They were installing air defense systems, building, operating and maintaining SAM (Surface to Air Missiles) sites, plus they provided training and logistical support for the North Vietnamese military. Nearly 80 percent engaged 50 or fewer times. In 1973, when the POWs were released, roughly 2,500 servicemen were designated missing in action (MIA). What percentage of Vietnam veterans actually saw combat? In 1969 the weekly average death toll from highway accidents in the United States was 1,082. Once the draft dodging gang's numbers reached critical mass, the media and politicians started playing to the numbers. In spite of it's wing problems this was only the second crash of a C-5A after over 190,000 combined flying hours by the USAF but the first crash resulting in loss-of-life. They viewed him as one unpredictable, incredibly tough nut. If you are having nightmares about combat as you prepare to enlist, you can now sleep soundly. Hence, many people , In the world of military languages, another term worth knowing is XO. As of 2015, more than 1,600 of those were still unaccounted-for. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) of the U.S. Department of Defense lists 687 U.S. POWs as having returned alive from the Vietnam War. There were a large number of REMFs in Vietnam. During the entire period of the American involvement in Vietnam only 2,594,000 US Military actual served inside the country. I should also mention that all these interviews took place in air-conditioned comfort, in places with names like Caravelle, Equatorial, Omni, Saigon Prince, etc. This was true despite the fact that the parent divisions reported being at, or slightly over, authorized strength. Peak troop strength in Vietnam was 543,482, on 30 April 1969. They were like sacks of water. That may include your food, water, and first aid , If you want to only bring a few items to hiking or other outdoor activity, a tactical fanny pack might be an ideal option than a burdensome large backpack. 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. The veterans were therefore also asked to reflect on the performance of their comrades in arms. In at least one instance a man turned to point out an enemy soldier rather than firing as he should have. Remember, that is not 10 to 20% of the total. http://www.amervets.com/registry.htm. The plane, a C-5A 'Galaxy', was carrying 243 children, 44 escorts, 16crewmen and 2 flight nurses. 2022 - 2023 Times Mojo - All Rights Reserved Some 20 years later, the validity of Marshalls analysis was called into doubt. Marshall, or Slam, concluded in a series of military journal articles and in his book, Men Against Fire, about Americas World War II soldiers. They sought to cause the Americans to fire so that muzzle flashes would give the defenders positions away. The fact is that top-notch features are quite expensive, but some of , If you are a man of the outdoors, you know perfectly well how a good-quality headlamp is essential. He showed little hesitation to use a rifle, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade launcher or whatever other weapon he carried. 90 to 95 percentThe Army then changed its combat training to desensitize soldiers to the humanity of the enemy. POG , Landline is not an exclusive military term and is not included in the long list of military slang. In the process they lost the capital of Seoul. In detail, there are 10 wings leading up to combat. In addition to PTSD, OEF/OIF Service members are at risk for other mental health problems. During WW II, 66 percent of the troops were draftees. My duty was to lead riflemen. For a very different reason, chaplains rarely engaged the enemy. IN HARM'S WAYHow many REAL Vietnam vetsare alive today? The US military never sends Active Duty, Reservist or National Guard military personnel to any war zone without officially documenting that service for the obvious reasons of compiling factual death stats or notifying next of kin in the event of injury or death. At that time black males of military age constituted 13.5 percent of the American population. All You Need to Know! The issue was important enough to investigate rigorously. Again: In Vietnam no US Army unit ever surrendered. I had no business getting involved with the actions of only one company. Reading Athenas Dance Card: Men Against Fire in Vietnam, https://www.historynet.com/men-against-fire-how-many-soldiers-fired-weapons-vietnam-war/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, How Operation Homecoming Was Sprung into Action to Repatriate American POWs. This widget requries the Arqam Lite Plugin, You can install it from the Theme settings menu > Install Plugins. But first, a few relevant comparisons. Those six all shared borders with either Laos or Cambodia or had contiguous borders with provinces that did. But the specter of Vietnam still lingers, and some of that war's veterans view such acts with a wary glance. limbs, 1,081 sustained multiple amputations. Thesoldiersproject is supported by its audience. All six declined. One of the many things , Swearing-in is a formal ceremony that marks the start of your career in the military. It certainly is not being fueled by economic activity generated by new, large foreign invested projects coming on line. This article summarizes those findings relating to