point of urban legendary status. See 

Lembcke, Jerry. 1998. The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the 
Legacy of Vietnam. New York: New York University Press. 

and the references therein. 

LH 

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