Vietnam, Fact & Fiction

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Scott Conklin

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I'm not certain if this will wind up locked or not but I think it's both interesting and important data(and doesn't appear to have been posted before), so here it is

From another forum:

Subject: Vietnam Facts vs Fiction

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:
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).
During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served in-country was: 9,492,958.
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


Common Myths Dispelled:

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.

Here are 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.

Please give all credit and research to:
Capt. Marshal Hanson, U.S.N.R (Ret.)
Capt. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source
 
Here are some more interesting and useless facts about the war:

The United States Marines had more casualties than the Unites States Army.

The Germans had more casualties in the invasion of France and Norway in 1940 than the U.S. did in all of Vietnam.

There were more U.S. troops in Germany at any time during the war than there were in Vietnam.

Before the war, Vietnam had also been two countries, not one. There was no re-unification. In fact, Indo-China was considered an "island of calm between two oceans of storm," meaning India and China. Time passes and things change.

The MOS with the highest casualty rate in the army in Vietnam was tank crewman.

Lastly, the "media" was intially very supportive of the war.
 
When Vietnam was originally partitioned after the French left, the Communist troops were withdrawn to the North.

when the U.S. pulled its troops out of the South in 1973 the Communists were not required to pull out their troops, even though the mission of U.S. forces in the South was to stabilize the regime and eject Communist troops. So U.S. military force failed to achieve the mission in South Vietnam.

Since ultimately the U.S. wound up fighting the war against the Communists for the South Vietnamese, and North Vietnam viewed the U.S. as its main enemy and the South Vietnames regime as its secondary enemy. The removal of U.S. forces in 1973 without a reciprocal removal of NVA in the South was a huge Communist victory which was won by wearing down the U.S. public by a war of attrition that the Communists were losing (by the numbers, anyway). The U.S. didn't lose militarily, sure, but the U.S. still lost the war. The argument that we didn't lose because the South fell to the North two years after we left is pure semantics. The war was a huge defeat for the U.S. on practically every level except for the pure military aspect. The Communists even succeeded in wrecking the U.S. military by the end of the war since the discipline problems in the military throughout the '70s probably wouldn't have happened if Vietnam hadn't been fought.

Sure, we "won" the war in Vietnam, in the sense that you can beat your dog because he's a dog, but eventually your arm will get tired, the wife doesn't like the way you treated the pooch, your kids don't trust you, and the neighbors think you're scum. And the only thing you could have done about your dog being a dog was to shoot him, but you didn't want to do that, because that's wrong.
 
Truth is truth. Facts is facts. Setting myths straight is a good thing.

But I fail to see that that has anything to do with whether we should support the present conflict in Iraq. If anything, the facts support withdrawing and stopping the bleeding, and saving our soldiers grim death and maiming. Or, for that matter, what do those facts have to do with the so-called "War on Terrorism", which doesn't actually exist, because it's impossible for it to exist, being the oxymoron that it is. A war, by definition, can be won, and the enemy eradicated or defeated. Terrorism is a noun which is a CONCEPT, not an enemy. It will never stop, and cannot be defeated. Therefore there is no war. The entire idea is a farce from the get-go designed to aggrandize the executive branch's power and get little Bush re-elected. It succeeded in plenary fashion. And the media has continuously swallowed & regurgitated this farce hook, line, and sinker, from its inception to the present day, to their immense shame.
 
The MOS with the highest casualty rate in the army in Vietnam was tank crewman.
Click to expand...

Any idea why that was? I always thought we didn't use much armor there (myth believer that I must be...).
 
Any idea why that was? I always thought we didn't use much armor there (myth believer that I must be...).
Click to expand...

Well, it's a casualty rate, so if we only deployed a handful of tanks but a large percentage got taken out then that'd do it. It's also highly possible that tankers were being used in a non-tanking capacity, much the way we are in Iraq right now (a fairly small percentage of 19K's deployed in-theatre ever set foot on a tank...they're used as motorized infantry instead).
 
If memory serves me (and I should know) the 2 MOS's that had the highest casualty rate were 11Bravos and 102A (Warrant Officer Pilots)...hell...2/3rds of my class made it home in body bags.
 
I made the post about the MOS casualty rate and I suggest all these statistics be taken with a grain of salt. It is not that easy to come up with the statistics to begin with, much less ones that are unquestionably reliable. It is also difficult to come up with statistics in such a way that that two events separated in time can compared, statistically. It has probably always been true that the numbers are manipulated or surpressed by the winners if it suits their purposes.

For instance, everyone knows how the Germans rolled over the Polish Army in WWII in 1939. Yet the Germans suffered an exceptionally high loss rate in their tanks at the hands of the Polish, who, I might note, never charged the German tanks with lances on horseback. They still lost, however, and part of the reason is because the Russians attacked from the other side. It was all over when that happened. I still wonder how so many Polish soldiers made it to Britain.

By the way, I happened to meet a former Polish soldier who had not only been a Polish cavalryman but who had ridden in the 1936 Olympics. I met him at a Christmas party near Leesburg, Virginia, at the home of a man who had been in the last mounted unit in the British Army and had taken part in an operation in Palestine, I think in 1940. He later transferred to the Scots Greys when his first unit was converted to a signals unit. He also rode in the Olympics for Canada after the war. Also there was a former commander of the Blues and Royals who had served in armor (armour) in the 2HCR. Interesting people live around here.