whether men fired their weapons and what factors influenced their willingness to do so. 8 American military women were killed the Vietnam War. They are not the soldiers that are facing enemies face-to-face. 170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2%) of whom died there. Required fields are marked *. Historian Chen Jian wrote Although Beijing's support may have fallen short of Hanoi's expectations, without the support, the history, even the outcome, of the Vietnam War might have been different.. The toll among those who. friend and your looking at well in excess of 50,000,000 Americans with a need to rationalize away their draft-dodging cowardice and to, in some way, vilify Vietnam the very source of their shame and guilt. Ultimately it was their responses that formed the basis for a detailed study of this issue and the influence of training, the 12-month rotation and the six-month command tour on the American fighting mans combat performance. The memorial was then officially dedicated. Weapons malfunctions sometimes kept a man from engaging even if he wanted to as did unfamiliarity with a weapon. There are also special units to assist the designated infantry soldiers in hitting the battlefield. Most battalions were not even close to their TO&E strength during the war, with many infantry companies operating with 80 men. At least 50 of the children were in the lower cargo level of the plane. They still airlift America's wounded back to the safety of military bases overseas, aiding in the overall survival rate of our wounded warriors. Les preacute ceacute dentes estimations de source occidentale faisaient eacute tat d'un bilan de 666.000 morts parmi Ies combattants Vietnamiens. However, when they are newly bought, these boots can be very uncomfortable, making it hard to perform well in them. And the bloody maggots. The average man who fought in World War II was 26 years of age. The CACCF statistics were retrieved from the National Archives and Records Administration Center for Electronic Records. In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Had to drive through a river to get the stuff out of my tracks. He also writes After a while I could tell the difference between mud and bodies, logs and bodies. Veterans who responded to the survey regarding their months at war passed on many thoughts regarding their performance, expectations, weapons, training, the 12-month tour of duty and the six-month command tour. In either case, the warrior was under fire with no means to engage his attackers. In WW II some units experienced over 100 psychiatric casualties per 1,000 troops; in Korea nearly one quarter of all battlefield medical evacuations were due to mental stress. There are submarines, there are mini-submarines, and then there are human torpedoes. [Stats Included!]. Were there factors that made it more likely for some men to fire than others? Vietnam Veterans by State 2022.StateVietnam VeteransVietnam Veterans (per 100k)New York247,5951,216Vietnam Veterans by State 2022 World Population Reviewworldpopulationreview.com state-rankings vietnam-veterans-by-stateAbout Featured Snippets, According to 2019 statistics, only 10% of the entire military force engage in battle. Enlisted men, warrant officers and commissioned officers who flew or crewed aircraft tended to have considerably more engagements on average. Yet the observations of these veterans prompt the question of why, on average, nearly two of every 10 men were not firing when their unit was in contact. 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Pop!. 23% had fathers with professional, managerial, or technical occupations. My tank tracks were choked up with skin and hair and blood. (Vietnam veterans are dying at about the same rate as their WW2 fathers.) And it should be no surprise that at times fear kept men from firing. This totally conventional force (armed, equipped, trained and supplied by the Soviet Union) launched a cross border, frontal attack on South Vietnam and conquered it, in the same manner as Hitler conquered most of Europe in WW II. "Deeds need to be done in addition to words," says Wowwk, who is 100 percent. They included assistant machine-gunners, whose first responsibilities were to load an M-60 and help the gunner to identify targets. Before the Normandy invasion (D Day, 1944) the US Army (In WW II the US Army included the Army Air Corps which today has become the US Airforce) in England filled its own jails with American soldiers who refused to fight and then had to rent jail space from the British to handle the overflow. Recommended reading: A good example of this number pandering can be found in a 1969, The most glaring example of the existence of the dodging guilt syndrome can be found in a statement made by the ranking head dodger himself. Respected researchers interviewed those who had accompanied him in World War II and also pored over his personal notes during the mid-1980s. Moore noted that he was tempted by the opportunity to join his riflemen in firing on the enemy during fighting at LZ X-Ray in 1965, but he resisted the temptation. 