Raw ITN Vietnam Footage

[toptiger]

thanks, Mr D, no I had never seen it before- It must have been made in 1965 or so, very early on as by the time I got to VN in 1968, none of the H-21s, Uh-1As or those early weapons systems on the gunships were still around. We had Uh-1C gunships, mini guns {a gatling gun- multiple spinning barrels, nose turret mounted automatic 40 MM grenade launchers, and various sized of rocket pods}. The troop ships were exclusively UH-1 D and, later on, H models.
Thanks for the memories!
GR

[Bob Amon]

Fellas, I came across this very interesting information for all you Vietnam War buffs.

Facts and Myths about the Vietnam War:

Source: http://www.globalspecialoperations.com/ ... facts.html


Vietnam War Statistics

9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during
the official Vietnam era from August 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975.

2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam

Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.

240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War

The first man to die in Vietnam was James Davis, in 1958. He
was with the 509th Radio Research Station. Davis Station in
Saigon was named for him.

58,148 were killed in Vietnam

Of those killed, 17,539 were married

Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21

11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old

Average age of men killed: 23.1 years

Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.

The oldest man killed was 62 years old.

75,000 were severely disabled

23,214 were 100% disabled

5,283 lost limbs

1,081 sustained multiple amputations

As of January 15, 2004, there are 1,875 Americans still
unaccounted for from the Vietnam War

97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged

91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served

74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome

Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the
same non-vet age groups.

Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of
non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent.

87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.

There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam
Veterans and non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group
(Source: Veterans Administration Study)

Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison - only
one-half of one percent of Vietnam Veterans have been
jailed for crimes.

85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful transitions to
civilian life.

1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive
as of August, 1995 (census figures).

As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the
surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is:
1,002,511.

The Department of Defense Vietnam War Service Index
officially provided by The War Library originally reported
with errors that 2,709,918 U.S. military personnel as
having served in-country. Corrections and confirmations to
this errored index resulted in the addition of 358 U.S.
military personnel confirmed to have served in Vietnam but
not originally listed by the Department of Defense. (All
names are currently on file and accessible 24/7/365).

Isolated atrocities committed by American Soldiers produced
torrents of outrage from anti-war critics and the news media
while Communist atrocities were so common that they received
hardly any media mention at all. The United States sought to
minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while North Vietnam
made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy.
Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison
sentences while Communists who did so received commendations.

From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated
36,725 Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. The death squads
focused on leaders at the village level and on anyone who
improved the lives of the peasants such as medical personnel,
social workers, and school teachers.



Common Myths Dispelled


MYTH: Common Belief is that most Vietnam veterans were drafted.

FACT: 2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. 2/3
of the men who served in World War II were drafted. Approximately
70% of those killed in Vietnam were volunteers.

MYTH: The media have reported that suicides among Vietnam veterans
range from 50,000 to 100,000 - 6 to 11 times the non-Vietnam veteran
population.

FACT: Mortality studies show that 9,000 is a better estimate. "The
CDC Vietnam Experience Study Mortality Assessment showed that during
the first 5 years after discharge, deaths from suicide were 1.7 times
more likely among Vietnam veterans than non-Vietnam veterans. After
that initial post-service period, Vietnam veterans were no more likely
to die from suicide than non-Vietnam veterans. In fact, after the
5-year post-service period, the rate of suicides is less in the Vietnam
veterans' group.

MYTH: Common belief is that a disproportionate number of blacks were
killed in the Vietnam War.

FACT: 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were
black, 1.2% were other races. Sociologists Charles C. Moskos and John
Sibley Butler, in their recently published book "All That We Can Be,"
said they analyzed the claim that blacks were used like cannon fodder
during Vietnam "and can report definitely that this charge is untrue.
Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in
Southeast Asia - a figure proportional to the number of blacks in the
U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion of
blacks in the Army at the close of the war."

MYTH: Common belief is that the war was fought largely by the poor and
uneducated.

