Vietnam - KIA

R

rbmartiniv

New Member
In a letter to the editor of our local paper, a man stated that 1,700 KIA was not that big a deal (referring to Iraq). He said 1,700 or more had been killed in ONE day in VIETNAM. I don't believe that is so. I can't find any documentation on daily casualties. Does anyone know what day during the Vietnam war that we suffered the most KIA? Can you cite the source of the information? I would appreciate the help in setting the record straight with our paper.
Thanks,
R.B. Martin
 
1,700 dead (not all KIA mind you, a number of those are from accidents) is an extremely low number for a 2 year long war, even when most of it is low-intensity.

I do highly HIGHLY doubt the validity of your editor buddy's claim of 1,700 in one day of Vietnam.

However, the example I use is that we lost 3,000 KIA in the battle for Iwo Jima, nearly twice that of the entire 2 year war in Iraq. I picked the battle not because it was the bloodiest battle ever, but for its mediocrity when compared to the other big battles of WW2. We payed TWICE the cost of the entire nation of Iraq over 2 years for one stupid ass island in the middle of nowhere in only a few weeks in WW2 which we all agree was a worthwhile conflict.

That is the kind of thing that puts it all in perspective I think. People don't understand what 300,000 american men killed look like compared to 1,700, to them anything over 10 dead people look the same. I find that you can more easily help people understand by comparing what we're paying now to how little progress we got from the same payment in WW2.



Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that 1,700 dead men and women is not a big deal; war is a big deal. What I am saying is that there have been many "bigger deals" in the past and there will unfortunately but undoubtobly be much "bigger deals" in our future. Gaining the correct perspective is imperitive to choosing the best course of action.
 
No way was there a single day in Vietnam that 1700 were killed. It would be 'interesting' to find out what day was the very worst, I'd guess a couple hundred possibly more. I dont know the casualties for Tet but they were probably higher. I think on 'average' 25 were killed per day but I'm not sure what time frame its counting, it might just be from a certain date instead of the whole 12 year involvement.


Ive got an old newspaper with an article entitled "217 GIs killed in week" from May 21st, 1970 on the front page but more than halfway down.

That site is interesting
http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm

but his math is wrong on something i skimmed over


"170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2%) of whom died there."

3,070 would be about 3% of 100,000. The percentage calculated is too high if the 170,000 is correct


Also his average age being 19 is incorrect





Edit:

oh ok the site says it was 155 on 17 Nov 65 from the 7th Cav, I think thats from the movie "we were soldiers." Didnt know they lost that much. I would think casualties from Tet would have exceeded that
 
14Juliet said:
That site is interesting
http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm

but his math is wrong on something i skimmed over


"170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2%) of whom died there."

3,070 would be about 3% of 100,000. The percentage calculated is too high if the 170,000 is correct
Click to expand...

Well you are right as far as the way those figures are shown, but I think there was a simple mistake: 3,070 may want to represent 5.2 % of the total casualties (58,176, as reported above in the site).
Am I right?
 
rbmartiniv said:
In a letter to the editor of our local paper, a man stated that 1,700 KIA was not that big a deal (referring to Iraq).
Click to expand...

Any death is a big deal - especially if it's your death and your family. I will not have the importance of loss dictated to me by numbers. Whoever wrote that was an ass.
 
Charge 7 said:
rbmartiniv said:
In a letter to the editor of our local paper, a man stated that 1,700 KIA was not that big a deal (referring to Iraq).
Click to expand...

Any death is a big deal - especially if it's your death and your family. I will not have the importance of loss dictated to me by numbers. Whoever wrote that was an ass.
Click to expand...

Right.
 
Heres something related..

During the Viet Nam war, 57,000 Americans gave their lives fighting for this country. A wailing wall was built in Washington with each soldiers' name engraved. But in that same 9-year period, when 57,000 died in Viet Nam OVER 2 MILLION AMERICANS were killed by killer alcohol!
http://www.av1611.org/drug.html

I'm not down playing the war in Viet Nam - my dad was a combat medic there... I just found this to be an interesting fact.

A guy in my unit had to do a presentation on drinking and driving - for his DUI related offense
 
rbmartiniv said:
In a letter to the editor of our local paper, a man stated that 1,700 KIA was not that big a deal (referring to Iraq). He said 1,700 or more had been killed in ONE day in VIETNAM. I don't believe that is so. I can't find any documentation on daily casualties. Does anyone know what day during the Vietnam war that we suffered the most KIA? Can you cite the source of the information? I would appreciate the help in setting the record straight with our paper.
Thanks,
R.B. Martin
Click to expand...

Not in Vietnam. But it did happen in WWII. D-Day and Tarawa for example. Not to mention WWI or the US Civil War.

I once read that the average in Vietnam in KIA was 100 US servicemen per week.

Mod edit: your previous post was deleted because you should have just edited it instead of creating two posts.

Rule 9:
Do NOT double post (reply directly after one of your own posts)! Use the edit button instead! :read:

EDIT

Sorry Mod, I forgot I had posted above, was very careless. My apologies.
 
mmarsh said:
I once read that the average in Vietnam in KIA was 100 US servicemen per week.
Click to expand...

That sounds correct. I recall this article once where the average on 113 a week was presented - though this one was back in the early 1990s so perhaps recent research on the topic proves otherwise.
 
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