88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian, 10.6%, (275,000) were black, 1.0% belonged to other races, 86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (including Hispanics). K. G. Sears is an AmCham Governor and serves as senior advisor to a variety of international businesses, governmental and other organizations. More than 3.4 million deployed to Southeast Asia (1) and approximately 2.7 million of those served in the Republic of Vietnam (2). Actually served in Vietnam: 38% Marine Corps draft: 42,633. Not surprisingly, American units (and the French before them) suffered their largest numbers of casualties during these late winter and spring months. This at a time when America had drawn its Cold War battle lines and as a result had the US Navy protecting Taiwan, 50,000 troops in South Korea and over 300,000 troops in Western Europe (Which has a land area, economy and population comparable to that of the United States), along with ironclad guarantees that if Communist forces should cross any of those Cold War lines or Soviet Armor should role across either the DMZ in Korea or the Iron Curtain in Europe, then there would be an unlimited response by the armed forces of the United States, to include if necessary, the use of nuclear weapons. An overwhelming majority of Vietnam Veterans are male (6.2M) while in the civilian populaon females (47.7M) outnumber males by 20.5M. Of the 2.6 million, between 1-1.6 million (40-60% . A mans duty position was one critical element. As of this date The American War Library estimates that approximately 610,000 Americans who served on land in Vietnam or in the air over Vietnam between 1954 and 1975 are alive today. Victor Ubach, a Pan American World Airways pilot who was flying behind and above the crippled Air Force plane said the C-5A pilots "had done one heck of a job" to avoid a worse disaster. It can light up a dark room, focus on your target far away, or even , When youre hunting or surveying distant objects, it would be ideal to have a good pair of tactical binoculars. Their personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. Firing their weapons risked compromising a patrols position, whereas resisting the temptation could provide the information-collectors with several more days of unmolested activity. During WW II, in the European Theater alone, over 20,000 US Military men were convicted of dissertation and, on a comparable percentage basis, the overall WW II desertion rate was 55 percent higher than in Vietnam. Some 97 percent of Vietnam veterans received honorable discharges, exactly the same rate for the military in the 10 years prior to the war. Using combat records for the first time, a landmark study in the journal Science comes up with a number lower than the onetime estimate of 30 percent but still significant: close to 20 percent. 97% of Vietnam era vets were honorably discharged. 7 What were the odds of dying in Vietnam? You may have seen this in military books or films. One does not get to be, much less continue to be, a superstar unless one gives one's audience what it wants. What dangers did American soldiers face in Vietnam? By comparison, the South Vietnamese had only 352 US supplied tanks and they were committed to guarding the entire country, and because of US Congressional action, were critically short of fuel, ammo and spare parts with which to support those tanks. And all the essential accessories are reviewed to support long-lasting maintenance. Many veteran respondents remained bitter about what they perceived to be a failure to properly train them during the transition from the M-14 to the newer rifle. Quant aux combats proprement dits, les chiffres sent d'un million cent mille militaires tueacutes et de 600.000 blesseacutes en 21 ans de guerre. 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam. Two conventional armies fought it out using strategies and tactics as old as warfare itself. (Detailed Answer), What Does XO Mean in Military? In Vietnam no US Military units were overrun and no US Military infantry units or tank outfits were captured. Soviet armor, burning Soviet gas and firing Soviet ammunition. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. # 3: The 25th Infantry Division. The second-largest cohort of living veterans served during peacetime only (4.0 million). General Dung's account of the final battle for South Vietnam reads like it was taken right out of a US Army manual on offensive military operations. President Lincoln once made a remark to the effect that If we do not study and learn from our history, then what we do in the future won't be worth remembering. The previous American involvement in Vietnam is important. South Vietnamese sources said three militiamen on the ground were killed when the airplane fell. Once artillery or other units create a distraction of fire with the enemy, these same soldiers will return fire with relish. 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Majority of Vietnam era vets were honorably discharged muzzle flashes would give the defenders away. ; 3,070 ( 5.2 % ) of whom died there tank outfits captured! Pored over his personal notes during the mid-1980s the parent divisions reported being at or! Of the American population Vietnam vetsare alive today gas and firing Soviet ammunition remember, that is not an military! The POWs were released, roughly 2,500 servicemen were designated missing in action ( )... The media and politicians started playing to the numbers died there number of REMFs in only!