This story was originally published by Dermot Cole, Reporting From Alaska.
Alaskan veteran Philip Munger posted the following letter on Facebook, adding “I am still bothered by how blatantly Sen. Dan Sullivan lied yesterday at the Memorial Day ceremony at the Wasilla Veterans’ Wall of Honor. So I’m hand delivering this letter today to his Wasilla office.”
Dear Sen. Sullivan,
On May 26th, 2025, I attended the remembrance of our Veterans on Memorial Day at the Wasilla Wall of Honor. At that remembrance you told a blatant lie about experiences of veterans, returning stateside from service in Vietnam. You claimed, with no reliable specifics, that civilians mistreated these veterans routinely, by spitting on or at them, and being loudly verbally abusive. You used this as the centerpiece of your Memorial Day remarks.
Soon after my US Army service during the Vietnam War, I found myself working in broadcast news. And I spent a lot of time helping other veterans, many of whom were my friends, transition back to civilian life. Some had experienced trauma so severe, they suffered from it the rest of their lives, or are still suffering from it in their advancing age.
In these activities, I never heard from anyone that they were abused upon return to the USA from Indochina. Rather, many were warmly welcomed. People in airports would offer to buy us a cup of coffee, or breakfast, or a beer. It wasn’t until about twenty years later that apocryphal stories about “Being spat upon by hippies” and so on began to appear.
Your speech Monday in Wasilla disturbed me to the point I almost left. But I stayed, to honor our veterans, even as you spat upon their memory!
Had you or your communications office bothered to do even minuscule research, you would have found out as I did, by consulting the facts, the following:
“The narrative that Vietnam veterans were routinely spat upon by antiwar protesters upon returning to the United States is largely considered a myth by scholars, with little contemporary evidence to support widespread occurrences. No definitive, documented incidents of spitting on veterans exist from the period during or immediately after the Vietnam War (1964–1973).
“Studies, such as Jerry Lembcke’s ‘The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam’ (1998), argue that these stories emerged years later, often in the 1980s and 1990s, amplified by media, films like ‘First Blood,’ and political narratives, particularly during the Gulf War to rally support for troops by contrasting their treatment with the alleged mistreatment of Vietnam veterans.
“A 1971 Harris Poll commissioned by the Veterans Administration found that 99% of veterans reported friendly receptions from friends and family, and 94% from peers, with only 1% describing their reception as “not at all friendly.” Early memoirs and oral histories from the war, such as those by Tim O’Brien and Ron Kovic, contain no mentions of spitting incidents.”
But rather than tell the truth at such an important event, you blatantly lied. Not only that, but by repeating this divisive myth, you disgraced the uniform of the United States Marine Corps, even though you weren’t wearing it at the time you sought to point a finger at some Americans, leaving it to those hearing your lie to choose someone to hate.
Philip Munger
Munger’s letter about Sullivan’s remarks reminded me that Sullivan mischaracterized the entire history of the Vietnam War in a 2023 resolution he submitted to the U.S. Senate that falsely claimed “the Vietnam war was an extremely divisive issue in the United States, as a result of biased and shameful attacks from the media, academia, politicians and many others.”
As I wrote here in 2023, “What’s really shameful is that Sullivan is unaware of one of the most important lessons of that disastrous chapter in our history.”
During his speech this week he referred to a 2024 version of that resolution, which repeated the error of his 2023 document, only blaming “some” in the media and academia and “some” politicians for making the war divisive.
As I wrote here last year, “That no one in the U.S. Senate objected to Sullivan’s false claim must mean that senators with a grasp of U.S. and military history did not read his non-binding resolution or they are confident that no one will pay attention to the contents and the words don’t matter.”
Dermot Cole has worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and author in Alaska for more than 40 years. Support his work here.
