Honors U.S. History Mr. Lucot

The Vietnam Wall Memorial – Washington, D.C.

Vietnam War Summary

The Vietnam War was a war fought between 1964 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos, and in bombing runs over North Vietnam.

Fighting on one side was a coalition of forces including the United States, the Republic of Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea.

Fighting on the other side was a coalition of forces including the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the National Liberation Front, a communist-led South Vietnamese guerrilla movement.

The USSR provided military aid to the North Vietnamese and to the NLF, but was not one of the military combatants.

The war was part of a larger regional conflict involving the neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos, known as the Second Indochina War. In Vietnam, this conflict is known as the American War (Vietnamese Chiến Tranh Chống Mỹ Cứu Nước, which translates into English as "War Against the Americans and to Save the Nation").

In many ways the Vietnam War was a direct successor to the French Indochina War, which is sometimes referred to as the First Indochina War, when the French fought to maintain control of their colony in Indochina against an independence movement led by Communist Party leader Ho Chi Minh.

Citing progress in peace negotiations, On January 15, 1973 President Nixon ordered a suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam which was later followed by the unilateral withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam. The Paris Peace Accords were later signed on January 27, 1973 which officially ended US involvement in the Vietnam conflict.

The peace agreements signed at the Paris Peace Accords did not last for very long. In early 1975 the North invaded the South and quickly consolidated the country under its control. Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. North Vietnam united North and South Vietnam on July 2, 1976 to form the "Socialist Republic of Vietnam". Hundreds of supporters of the South Vietnamese government were executed, thousands more were imprisoned. Saigon was immediately re-named to "Ho Chi Minh City", in honor of the former president of North Vietnam. Communist rule continues in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to the present day.

Vietnam War Statistics

  • 50,000 American Servicemen served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
  • 9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official Vietnam era (Aug.5, 1964-May 7, 1975).
  • 3,403,100 (including 514,300 offshore) personnel served in the Southeast Asia Theater (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand, and sailors in adjacent South China sea waters).
  • Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.
  • 240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam era.
  • Hostile deaths: 47,378
  • Non-hostile deaths: 10,800
  • Missing in action: 2,338
  • POWs: 766 (114 died in captivity).
  • Wounded in action: 303,704
  • Severely disabled: 75,000--23,214 100% disabled; 5,283 lost limbs; 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.
  • Married men killed: 17,539
  • Men under the age of 21 killed: 61%
  • Average age of men killed: 22.8 years.
  • Highest political office attained by a Vietnam veteran to date: Vice President Al Gore.
  • 79% of the men who served in Vietnam had a high school education or better when they entered the military service.
  • The suicide rate of Vietnam veterans has always been well within the 1.7% norm of the general population.
  • 97% of Vietnam-era veterans were honorably discharged.
  • The average age of those killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years.
  • 50,274 were enlisted, average age 22.37.
  • 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.
  • After Vietnam the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand managed to stay free of communism. The Indonesians expelled the Soviets in 1966.
  • During the Vietnam War the national debt increased by $146 billion (1967-1973). Adjusted for inflation, the debt in 1992 dollars was $500 billion.
  • 6,598 were officers, average age 28.43.
  • 91 percent of Vietnam veterans say they are glad they served.
  • 74 percent said they would serve again even knowing the outcome.
  • From 1957 to 1973 the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted 58,499. Death squads focused on leaders that included schoolteachers and minor officials.
  • The number of North Vietnamese killed was approximately 500,000 to 600,000. Casualties: 15 million.
  • One out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. Although the percentage who 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.
  • The Tet '68 offensive was a major defeat for the VC and the NVA.
  • Two-thirds of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers, two-thirds who served in World War II were draftees.
  • 8 nurses died-1 was killed in action.
  • 7,484 American women served in Vietnam. 6,250 were nurses.
  • Severely disabled: 75,000--23,214 100% disabled; 5,283 lost limbs; 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.
  • Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.
  • The oldest man killed was 62 years old.
  • 11,465 KIAs were less than 20 years old.
  • Peak troop strength in Vietnam: 543,482 (April 30, 1969)
  • Total draftees (1965-1973): 1,728,344
  • Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam
  • National Guard: 6,140 served; 101 died
  • Last man drafted: June 30, 1973

Vietnam War Battles

The Vietnam War was one of the fiercest wars in the history of the world. Hundreds of thousands died during the battles of the Vietnam War.

Here we list some of the most famous battles that played a significant part in the outcome of the Vietnam War.

