How many people did the US kill in Vietnam?

How many people did the US kill in Vietnam?

This is not a statistic one can just look up like the height of the Matterhorn because there have been different estimates and definitions over the years.

I have seen widely varying figures and really don't have a solid sense of the answer.

So this is a "discussion number."

For many, many people, the answer is 'no'. Therefore, the question has no merit to most.

Now, if you ask how Vietnam influenced various elections.....

Are you talking the massaged numbers that Westmorland served up like mashed potatoes and meatloaf on the dinner hour news of the day? Or some elusive number only he and upper echelon government people were privy to?

NV civilians? Cambodian civilians? Laotian civilians?

US troops that killed for no good reason? South Vietnamese civilians that got killed because the U.S. dragged it on so long?

People killed directly by the U.S.? People killed by the South Vietnamese with U.S. support?

Depends on how you define the question.

Anyone killed due to that war should be counted... people blown up in munitions factories... I was a mere child, but I remember being horrified hearing about all the deaths linked to that war.

may have been as high as two million.

Militarily enemy KIA numbers were often cited as being 10 times higher than US losses. With 58,191+ US servicemen lost, that makes it about a half-million VC and NVA deaths. Civilian deaths resulted from air strikes, stray fire, starvation, terrified young US servicemen, angry young US servicemen, all in an untenable situation, and dozens of other causes directly related to the US waging this war. The Gulf of Tonkin incident acted as WMD for LBJ. The public bought in, for a while.

What changed that? Two things...

1. The Tet Offensive, where the NVA and VC forces took Saigon, including the US embassy, while simultaneously conducting attacks on virtually every major US installation in the country.

2. The Draft. When the sons of the rich are also called to serve, there's more pressure in the media, in Congress, etc., to get out of the war. Nixon understood this and ended the draft to avoid this "problem" in the future.

I've seen as low as one million and as high as seven. Am interested in views of the thing.

... of examining our nations wars, particularly WWII, Korea and Viet Nam. I served six years in the USAF and did two tours in Viet Nam.

How many died in the fire bombing of Dresden or when the atomic bombs were dropped?

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but it was necessary ya know??

Dresden, Mai Lai, "Fallujah, the 1991 "Road of Death" in Iraq, an so on - well

that's just blood lust, "collateral damage" y know . . .

but Hiroshima and Nagasaki

well hell!

they had to test them atomic things SOMEWHERE!!

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It was older book, written in the 70's I think, and was not what I'd expected

the first 75% of the book was the history of Vietnam from shortly after BC; Vietnam has been fighting invaders for millenniums

very little dealt with Vietnam's War with the USA, but that ending part that did

was truly enlightening,

To make my observations short

the comparison to Afghanistan is NOT outrageous.

Vietnam fought off many nations for centuries

and effectively beat them all, including the USA.

Vietnam never tried to occupy/dominate the USA

neither did Afghanistan.

If Afghanistan goes the way of Vietnam . . .


OH

btw

throughout the different administrations during the USA's aggression with Vietnam

the mantra was

"we cannot lose"

but they did.

and now?

Afghanistan?

hmmm

:freak:

or are you just hating America?

mark