The book is an analysis of the widely believed narrative that American soldiers were spat upon and insulted by anti-war protesters upon returning home from the Vietnam War.

The book also documents efforts of the Nixon Administration to drive a wedge between military service members and the anti-war movement by portraying democratic dissent as a betrayal of the troops.

A persistent but unfounded criticism leveled against those who protested in opposition to the Vietnam War is that they spat upon and otherwise derided returning soldiers, calling them "baby-killers".

Lembcke was motivated to look further into the truth and origins of this spat-upon veteran myth, and the contradiction between historical fact and popular collective memory.

Instead, it found popular memory was manipulated by national security elites and a complicit news media by frequently labeling resistors to U.S. war efforts as "anti-troop".

He theorizes that the reported "spitting on soldiers" scenario was a mythical projection by those who felt "spat upon" by an American society tired of the war; an image which was then used to discredit future anti-war activism and serve political interests.

Lembcke asserts that memories of being verbally and physically assaulted by anti-war protesters were largely conjured, noting that not even one case could be reliably documented.

Lembcke attributes part of the legend's growth to films relating to Vietnam, notably First Blood, in which a "spat-upon veteran" image is popularized.

He writes that the myth of the spat-upon veteran was later revived by President George H. W. Bush as a way to help suppress dissent when selling the Gulf War to the American people.

[9] He highlights the contradictions between the collective memory of today and contemporaneous historical records, like the results from a 1971 poll showing over 94% of returning Vietnam soldiers received a "friendly" welcome.

"[9] A review published in the Los Angeles Times reads: "The image is ingrained: A Vietnam veteran, arriving home from the war, gets off a plane only to be greeted by an angry mob of antiwar protesters yelling, 'Murderer!'

"[7] A review published in the San Francisco Chronicle argued that "Lembcke builds a compelling case against collective memory by demonstrating that remembrances of Vietnam were almost at direct odds with circumstantial evidence.

"[7] Karl Helicher of Library Journal wrote that Lembcke "presents a stunning indictment of this myth, an illusion created, he maintains, by the Nixon-Agnew administration and an unwitting press to attribute America's loss in Vietnam to internal dissension.

In fact, the antiwar movement and many veterans were closely aligned, and the only documented incidents show members of the VFW and American Legion spitting on their less successful Vietnam peers.

But Lembcke's most controversial conclusion is that posttraumatic stress disorder was as much a political creation—a means of discrediting returning vets who protested the war as unhinged—as it was a medical condition.

... My own view is that the spitting stories are largely mythic, but that the myth itself reflects the deep anger and animosity that many veterans harbored toward the antiwar movement.

"[13] Mary Carroll of Booklist wrote that Lembcke "makes a strong case that tales of antiwar activists spitting at returning vets are myth.

He notes that contemporary media, government, and polling data show no evidence of antiwar spitting incidents; the few events reported had supporters of the war targeting opponents.

"[12] In 2000,[14] 2004,[15] and again in 2007,[16][17][18][19][20] journalist Jack Shafer rekindled firestorms when he berated news media outlets for uncritically repeating the myth of the spat-upon veteran.

[18][failed verification] A December 27, 1971 CBS Evening News report on veteran Delmar Pickett who said he was spat at in Seattle appeared, according to Lembcke, to have some validity as a claim.

"The image of 'hippie' men and women hawking up gobs of phlegm to hurl at the ribbons of veterans, as a pervasive and commonplace act, is surely false.

"[25] Specialist in civil-military relations and advisor to the National Institute of Military Justice, Diane Mazur, also examined the works by Greene, Lembcke and Lindgren, and concluded: "There is no contemporaneous evidence that Americans who opposed the war expressed those beliefs by spitting on or otherwise assaulting returning Vietnam Veterans.

It is by far the most powerful Vietnam War meme—a cultural unit of information passed from one person to another, like a biological gene—because it can be deployed instantly to silence difficult but necessary conversations about the military.

... One intrepid soul, Professor Jerry Lembcke, ... stepped into the fray ... Every time he discusses his findings in a public forum, a hail of angry responses follows, but his explanations and conclusions are compelling and unsettling.