Returning to the question about the MOS casualty rate, I couldn't begin to recall where I read that suspect statistic. However, airborne units were always in the thick of the action in Vietnam and the "tank" used in airborne units was basically a 90mm self-propelled gun that had no armor (armour) except for a shield. That might help explain it.

The M1 holds up a little better than a self-propelled gun but the ever-resourceful Iraqis have sometimes managed to sucessfully employ large enough explosive devices to cause "catastrophic" damage to the tanks, enough to blow off the skirts and pierce the turrets. Some of these explosions are large enough to lift a Bradley off the ground, but it was necessary to use construction equipment to actually "deploy" a hidden explosive that large so that it could not be detected and that meant that well patrolled areas would probably not have them.

Tanks were apparently not widely used in Vietnam because there was a belief that they were not suitable. Maybe or maybe not. But M113's were used instead, pretty much for the same role. I understand the M114's were basically failures for their intended purposes but we had them in the company I was in (in Germany). The Australians brought along some Centurians and used them.

Some tankers were used in non-tank jobs, though probably not on foot. Remember some units and personnel have been their more than once and may go again. In deployments of around three years ago, tankers were doing patrols in unarmored Humvees armed with only their issue pistols. Later they quit carrying pistols entirely and began using only M4s and M16s. They learn.
 
Here are some numbers on the invasion of Poland, which might be of interest to mythbusters.

The Germans invaded with about 17 divisions, which included about 2,650 tanks. Of that number most were PzKpfw I and II models, which even they considered obsolete at the time. I guess you go with what you got. The Germans lost over 990 tanks, mostly to anti-tank guns, plus over 700 airplanes. German personnel losses were between 8,000 and 10,000 killed but Polish losses were something like 66,300 killed. I don't know if that includes civilian casualties or not. When the Russians invaded from the East, they brought along about 3,000,000 men.

Another interesting statistic is that the Germans produced twice as many AFVs in 1945 as they did in 1940. The Russians produced almost six times as many as they did in 1940.
 
A former coworker at NRA was a tanker in Vietnam.

He was yelling something to someone on the ground during a maneuver when they came under mortar fire. A chunk of shrapnel went in one cheek, between his teeth, over his tongue, and out the other cheek. No damage to either the tongue or teeth.

He had one hell of a time shaving...

Anyway, he said that during his time in Vietnam their biggest concern was with Vietcong mining the roads.
 
Ever notice how this fellow Mike Irwin and I often wind up in the same threads and we both live in the same neck of the woods, so to speak?
 
Re: Tanks not being "widely" used in RVN. I was an 1811 in my first life, and the Marine Corps 1st, 3rd and 5th Tank Bn's were all deployed in country (as were multiple US Army and possibly one Aus Squadron).
We used M48A3 in the tank/ infantry role very effectively. There were places where tanks could not operate for sure, but there are places in VA, NY, Germany and CA where they cannot operate either.

I'm not sure where your info re tank crew casualties comes from, but i have seen the USMC stats (and if i find them i'll pass them on) and IIRC, the 03 field leads the way in numbers and percentages- just like they always have, and always will.
 
Like I say, I don't recall where I read the little fact that tankers, presumably armor, had the highest casualty rates in Vietnam, but it is one of those things that stick with you. It's worth a little research, as is the statement about the number of troops in Germany while the war was going on. Again, you can manipulate the results somewhat by picking a certain year but I did say that "at any time," so that covers it all. I am certain, however, that 2/3rds of one infantry division (the 24th) came back from Germany in the spring and summer of 1968 because I was with them and part of the division headquarters. That much I know.

My numbers for German and Polish casualties came partly from a website called Achtung Panzer and also from a couple of books I don't carry around with me. Numbers that you could believe are hard to find for many things, especially if you like them exact, like Russian WWII casualties, Vietnamese casualties and so on. But as they say, paraphrased, 32 dead people is a great tragedy; 132,000 a statistic.

I realize that people are still fighting the Vietnam war as much as the War Between the States, though for different reasons, perhaps. But unlike the War Between the States, Vietnam (and Korea) was not a civil war, and that's what Iraq might look like to the uninitiated. But the first post made no reference to Iraq (I think) other than a reference to the War On Terror. So most of what was said is irrelevant, including what I said. I say let the North Iraqis have the country.

I am becoming tired of all the little ribbons and stickers exhorting us to support the troops. As if we could want the troops to all come home but not support them. Someone called the house a year or two ago asking us to come to a "support the troops rally" on the Mall in D.C. I asked if it was a recruiting rally or a war bond rally or what. She couldn't explain.

Hang on to your Confederate war bonds; we are!
 
BlueTrain said:

Ever notice how this fellow Mike Irwin and I often wind up in the same threads and we both live in the same neck of the woods, so to speak?
Click to expand...

Mmmm, perhaps you are just an alter ego? A Jekyll and Hyde perhaps? Mmmm indeed! LOL! :eek: :p :D
 
I had no idea that so many people who claim to be vietnam vets werent actually there. Thats weird that you mention it because I had an encounter with one doozy of a fraud a while back. he claimed all the most prestigious things like sog macv special forces, claiming multiple hand to hand combat kills, etc. He is listed on the web page that exposes these nut jobs. Why do you suppose so many people claim this?
And thanks for all the info. I wasnt born until the end of vietnam but I like to study history.
 
This is an interesting thread, to me at least.... But unless someone can show me the Legal or Political angle that this thread is supposed to be taking... Well it's gonna get closed for being off topic.

(and to answer an unasked question, I've still got my original DD-214)

I'll look back in, in the morning.
 
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