FACT: Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a
slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be
pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best educated
forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school
education or better. Here are statistics from the Combat Area Casualty
File (CACF) as of November 1993. The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial (The Wall): Average age of 58,148 killed in Vietnam
was 23.11 years. (Although 58,169 names are in the Nov. 93 database,
only 58,148 have both event date and birth date. Event date is used
instead of declared dead date for some of those who were listed as
missing in action)

Deaths Average Age
Total: 58,148 23.11 years
Enlisted: 50,274 22. 37 years
Officers: 6,598 28. 43 years
Warrants: 1,276 24.73 years
E1: 525 20.34 years
Infantry 18,465 22.55 years

MYTH: The common belief is the average age of an infantryman fighting
in Vietnam was 19.

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. None of the enlisted grades have
an average age of less than 20. The average man who fought in World War II
was 26 years of age.

MYTH: The Common belief is that the domino theory was proved false.

FACT: The domino theory was accurate. The ASEAN (Association of Southeast
Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and
Thailand stayed free of Communism because of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam.
The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of America's commitment
in Vietnam. Without that commitment, Communism would have swept all the way
to the Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great strategic
importance to the free world. If you ask people who live in these countries
that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from the American
news media. The Vietnam War was the turning point for Communism.

MYTH: The common belief is that the fighting in Vietnam was not as intense
as in World War II.

FACT: 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.
One out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. 58,148
were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.7 million who served. Although the
percent that 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. MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly 500,000 missions. Over
900,000 patients were airlifted (nearly half were American). The average time
lapse between wounding to hospitalization was less than one hour. As a result,
less than one percent of all Americans wounded, who survived the first 24 hours,
died. The helicopter provided unprecedented mobility. Without the helicopter
it would have taken three times as many troops to secure the 800 mile border
with Cambodia and Laos (the politicians thought the Geneva Conventions of 1954
and the Geneva Accords or 1962 would secure the border).

MYTH: Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running naked from the
napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June 1972.....shown a million times on
American television....was burned by Americans bombing Trang Bang.

FACT: No American had involvement in this incident near Trang Bang that burned
Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The planes doing the bombing Near the village were VNAF
(Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in support of
South Vietnamese troops on the ground. The Vietnamese pilot who dropped the
napalm in error is currently living in the United States. Even the AP
photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. The incident in
the photo took place on the second day of a three day battle between the North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the village of Trang Bang and the ARVN
(Army of the Republic of Vietnam) who were trying to force the NVA out of the
village. Recent reports in the news media that an American commander ordered
the air strike that burned Kim Phuc are incorrect. There were no Americans
involved in any capacity. "We (Americans) had nothing to do with controlling
VNAF," according to Lieutenant General (Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the
Commanding General of TRAC at that time. Also, it has been incorrectly
reported that two of Kim Phuc's brothers were killed in this incident. They
were Kim's cousins not her brothers.

MYTH: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.

FACT: You cannot lose someone else's war. The government of the Republic
of South Vietnam requested military aid and assistance from the United
States in 1958 as part of a treaty agreement.The American military was not
defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any
consequence. "From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented
performance". Said General Westmoreland (quoting Douglas Pike, a professor
at the University of California, Berkley, a renowned expert on the Vietnam
War). This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC
and NVA.


United States,
Republic of South Vietnam,
People's Republic of North Vietnam
Paris Talks Agreement


The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. It called
for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both
sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification.
The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost
entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military. There were almost twice as many
casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the
fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved
in Vietnam.Thanks for the perceived loss and the countless assassinations and
torture visited upon Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the
American media and their undying support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War
movement in the United States.


Fall of Saigon


The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years after the American military
left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973.
How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an agreed
stalemate.


