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A Comprehensive Study on facts of the Vietnam War.
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 CPT. Marshal Hanson, U.S.N.R (Ret.)
CPT. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source
URL: http://www.quarterhorsecav.org/WEEK4.HTM
| Examining the Myths of the Vietnam War
(click here) A Conference,
under the auspices of The RADIX Foundation,
which took place
at Simmons College,
300 The Fenway, Boston MA, 26-29 July 2004
The Below is a sample video list taken from the above listed website.
This is a comprehensive study
that was performed producing a massive
amount of valuable information on Vietnam. Go to the home page above
to find video links to the below topics. Of particular note is the section on
B.G. Burkett,
who is Co-Author of Stolen Valor, an excellent eye opener
for those interested. Click on the Real Vietnam
Veteran below to see it.
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