V I E T N A M W A R S T A T I S T I C S

•9,087,000 Military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era. Aug. 5, 1964 - May 7, 1975.

•Of the 2.6 million US personnel that served, between 1 - 1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.

•7,484 Women (6,250 or 83.5% were nurses) served in Vietnam.

•Hostile US deaths: 47,378

•Non-hostile US deaths: 10,800

•Total: 58,202 (Includes men formerly classified as MIA and Mayaguez Casualties.)Men who have subsequently died of wounds account for the changing total.

•Married men killed: 17,539

•61% of the men killed 21 or younger..

•US Wounded: 303,704 --- 153,329 Hospitalized + 150,375 Injured requiring no hospital care

•US Severely disabled: 75,000-----23,214 100% Disabled; 5,283 Lost limb; 1,081 Sustained multiple amputations.

•Amputation or crippling wounds to the lower extremities were 300% higher than in WW II and 70% higher than Korea. Multiple amputations occurred at the rate of 18.4% compared to 5.7% in WW II.

•Missing in action: 2,338.

•POWs: 766 (114 Died in captivity.)

•25% (648,500) Of total forces in country were draftees.

•Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam.

•Total draftees (1965-73): 1,728,344.

•Actually served in Vietnam 38%.

•Marine Corps Draft: 42,633

•76% Of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/working class backgrounds

•88.4% Of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian; 10.6% (275,000) were Black; 1% belonged to other races.

•86.3% Of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (Includes Hispanics); 12.5% (7,241) Were Black; 1.2% Belonged to other races.

•170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2% Of total) died there.

•Estimated dead Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian between 1,450,000 and 3,800,000

•For every American Solider killed, 87 Vietnamese soldiers were killed

•1 in 10 Americans who served in Vietnam were casualties

•Amputation and crippling wounds were 300% higher than WWII

•51% of deaths and 16% of wounds were caused by small arms fire.(World War II 32% Korea 33%). The higher rate in Vietnam was contributed to the highvelocity rapid fire weapons such as the AK47 and captured M16s.

•36% of deaths and 65% of wounds were caused by fragments from artillery

•11% of deaths and 15% of wounds were caused by booby traps and mines

•2% of wounds were caused by punji stakes (spiked pit)

•Medivac helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions

•900,000 patients were airlifted(almost half being American)

•Percentage of those seriously wounded who were saved 82 %

•Percentage of wounded who died after arriving at hospital 2.6%

•Estimated number of Vietnamese civilians killed in the war 587,000+

•Estimated number of Vietnamese civilians wounded in the war 4,000,000.

•Estimated number of Vietnamese displaced from their homes – 10,000,000

•Number of South Vietnamese military (US ally) personnel killed during the war 440,357

•Number of South Vietnamese military personnel wounded during the war 499,000

•Number of South Vietnamese military personnel who deserted between 1965 and 1972 840,000.

•Percentage of US deaths contributed to friendly fire – 39%

•Number of probable explosive-device assaults (fraggings) against officers by US servicemen 788

•3,500,000 acres of Vietnam was sprayed with 19 million gallons of Defoliants (Agent Orange) the effects that will last 100 years.

•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.

•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.

•500,000 Vietnamese women became sex-workers

•Average sex worker earned $180 a month; the average government worker in Vietnam made $30

•70 million liters of Agent Orange were dropped on Vietnam

•96% of Marines admitted to using torture to obtain information from POWs

•5,018 tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam

•1,784 tons of Napalm was sprayed on Vietnam

•In the northern most province of Vietnam, only 11 out of 35,000 villages weren’t damaged by bombings

•Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation

•In 1969, the percentage of Americans who personally knew someone who had been wounded or killed in Vietnam: 52%32

•Average age of a US GI solider serving in Vietnam – 21 years old (26 years old in WWII)

•Helicopter crew deaths accounted for 10% of ALL Vietnam deaths.

•91% of veterans of actual combat and 90% of those who saw heavy combat are proud to have served their country. 66% of Viet vets say they would serve again, if called upon. 87% of the public now holds Viet vets in high esteem.

•79% of the men who served in 'Nam had a high school education or better.

•At the end of the Vietnam War, the USS Midway crew pushed $10 million worth of helicopters into the sea so that a Cessna full of evacuees could land on the deck.

•Hugh Thomson, the man who during the Vietnam War had landed a helicopter in the line of fire to confront and stop American troops who had by that point killed close to 500 unarmed civilians in the My Lai Massacre, was labeled a traitor by Congress and ordered not to speak about the event

•The Vietnam War is known as “the American War” in Vietnam.

•In 2005, NSA documents were declassified that proved that the second Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was used as a justification for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (which led to the Vietnam War), never happened.

•During the Vietnam War, an estimated 125,000 Americans fled to Canada to avoid the military draft. Around half returned to the US when President Carter, in his first day in office, granted them amnesty

•Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Peter Lemon was high on marijuana when he single-handedly fought off two waves of Vietcong troops and dragged a wounded soldier to safety

•During the Vietnam War, the US military produced recordings of ghostly voices and eerie sounds to play to the Vietcong, who believed that if a body wasn’t buried, the person’s soul would wander the Earth forever.

•There was a false belief during the war that the Vietnamese had a superstition with the Ace of Spades card, considering it to be a symbol of death and that they would flee at the sight of the Ace. Therefore the U.S. Playing Card Company shipped crates of this card to Vietnam, where they were scattered during raids in an effort to terrify the Vietcong

•During the Vietnam War, a US task force known as ‘Tiger Force’ routinely cut of the ears of its victims to make necklaces from them.

•During the Vietnam war, Navy Seal teams One and Two amassed a combined kill/death ratio of 200:1

•The United States’ use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War resulted in 400,000 people being killed or maimed, and 500,000 birth defects

•Duct Tape was used during the Vietnam War to repair helicopter rotor blades.

•An Air Force Sergeant during the Vietnam War created an “underground” radio station in the back of a Vietnamese brothel where he played hard rock, made vulgar jokes and openly opposed the war. The radio station was operated on channel 69.

•During the Vietnam War, a US Prisoner of War was forced to do a press conference saying that they were treated well. He managed to convey the truth by blinking “TORTURE” in Morse code

•Richard Nixon is suspected of sabotaging the Paris Peace Accords, extending the Vietnam War by five years to ensure his own election.

•In the ’60s, the C.I.A.paid Vietnamese spieswith merchandise from mail-order Sears catalogs, since they had little use for paper money

•In 1967 British philosopher Bertrand Russellorganizedan international war crimes tribunal that unanimously concluded the U.S Government was guilty of genocide against the people of Vietnam.

•Vietnam WarPOW Doug Hegdahlpretended to be illiterate to fool his captors, who believed him to be so stupid that they gave him almost free rein of the camp. He was able to secretly memorize the details of about 256 POWs to the tune of “Old MacDonald,” which he still remembers

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