The United States committed some 550,000 troops to the Vietnam front at the height of the conflict, suffered more than 58,000 casualties, and engaged in battle after battle with communist forces in the region until its withdrawal in 1973. The war cost the United States over $120 billion and the lives of over 58,000 troops. [28][4] Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000. (1) GROUND FORCE PERSONNEL, including Army aviation, generally are indexed at the Regimental level but there are exceptions. The 2nd Marine Brigade reportedly perpetrated the Binh Tai Massacre on 9 October 1966. combat, provided close combat support or were at least fairly regularly. The Vietnamese, in the midst of the fighting, only had a growing desire to separate from colonial France and create their own nation. The numbers below are not exact, as there are still personnel who have not been identified or are identified as missing. Vietnam Syndrome Overview & Analysis | What is Vietnam Syndrome? There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation. Encounter Books, December 2022. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. The "Holloway Database" effectively became the public's sole source of information regarding all our Vietnam dead. 8. Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.[105]. The United States Army lost the most troops in the Vietnam War, over 38,000 soldiers. More than 58,000 American casualties of the Vietnam War are commemorated on the Vietnam Wall in Washington, DC. On Nov. 23, 1968, The Philadelphia Tribune wrote of large . The battle was later dramatized in the film We Were Soldiers. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed. 1-86-NARA-NARA or 1-866-272-6272, Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Record Group 407: Records of the Adjutant General's Office, Collection COFF: Richard Coffelt, Richard Arnold, and David Argabright Collection. The Vietnam War was costly to the U.S. Marine Corps. Its like a teacher waved a magic wand and did the work for me. The Fall of Saigon in 1975 | Vietnam War Timeline, Causes & Aftermath, Battle of Ia Drang | Battle of Ia Drang Casualty List, Easter Offensive of 1972: Vietnam War | History, Impact & Aftermath. Grenada (1983) 3. They have a Bachelor's in Air Traffic Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and minored in Aviation Safety and Homeland Security. Political turbulence there and two alleged North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels spurred Johnson to demand the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. "The Vietnam Wars." These alphabetical indexes are for your convenience but do not represent the order of names on the Wall. The Viet Cong used the jungle terrain to their advantage both as a means of hiding, as well as a place to bury pressure-sensor explosives to wipe out unsuspecting bands of patrolling enemy forces. The United States lost 58,220 known military personnel. Others are still yet to be discovered and over 1,200 Americans are still unaccounted for. Despite the loss of members of the unit on that day and one later in the week, Don praised the unit's overall performance. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. Estimates include both civilian and military deaths in North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. These deaths made up about 40% of the total casualties. Causes of ongoing deaths and side effects include. In that respect, it failed: the two Vietnams were united under a communist banner in July 1976. In 1976, the Vietnamese government organized Gathering Teams to find the remains of dead soldiers. Vietnam War. Vietnam War Almanac: An In-Depth Guide to the Most Controversial Conflict in American History. The war was fought on Vietnamese land, in addition to the territories of Cambodia and Laos. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTurse2013 (. 62. Records with Unit Information on Military Personnel Who Died During the Vietnam War . The 'shameful gamesmanship' practiced by 'certain reporting elements' under pressure to 'produce results' also shrouded the process. Relations between the United States and Vietnam were stable in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and peace was maintained. Rummel does not give a medium or high estimate. Aid sent from other nations to the South Vietnamese effort waged about 5,000 total deaths. Army Huey's totaled 9,713,762 flight hours in Vietnam between October 1966 and the end of American involvement in early 1973. Though North Vietnam lost, it won a major psychological victory. 58,220. In the midst of an intense 3-week fight against the North Vietnamese Army in the province of Kontum, South Vietnam, elements of the U.S. Army 173d Airborne Brigade and the 503d Infantry Regiment assaulted a battalion of North Vietnamese soldiers entrenched on a hill outside the village . [5], Uppsala University in Sweden maintains the Armed Conflict Database. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." [66][67] After the U.S.'s withdrawal from the conflict, the Pentagon estimated PAVN/VC deaths at 39,000 in 1973 and 61,000 in 1974. Estimates of casualties of the Vietnam War vary widely. An estimate by the Department of Defense after the war gave a figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, including 195,000 deaths. . The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. [64] According to the Vietnamese government, from 1994 to 2012, 172,460 PAVN/VC bodies were found, including 15,989 in Cambodia, and 14,549 in Laos, and around 10,000 bodies were found from 2012 to 2015, reducing the number of MIA from 390,000 (1993) to 207,000 (2016). In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. The Australians committed more forces to the war in Vietnam than any other foreign contributor (except for the United States, that is). The idea that this war was only to stop the spread of communism and push democracy on newly forming nations was very unpopular, and many civilians believed that the United States should not have gotten involved at all. Democide is the murder of persons by or at the behest of governments. 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The important statistics and information to remember from this lesson are: To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. The following year, in 1976, Vietnam was united as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The Vietnam War was a long, deadly . Around half a million Vietnamese children were born with birth defects because of its use, and American soldiers and their families report side effects from being exposed to the chemical. The Vietnam War was fought in Vietnamese territory between mainly South Vietnam/the United States and the Viet Cong of North Vietnam. [15][16][17] Walter Mead estimates that approximately 365,000 Vietnamese civilians to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement. Data for this series of conflicts includes military personnel killed in the attacks on the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, and in Afghanistan and elsewhere since those dates. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. [4] Sources: World War II Honor List of Dead and Missing, June 1946; Battle Casualties of the Army, 30 September 1954; List of Casualties Incurred by U.S. Military Personnel in Connection with the Conflict in Vietnam, 30 September 1975. The following general rules are observed: (2) AVIATION UNIT PERSONNEL in the Navy, Marines, and Air Force are indexed at the, (3) NAVAL PERSONNEL, other than aviation personnel, are indexed by, * The war persisted from 1955 to 1975 and most of the fighting took place in South Vietnam; accordingly it suffered the most casualties. Approximately 8,000 Coast Guardsmen served in Vietnam - but our legacy does not stop there. [36][37][41] All individuals killed in declared free-fire zones, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces . The war was fought largely in North Vietnam and South Vietnam, though some fighting did occur in the neighboring territories of Cambodia and Laos. The Coffelt Database is an intellectual property with copyrights held by the Coffelt Group and other contributing organizations. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. Vietnam War Casualties 1956-1998. Although North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualty counts vary wildly, it is generally understood that they suffered several times the number of American casualties. Search and destroy was a term to describe operations aimed at flushing the Viet Cong out of hiding, while body count was the measuring stick for operation success and this resulted in exaggeration and listing civilian deaths as enemy KIA. Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. non-hostile occurrence or who were missing in action or prisoners of war in the Southeast Asian combat area during the Vietnam War, including casualties that occurred in Cambodia, China, Laos, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Thailand. 7. The U.S. technically did not lose the Vietnam War, as they withdrew in 1973 to allow South Vietnam to fight their own battles. Over 58,000 American troops were killed in Vietnam, with more still not identified. Furthermore, the murder of children was not uncommon to prevent them from joining the armed forces in the future, making up around 15% of total deaths. [14], German historian Bernd Greiner mentions the following war crimes reported and/or investigated by the Peers Commission and the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group, among other sources:[43]. [89], The total number of casualties, both KIA and non-hostile deaths, for drafted and volunteer service personnel (figures are approximated):[90], During the Vietnam War, 30% of wounded service members died of their wounds. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 19671972. Neighbouring Laos and Cambodia similarly fell to communists. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc had ripped off her burning . Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old. For this figure, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported enemy killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of the VC and PAVN military forces was probably closer to 444,000. ; 1972 Easter Offensive - This saw 50,000 to 75,000 North Vietnamese combatants . (L Company Ranger 75th Infantry Archives) At only 17 years old, B.C.'s . Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support. It's a sober fact we're meant to be reminded of on Memorial Day, particularly in light of the nearly 7,000 U.S. troops killed, and the many more wounded, over the last decade in our most recent and ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. On that panel, above the names is this inscription: In honor of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. In general, DD1300, DA2496, and DD1330 photographs are copyrighted and should not be copied. From a Marine second lieutenant in New Jersey who commanded a rifle platoon in Vietnam. The U.S. National Archives shows that 58,220 U.S. soldiers perished. In 1980 Richard set out to determine the unit of assignment for each Army soldier who died in Vietnam. the Vietnam War). Principal Wars in Which the US Participated . It is unknown how much aid was lost from North Vietnamese allies. The wide disparity among the estimates cited below is partially explained by the different time periods of the Vietnam War covered by the studies and whether casualties in Cambodia and Laos were included in the estimates. 1975. U.S. Marines in Vietnam, 1966, An Expanding War, 1982 . An addition 3 million Vietnamese were left wounded and around 12 million were refugees. By Spencer C. Tucker ", Viet Cong and Peoples Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War, Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate, "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme", "20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate", http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/, http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf, Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. [104], Following the end of the war, many refugees fled Vietnam by boat and ship. The additional resources allowed the project's scope to expand to include unit of assignment information for all service branches. Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam on a smaller scale, South Korea suffered more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen. The forces involved in this war (by the conclusion of the war) included: The war was fought in dense jungle terrain, so the American military developed a chemical solution known as Agent Orange to burn through the brush and lure out the hiding Viet Cong forces. Regarding killed in action the 1st Marine Division was the unit with the highest . The earliest casualty record contains a date of death of . Vancouver's Rob McSorley is one of at least 134 Canadians killed in action fighting for U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. There are some limitations on the search capabilities and downloading records en masse is not allowed. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. [7], R. J. Rummel's mid-range estimate in 1997 was that the total deaths due to the Vietnam War totaled 2,450,000 from 195475. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations. An estimated two million civilians of all nationalities, including those of Cambodia and Laos, were killed in the fighting. 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. Casualty Data For The Vietnam War. Get unlimited access to over 84,000 lessons. [95] Of the 27 million draft-age men between 1964 and 1973, 40% were drafted into military service, and only 10% were actually sent to Vietnam. Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010: see the "National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries" section below. The vietnam war Pictures That Moved Them Most . MARINE CORPS * LIFE magazine, June 27, 1969, featuring a portrait of U.S. Army specialist William C. Gearing, Jr., one of 242 American servicemen killed in a single week of fighting during the Vietnam War. Ho Chi Minh was outraged and began to engage his forces in small fights with South Vietnamese troops. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Lebanon (1982-1984) 240. More than 8.7 million Americans served on active duty during the Vietnam period (Nov 1, 1955 to May 15, 1975). exposed to enemy attack. Sometimes, the casualty rate is disproportionately high. In the summer of 2017, I was a U.S. Army lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. [6], A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 19552002. Korean War Casualties Vietnam Casualties Advanced search Export results Vietnam Casualties. [1] A Korean War era soldier and later an attorney in Hays, Kansas, Richard became aware that the government had not made public a central source of information regarding the servicemen and women who died as a result of service in Vietnam. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. 2.7 million American troops were sent to South Vietnam. Shelby L. Stanton, 'The Rise and Fall of an American Army,' Spa Books, 1989, xvi. Panama . Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians. Regarding killed in action the 2nd Infantry Division was the unit with the highest ratio with 7,094 KIA and 16,575 wounded. 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