For over 30 years I.... like many Vietnam veterans....seldom
spoke of Vietnam, except with other veterans, when training
soldiers, and in public speeches. These past five years I have
joined the hundreds of thousands who believe it is high time the
truth be told about the Vietnam War and the people who served
there. It s time the American people learn that the United
States military did not lose the War, and that a surprisingly
high number of people who claim to have served there, in fact,
DID NOT. As Americans support the men and women involved in the
War on Terrorism, the mainstream media are once again working
tirelessly to undermine their efforts and force a psychological
loss or stalemate for the United States. We cannot stand by and
let the media do to today s warriors what they did to us 35
years a go.Below are some assembled some facts most readers will
find interesting. It isn t a long read, but it will....I
guarantee....teach you some things you did not know about the
Vietnam War and those who served, fought, or died there. Please
share it with those with whom you communicate.
Vietnam War Facts, Statistics, Fake Warrior Numbers, and Myths
Dispelled:
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official
Vietnam era from August 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975.
2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam.
Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.
240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War.
The first man to die in Vietnam was James
Davis, in 1958. He was with the 509th Radio Research Station.
Davis Station in Saigon was named for him.
58,148 were killed in Vietnam.
75,000 were severely disabled.
23,214 were 100% disabled.
5,283 lost limbs.
1,081 sustained multiple amputations.
Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21.
11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old.
Of those killed, 17,539 were married.
Average age of men killed: 23.1 years.
Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.
The oldest man killed was 62 years old.
As of January 15, 2 004, there are 1,875 Americans still
unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.
97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.
91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served.
74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome.
Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age
groups. Vietnam veterans personal income exceeds that of our
non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. 87% of
Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.
There is no
difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and
non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group (Source: Veterans
Administration Study). Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in
prison - only one-half of one percent of Vietnam Veterans have
been jailed for crimes.. 85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful
transitions to civilian life. Interesting Census Stats and Been
There Wanabees: 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were
still alive as of August, 1995 (census figures). of During that
same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to
have served in-country was: 9,492,958. of As of the current
Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam
Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511.
This is hard
to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between 95 and 00. That s 390
per day. During this Census count, the number of Americans
falsely claiming to have served in-country is: 13,853,027. By
this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE Vietnam vets are
not. The Department of Defense Vietnam War Service Index
officially provided by The War Library originally reported with
errors that 2,709,918 U.S. military personnel as having served
in-country. Corrections and confirmations to this errored index
resulted in the addition of 358 U.S. military personnel
confirmed to have served in Vietnam but not originally listed by
the Department of Defense. (All names are currently on file and
accessible 24/7/365). Isolated atrocities committed by American
Soldiers produced torrents of outrage from anti-war critics and
the news media while Communist atrocities were so common that
they received hardly any media mention at all. The United States
sought to minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while North
Vietnam made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy.
Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison
sentences while Communists who did so received commendations.
From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated
36,725 Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. The death squads
focused on leaders at the village level and on anyone who
improved the lives of the peasants such as medical personnel,
social workers, and school teachers. - Nixon Presidential
Papers.
Myth: Common Belief is that most Vietnam veterans were
drafted. Fact: 2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were
volunteers. 2/3 of the men who served in World War II were
drafted. Approximately 70% of those killed in Vietnam were
volunteers. Myth: The media have reported that suicides among
Vietnam veterans range from 50,000 to 100,000 - 6 to 11 times
the non-Vietnam veteran population. Fact: Mortality studies show
that 9,000 is a better estimate. The CDC Vietnam Experience
Study Mortality Assessment showed that during the first 5 years
after discharge, deaths from suicide were 1.7 times more likely
among Vietnam veterans than non-Vietnam veterans. After that
initial post-service period, Vietnam veterans were no more
likely to die from suicide than non-Vietnam veterans. In fact,
after the 5-year post-service period, the rate of suicides is
less in the Vietnam veterans group.
Myth: Common belief is that a
disproportionate number of blacks were killed in the Vietnam
War.
Fact: 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5%
were black, 1.2% were other races. Sociologists Charles C.
Moskos and John Sibley Butler, in their recently published book
All That We Can Be, said they analyzed the claim that blacks
were used like cannon fodder during Vietnam and can report
definitely that this charge is untrue. Black fatalities amounted
to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia - a
figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S.
population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of
blacks in the Army at the close of the war.