Major Battles of the Vietnam War

  • Battle at the Hamlet of Ap Bac - January 2, 1963
  • Siege of Khe Sanh - January 21, 1968
  • Tet Offensive - January 30
  • First Battle of Saigon - March 7, 1968
  • Eastertide Offensive - March 30, 1972
  • Fall of Saigon - April 29, 1975

Major Operations of the Vietnam War

  • Operation Chopper - January 12, 1962
  • Operation Ranch Hand - January 1962
  • Operation Rolling Thunder - February 24, 1965
  • Operation Starlight - August 17, 1965
  • Operation Crimp - January 8, 1966
  • Operation Birmingham - April 1966
  • Operation Hastings - Late May 1966
  • Operation Attleboro - September 2, 1966
  • Operation Deckhouse Five - January 6, 1967
  • Operation Cedar Falls - January 8, 1967
  • Operation Junction City - February 21, 1967
  • Operation Niagara - January 5, 1968
  • Operation Pegasus - August 8, 1968
  • Operation Menu - February 1969
  • Operation Lam Son 719 - February 8, 1971
  • Operation Linebacker - April 6, 1972

Quotes on Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh to the French, late 1940s

You can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours, but even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

You have a row of dominoes set up; you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is that it will go over very quickly.

John F. Kennedy, speech, New York Times, October 13, 1960.

Should I become President...I will not risk American lives...by permitting any other nation to drag us into the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time through an unwise commitment that is unwise militarily, unnecessary to our security and unsupported by our allies.

John F. Kennedy, 1961

Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place.

Barry M. Goldwater, Why Not Victory?, 1962.

Once upon a time our traditional goal in war and can anyone doubt that we are at war? - was victory. Once upon a time we were proud of our strength, our military power. Now we seem ashamed of it.

Gen. Curtis LeMay, May 1964

Tell the Vietnamese they've got to draw in their horns or we're going to bomb them back into the Stone Age.

Lyndon B. Johnson, statement after Gulf of Tonkin incident, August 4, 1964.

We still seek no wider war.

Lyndon Johnson, Oct. 1964

We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

Ronald Reagan, interview, Fresno Bee, October 10, 1965.

We should declare war on North Vietnam. . . .It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home for Christmas.

George McGovern, speech to U.S. Senate, April 25, 1967.

We seem bent upon saving the Vietnamese from Ho Chi Minh, even if we have to kill them and demolish their country to do it....I do not intend to remain silent in the face of what I regard as a policy of madness which, sooner or later, will envelop my son and American youth by the millions for years to come.

Walt W. Rostow, National Security Adviser, Dec. 1967

I see light at the end of the tunnel.

Unidentified U.S. Army major, on decision to bomb Bentre, Vietnam, February 7, 1968.

It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.

Lyndon B. Johnson, address to nation, March 31, 1968.

Our objective in South Vietnam has never been the annihilation of the enemy.

Richard M. Nixon, 1969

Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

Richard Nixon, Oct. 1969

I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war.

Sen. Frank Church, May 1970

This war has already stretched the generation gap so wide that it threatens to pull the country apart.

Dalton Trumbo, Introduction, Johnny Got His Gun, 1970.

Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share.

Henry Kissinger, Oct. 1972

We believe that peace is at hand.

Richard Nixon in a letter to President Thieu, Jan. 1973

You have my assurance that we will respond with full force should the settlement be violated by North Vietnam.

Nguyen Van Thieu, April 1975

If the Americans do not want to support us anymore, let them go, get out! Let them forget their humanitarian promises!

B-52 STRATOFORTRESS

The B-52 set many records in its 25-plus years of service. On Jan. 18, 1957, three B-52Bs completed the world's first non-stop round-the-world flight by jet aircraft, lasting 45 hours and 19 minutes with only three aerial refuelings en route. It was also a B-52 that made the first airborne hydrogen bomb drop over Bikini Atoll on May 21, 1956. In June 1965, B-52s entered combat when they began flying missions in Southeast Asia. By Aug. 1973, they had flown 126,615 combat sorties with 17 B-52s lost to enemy action.

Primary Function: Heavy bomber
Contractor: Boeing Military Airplane Co.
Power plant: Eight Pratt & Whitney engines TF33-P-3/103 turbofan
Thrust: Each engine up to 17,000 pounds Speed: 650 miles per hour (Mach 0.86)
Length: 159 feet, 4 inches (48.5 meters) Height: 40 feet, 8 inches (12.4 meters)
Wingspan: 185 feet (56.4 meters Ceiling: 50,000 feet (15,151.5 meters
Weight: Approximately 185,000 pounds empty (83,250 kilograms)
Maximum Takeoff Weight: 488,000 pounds (219,600 kilograms
Range: Unrefueled 8,800 miles (7,652 nautical miles)
Armament: Four .50-cal. machine guns in tail. Approximately 70,000 pounds (31,500 kilograms) mixed ordnance -- bombs, mines and missiles. (Modified to carry air-launched cruise missiles)
Crew: Five (commander, pilot, radar navigator, navigator, electronic warfare officer)
Accommodations: Six ejection seats
Unit Cost: $53.4 million (fiscal 98 constant dollars)
Date Deployed: February 1955 Inventory: Active force, 85; ANG, 0; Reserve, 9

The use of aerial refueling gives the B-52 a range limited only by crew endurance. It has an unrefueled combat range in excess of 8,800 miles (14,080 kilometers).