1968 Tet Offensive


As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media misreported and misinterpreted
the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was reported as an overwhelming success for the
Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. forces. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Despite initial victories by the Communists forces, the
Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap,
the designer of the Tet Offensive, is considered by some as ranking with Wellington,
Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a great commander. Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive
was a total defeat of the Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death
of some 45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet
Cong elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the South
never recovered. The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front and that was the News
front and the political arena. This was another example in the Vietnam War of an
inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth. However inaccurately reported, the News
Media made the Tet Offensive famous.
(Reference:Nixon Presidential Papers)

[toptiger]

bob, the MOH number for 'our' war seemed high to me so i looked it up - the actual figure appears to be 245 total, of which 154 were posthumous.

http://www.history.army.mil/mohstats.htm

[kb0jyl]

I wish to thank Bob and every who has contributed to this thread. I appreciate you sharing these memories with everyone. It is good to remind us of the scarifices of our service personel doing their duty. This thread has brought back memories of news paper stories and tv news of the day. With several relatives serving in Southeast Asia and in harms way it was a tough time. I think this also helps us to appreciate the newest returning combat veterans and what they are now going through. Wither or not we agree with the presence in troops in the middle east, they deserve support just as the Vietnam era, Korea, WWII, veterans do.

My thanks to all those that served in a combat situation. A bigger thanks to those that gave the ultimate sacrifice.

THANK YOU ALL
Steve

[Bob Amon]

bob, the MOH number for 'our' war seemed high to me so i looked it up - the actual figure appears to be 245 total, of which 154 were posthumous.

http://www.history.army.mil/mohstats.htm

I know, I question some of the numbers myself. This one doesn't seem accurate:

"86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were
black, 1.2% were other races."

I'm not questioning the African-American figures, because I had heard many years ago that it was a myth that a disproportionate number of them were thought to have died in Vietnam. I am questioning the Caucasian number vs. "Other." It seems to me that there were a lot more Hispanics (Latinos) serving in the infantry than 1.2% and I'm sure my memory is correct on this.

Hell, I had Sgt. Benevente on my team and the neighboring team had a Mexican-American by the name of CPT Ortiz, plus another Puerto Rican enlisted man on that team. So the "other" seems inaccurate unless, at the time of enlistment during this period of time, when these individuals checked off "race," they may have checked off "Caucasian." It may have been that there was simply not a distinction as there is today, with all the different races (and you didn't have hispanic or "Latino pride" like you have today, i.e., "Don't call me Caucasian, I'm Latino!" So this could explain that. But I'm sure that the balance, at least in my mind, was less "White Caucasian" as you would call it, and a little more Latino or Hispanic.

There were many, many brave Latinos, including many from Puerto Rico, who served in Vietnam and who volunteered for it and would NEVER have been drafted, becuase we weren't pulling people from there. My Heavy Weapons NCO, SSGT Benevente, was from Guam, and had enlisted in the US Army. He himself told me he never would have been drafted, but wanted to join the Army voluntarily, so he did, and they accepted him.

Some of the most amazing Vietnam Veteran volnteers are the guys from Canada! I've met them many times at some Rolling Thunder events we have here in Jersey (they bike down from Canada) and these guys all volunteered (AND THE US TOOK THEM!) Then, when the war was over, our Veteran's Administration told these guys, "Xin Loi," you're not covered for any benefits! Un-Freakin'-Believable.

A lot of them got around it though, by crossing over the boarder into NY state and using other addresses, etc. Eventually, the Veterans Administration started giving in and letting them get some benefits.

[toptiger]

i think you are right, bob, back in the day perhaps latinos were not singled out as to race.

[Bob Amon]

That probably explains it, because applications were pretty basic back then.

By the '90's, on my son's 4-page Rutgers College application, the entire 4th page was devoted to "race." They wanted every last detail... father's side, mother's side... incredible. I later found out they were assigning "points" for minorities and even percentages of minorities... none of which my son qualified for! LOL

But getting back to the Vietnam Era, that just goes to show the tempo of the day. It seemed that the only real distinction was white or black, with hardly anything in between.

Thank God we've gotten past some of that and hopefully beyond all the concerns for "What race are you?"

Hey, when the bullets are flying, I don't care if it's SGT. Logan (African American) on my left or SSGT. Benevente (Latino) on my right, just as long as I cover their backs and they cover mine! (LOL) We were ALL brothers, man.