Myth: Common belief is that the war was fought
largely by the poor and uneducated.
Fact: Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a
slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to
be pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best
educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a
high school education or better. Statistics from the Combat Area
Casualty File (CACF) as of November 1993. The CACF is the basis
for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall): Average age of
58,148 killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years. (Although 58,169 names
are in the Nov. 93 database, only 58,148 have both event date
and birth date. Event date is used instead of declared dead date
for some of those who were listed as missing in action): Deaths
Average Age
Total: 58,148 23.11 years
Enlisted: 50,274 22.37 years
Officers: 6,598 28.43 years
Warrants: 1,276 24.73 years
E1:
525 20.34 years
11B MOS:18,465 22.55 years
Myth: The common belief is the average age of an infantryman
fighting in Vietnam was 19.
Fact: Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in
Vietnam, the average age of an infantryman (MOS 11B) serving in
Vietnam to be 19 years old is a myth, it is actually 22. None of
the enlisted grades have an average age of less than 20. The
average man who fought in World War II was 26 years of age.
Myth: The Common belief is that the domino theory was proved
false.
Fact: The domino theory was accurate. The ASEAN (Association of
Southeast Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand stayed free of Communism
because of the U.S.
commitment to Vietnam. The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in
1966 because of America s commitment in Vietnam. Without that
commitment, Communism would have swept all the way to the
Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great
strategic importance to the free world. If you ask people who
live in these countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a
different opinion from the American news media. The Vietnam War
was the turning point for Communism.
Myth: The common belief is that the fighting in Vietnam was not
as intense as in World War II.
Fact: The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World
War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. The average
infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year
thanks to the mobility of the helicopter. One out of every 10
Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. 58,148 were
killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.7 million who served.
Although the percent that died is similar to other wars,
amputations or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in
World War II .75,000 Vietnam veterans are severely disabled.
MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions. Over 900,000
patients were airlifted (nearly half were American). The average
time lapse between wounding to hospitalization was less than one
hour. As a result, less than one percent of all Americans
wounded, who survived the first 24 hours, died. The helicopter
provided unprecedented mobility. Without the helicopter it would
have taken three times as many troops to secure the 800 mile
border with Cambodia and Laos (the politicians thought the
Geneva Conventions of 1954 and the Geneva Accords or 1962 would
secure the border).
Myth: Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running
naked from the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June
1972.....shown a million times on American television....was
burned by Americans bombing Trang Bang.
Fact: No American had involvement in this incident near Trang
Bang that burned Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The planes doing the bombing
near the village were VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being
flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of South Vietnamese troops
on the ground. The Vietnamese pilot who dropped the napalm in
error is currently living in the United States. Even the AP
photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. The
incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three
day battle between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied
the village of Trang Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of
Vietnam) who were trying to force the NVA out of the village.
Recent reports in the news media that an American commander
ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc are incorrect. There
were no Americans involved in any capacity. We (Americans) had
nothing to do with controlling VNAF, according to Lieutenant
General (Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding General of
TRAC at that time. Also, it has been incorrectly reported that
two of Kim Phuc s brothers were killed in this incident. They
were Kim s cousins not her brothers.
Myth:
The United States lost the war in Vietnam.
Fact: The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The
American military did not lose a battle of any consequence.
>From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented
performance. General Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a
professor at the University of California, Berkley a major
military defeat for the VC and NVA.
THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH
VIETNAMESE DID. Read on........
The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the
American military left Vietnam. The last American troops
departed in their entirety 29 March 1973. How could we lose a
war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed
stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27
January 1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners,
withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides forces
inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification.
The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon
consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military,
NOT American military running for their lives. There were almost
twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia)
the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there
were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam.
Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations
and torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians
goes mainly to the American media and their undying
support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the
United States. As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media
misreported and misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was
reported as an overwhelming success for the Communist forces and
a decided defeat for the U.S. forces. Nothing could be further
from the truth. Despite initial victories by the Communists
forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those
forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet
Offensive, is considered by some as ranking with Wellington,
Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a great commander. Still,
militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat of the
Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death of some
45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of
the Viet Cong elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the
Viet Cong Units in the South never recovered. The Tet Offensive
succeeded on only one front and that was the News front and the
political arena. This was another example in the Vietnam War of
an inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth. However inaccurately
reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous.
Credit and research goes to Captain Marshal Hanson, USNR (Ret.)
CPT. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source
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