Vietnam, What are the acual numbers?

Question

How many soldiers did we lose?
How many years were we there?
Which years?

thanks

Answer 1

Total involvement in Viet Nam lasted for about 22 years, from Truman sending advisors and supplies in 1950 to Nixon getting out in 1972.

Combat forces were there for about 8 years, 1964 - 1972.

There were a little over 48,000 troops killed in combat, about 58,000 killed over all.

Answer 2

I have Heard it was 58,000 Dead, in 1963 the US sent MilitaryAdvisers gradually increasing the Amount until Eventually they got involved Officially. In1965 they first began sending Combat Troops there in there Thousands and in 1973 they Officially pulled out of Vietnam leaving a certain number of Troops to Guard The American Embassy. The Fall of South Vietnam was in 1975 and the US Troops assisted in Evacuating the Westerners out to safety to Aircraft Carriers and Dumping the Rescue Helicopters Overboard as they could not take them with them. So Officially they were in Vietnam From 1965- to 1973. Good Luck.

Answer 3

Any numbers will be estamates, the last I heard were just below 59000.
Advisors were on the ground in 1960 the last combat troop left in 1975

Answer 4

There are 58,253 names listed on the Viet Nam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C who lost their lives in the Viet Nam war/conflict. The U.S. was involved from 1959 to 1975.
(USN, retired/in-country Viet Nam vet)

Answer 5

57,320..dead...the first died in 1957 I think...a major watching a movie at an outdoor theater was killed while he leaned up against a fence..Ben Hoa I think,but that one I dont know for a certain..the last in 1975 on a ship storming by marines...we officially landed in 1965 with combat troops,all before were advisors...pulled combat troops out in 1973...kinda confusing...there are rumors that troops were at Dien Bin Phu and others say it was CIA...I really dont think anybody will ever know for sure...

Answer 6

You have the official numbers, but in addition more than 60 000 veterans died after the war, there were a lot of drug addicts who can't end their addiction, still there are many old veterans with addiction problems.

Answer 7

We lost 58,209 soldiers.
We were there for 19 years
We were there from 1954-1973

Answer 8

10,000 days,, ten years,, to many guys died,, about 53,000, 1965 1975,, we actually had advisors there in the 50s but not invlved in combat

Answer 9

This is a great site - shows number KIA, cost of wars, etc.
Also shows # wounded.

Answer 10

The Geneva accords removed the French from northern Vietnam and recognized the Bao Dai government in the south for the two years the French had been given to depart from there. Then an election was supposed to unify the country. This temporary concession of southern territory by the Vietnamese to the French was a response to strong pressure from the Soviet and Chinese representatives Molotov and Zhou Enlai. The French left on schedule but were replaced in May 1955 by the United States and its military support for South Vietnam. Bao Dai was replaced by the pro-American dictator, Ngo Dinh Diem, who refused to hold elections because the Communists would have won. Diem re-established the landlords who had been removed by guerrillas for supporting the Japanese and the French. The peasants of the Viet Minh rebelled, and guerrilla fighting spread. Diem violated every article of the constitution and had thousands of people imprisoned in camps. By 1959 United States military "advisors" were being killed in Vietnam, and in 1960 the guerrillas formed the National Liberation Front (NLF). The Second Indochina War had begun.
By 1961 more than half of South Vietnamese territory was under Communist control. Over the next two years President Kennedy sent sixteen thousand American soldiers as advisors to the South Vietnamese army. In May 1963 the Buddhists rebelled against Diem's tyrannical government, and monks began setting themselves on fire in protest. The United States hinted that changes in the government were needed. On the first day of November a military coup deposed Diem, and he and his brother Nhu were assassinated. Over the next year and a half the government of South Vietnam changed hands among the generals several times. In February 1964 President Lyndon Johnson issued public warnings to North Vietnam and ordered the covert bombing of Laos near the border of North Vietnam.

By 1967 nearly half a million American soldiers were fighting in South Vietnam, but at home the Spring Mobilization Committee called for a bombing halt, a US-initiated cease-fire, negotiations, and a phased withdrawal of American troops
In November 1967 General Westmoreland announced that troop withdrawal could begin in 1969 if the bombing and military progress continued. However, on the Vietnamese holiday of Tet at the end of January 1968 the Vietcong (NLF) launched a massive attack on the major cities of South Vietnam. Within three weeks about 165,000 civilians had been killed, and there were two million new refugees. American forces bombed hamlets that the Vietcong occupied. A US major, looking at the devastated village of Ben Tre, said, "We had to destroy it in order to save it." The offensive, which included an invasion of the US embassy in Saigon, came as a great shock to Americans. The huge size of the action and its surprise to the Americans and South Vietnamese Army indicated that most of the people in the country were more loyal to the NLF than to the Government.

In February 1969 Nixon's national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, began arranging the secret bombing of Communist bases in Cambodia in violation of the US Constitution, which requires Congress to declare war before attacking another country. To hide these crimes, bombing pilots were ordered to bomb South Vietnam and then had their targets changed; but they still filed false reports that they had bombed South Vietnam when in reality they had bombed Cambodia. By March 1969 there were 541,000 US troops fighting in South Vietnam. From March 1969 to May 1970, the United States conducted 3,630 bombing raids on Cambodia, killing about 600,000 people there. Another 350,000 civilians were killed in Laos by US bombing.

Adapting to public pressure, President Nixon began withdrawing US troops, but he kept the war going by bombing Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam. The "Vietnamization" of the war was doomed to fail without US support. Running against the peace candidate George McGovern in 1972, Nixon promised peace. Using various illegal political tricks against his opponents that were later exposed in the Watergate scandal, Nixon gained an overwhelming electoral victory. After his 1972 Christmas bombing, several peace groups and ten religious peace groups formed the Coalition to Stop Funding the War (CSFW). A cease-fire agreement was signed in January 1973. However, it was only when the Watergate scandal began to weaken the Nixon presidency that Congress, on July 1, 1973, finally cut off all funds for any military activity in Indochina. Without American troops fighting their civil war, the government of South Vietnam could not last long. On August 9, 1974 Nixon resigned the Presidency in order to avoid being impeached. On April 21, 1975 President Thieu resigned and fled, followed a week later by his successor. On April 30 Vietnam became a unified country as US helicopters completed the evacuation of 1,373 Americans and 5,595 Vietnamese, abandoning their embassy in Saigon.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'It might have been.'" A few thoughts as the War Party pounds the drum for an all-out American war on Iraq and radical Islam