Facts about vietnam, especially for those who were "not" there.

[Gimpy]

Lots of good information here -- interesting, especially for those folks unlike ourselves who were there.
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> *We do not live in Vietnam, Vietnam lives in us.*
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> *Vietnam** Facts vs. Fiction.*
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> I found this article very interesting. The most notable fact is that 2.7
> million Americans actually served in the Vietnam Theater of war.
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> In the last census nearly 14 million Americans claimed they served in
> Vietnam.
>
> *Four out of five are lying. I wonder why. *
>
> *
> ** Vietnam Facts vs. Fiction *
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>
> For over 30 years I, like many Vietnam veterans, seldom spoke of Vietnam,
> except with other veterans, when talking to other 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.
>

> Below are some assembled 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.

> Capt. Marshal Hanson, U.S.N.R (Ret.)
> Capt. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source
>


> Vietnam War Facts:
> Facts, Statistics, Fake Warrior Numbers, and Myths Dispelled
>


> 9,087,000 (Million) 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
> Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.
> 240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War
>

> *1. * 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.
>
> *2. * 58,148 were killed in Vietnam
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> *3. * 75,000 were severely disabled.
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> *4. * 23,214 were 100% disabled.
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> *5. * 5,283 lost limbs.
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> *6. * 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.
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> *7. * Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21.
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> *8. * 11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old.
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> *9. * Of those killed, 17,539 were married.
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> *10. * Average age of men killed: 23.1 years.
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> *11*. Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.
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> *12. *The oldest man killed was 62 years old.
>
> *13. *As of January 15, 2004, there are 1,875 Americans still unaccounted
> for from the Vietnam War.
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> *14. *97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.
>
> *15. * 91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served.
>
> *16. *74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome.
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> *17. *Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet
> age groups.
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> *18. *Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age
> group by more than 18 percent.
>
> *19. *87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.
>
> *20. *There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and
> non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group (Source: Veterans Administration
> Study)
>
> *21. *Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison - only one-half of
> one percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.
>
> *22. *85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful transitions to civilian
> life.
>
> *23. *Interesting Census Stats and "Been There" Wanabees:
>
> * a. * 1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as
> of August, 1995 (census figures).
> b. During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely
> claiming to have served in-country was: 9,492,958.
>
> *24. * 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.
>
> *24. *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.>
> *25. *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 erroneous 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).
>
> 26. 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.
>
> *27. *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 o f the peasants such as medical
> personnel, social workers, and school teachers. - >
>
> *Common Myths Dispelled:>
> *#1. 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.
>
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> #2. 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.
>
>
> #3.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,
> and 1.2% was 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."
>
>
> #4 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
>
> *#5 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.
>
> *#6 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.
>
> #7 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).
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> *#8 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.
>
> #9 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.
> FACT: 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.
> FACT: 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.
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> *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.
>
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> *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

---END---


Gimp

[coachman]

This about time, great read

[phuloi]

Thanks, Gimp. Disspells alot of nonfactual rumors and inuendo.

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Good post, Gimp. Now I don't want to have gone to Vietnam but I did so does that make me be a wannabe wannabe? Kim Phuc ended up being a hero of Vietnam and was sent to medical school but in spite of all that adulation she fled to Canada. Now she is a Baptist.




The concept of the Kim Phuc Foundation was inspired by Kim Phuc - an innocent victim of the Vietnam War at the age of nine. On June 8, 1972, Kim's village of Trang Bang came under attack by South Vietnamese planes, which mistakenly dropped napalm on a Buddhist pagoda in an area where the North Vietnamese were infiltrating. While running for safety with other children, Kim was severely burned by the napalm.
The famous photograph of Kim Phuc taken by the Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer, Huyng Cong Nick Ut, is evidence of the cruelty of war toward child victims, and became a symbol of civilian suffering in the Vietnam War. Kim suffered many years of painful burn therapy, but she always longed to reach out and help other children who were victimized by war.

Her incredible strength and spirit are evident when she speaks about forgiveness and helping children. The Kim Phuc Foundation may have been inspired by her pain, but its focus is on world peace and healing.

[1CAVCCO15MED]

She is a mother of two.

[39mto39g]

Gimp
A bunch of BS about Vietnam that was BS.
Your reporting was just fine, The "facts" were , shall we say, somewhat suspect.
There were a bunch of very different wars in Vietnam, Eye corps was very different from IVCorps, 66 was very different from 72. Marines was very different from Cav and so on.
I'm cooking shrimp on the grill and that is different from going to Mcdonalds.

Ron

[82Rigger]

Which facts are suspect?

[eriksale]

Gimpy
So my question is does this mean that my dad and 14999 others do not count as they were sent over in 1962 by the worlds worst president in history John F. Kennedy (whoops political opinion) I bet between 58 to 64 we can add many more of those that went and those that were KIA or injured.

Also to add to the age stats my dad was 37 as were most in their mid 30's in his squadron when the went to Vietnam as well as being volunteers.

Believe it or not we were 6 mos from being sent to Vietnam as a family!

Dave

[sfc_darrel]

http://www.patriotfiles.com/forum/sh...o+girl+vietnam

[39mto39g]

82
Think about what is being written here. Not to say it's false but I usually don't take any writing as fact, (Columbus discovered America) . For instance.

Just a couple examples.

#4 Myth, Average age of Vietnam vet. 23? There were two guys in my unit that were older than 20, the rest were 18 and 19. You made E2 after you got out of AIT, I didn't know any E1s in VN. And what about all the rest of the MOS's besides 11B. And Marines.

#7 Myth. ". The average infantryman in Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year"
That’s just BS. Unless you have a very, very loose definition of Combat. I heard a mortar go off so therefore I was in combat?

No, These things are interesting and may even be true, But at least you can say that some are suspect?


Ron