Many veterans of Vietnam, returning to a deeply divided United States, were greeted with scorn, even spitting or hostile epithets, when they arrived home in uniform.

Close, but no see-gar.

In reality, the “spitting” translates to a thing we now call “open hostility”, AKA full-blown riots, while “hostile epithets” really means cries of “baby-killers!”. The lucky ones came back to Air Force Bases. Those touching down at international airports were met with an extremely hostile nation that didn’t mind showing just how angry, and just how damned ignorant they really were.

Some of the soldiers shook Bill Self's hand and thanked him for coming. Self quickly corrected them: "No, it's the other way around. We want to thank you."

Beautiful, and may it so remain,
Dan