Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Myth: Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running naked from the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June 1972, was burned by Americans bombing Trang Bang. As American soldiers grew more frustrated with the war and how it was being conducted, some began to take out their frustrations on officers. When the two sides did meet, they rarely fought large-scale battles that allowed the United States to use its superior firepower. "Why didn't they get behind us? Myth: Most American soldiers were addicted to drugs, guilt-ridden about their role in the war, and deliberately used cruel and inhumane tactics. . only 10 to 20 minutes of that time exposed to hostile fire. Myth: Most Vietnam veterans were drafted. different ideas into one] the physical experience of the American combat soldier in Vietnam would be that of a column of men spaced about five yards apart; burdened with 80-pound packs; wearing thick armored vests called flak jackets; carrying rifles, mortars, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and three or four canteens; and patrolling on foot through jungles, mountains, or rice paddies," Appy writes. By April 1968, Flaherty was a paratrooper and a platoon leader with the 101st Airborne Division. Ng, PRONUNCIATION: vee-et-nuh-MEEZ Specifically, as it relates to western troops vs. Japan/North Korea/North Vietnamese forces. These tiring and unpleasant patrols made up much of an average U.S. combat soldier's experience in Vietnam. If you forget it, you'll be able to recover it using your email address. Asian countries had the highest share of overseas troops (38%), while around a third were deployed to Europe (32%). You love the musty morning air. It was NOT the U.S. Embassy. On average there were only about 35,000 combat soldiers in Vietnam, on the average. [1996 Information Please Almanac], 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. Finally, wealthy and educated young men were more likely to be aware of all the ways they might avoid military service. Lewy, Gunter. Even though U.S. combat patrols encountered Viet Cong guerillas and NVA soldiers only rarely, they often found American combat soldiers had to remain alert at all times, even when they were exhausted from many hours of patrolling. Nearly one-in-seven active-duty members were in the Middle East and North Africa (13%) and 3% were in sub 79% had a high school education or better. Unfortunately, the poor treatment the South Vietnamese people received from some American soldiers led to greater support for the Viet Cong and NVA. 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. He worked for a while as a confidential informant for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the 80s but he was homeless in Aventura, just north of Miami, by 1990. For example, the Viet Cong might tie a piece of grass into a knot, with the loop end pointing toward the hidden explosive. Many people criticized the government policies that selected mainly young, uneducated men from the nation's less-affluent families to serve in Vietnam. 2/3 of the men who served in World War II were drafted. They would march for days or weeks at a time, carrying heavy packs full of food, clothing, weapons, and ammunition. In addition, wealthy young men could obtain deferments for physical problems more easily than poor or working-class men. Copyright 1995 - 2018 Gary B. Roush, 242 ASHC Muleskinners, May 1968 - May (as Cincinnatus). Sometimes it would take an entire day to move two miles. Dan Bullock (1953-1969) Dan Bullock was the youngest member of the United States Armed Services to die in the Vietnam War. The economic and human costs of the Vietnam War were devastating. While braving the intense hail of hostile fire, Lieutenant Flaherty displayed astute direction and leadership, leading to the enemy bunker being swiftly destroyed and allowing his platoon to advance and continue its devastating attack on the enemy, according to the citation for the Silver Star Flaherty was awarded for the action. North Vietnam was to return all American POWs.No more American troops or military supplies were to be sent to South Vietnam. Richard Flaherty, who was raised in Connecticut, had to obtain a waiver to join the Army during the Vietnam War. MILTON The shortest soldier to serve in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, a highly decorated officer who completed one tour of duty as a platoon leader with an airborne battalion and another as a Green Beret captain, lies at rest in an as-yet unmarked grave in a Milton cemetery. WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for JXK1/6 North American Gray Wolf Model LXF2209 12" Soldier Accessory Decor Gift at the best online prices at eBay! The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. tail number N4 7004, were Bob Caron who lives in Florida and Jack In the following passage from his book A Rumor of War, former Marine Philip Caputo describes the emotional toll these hidden explosive devices took on the troops: The foot soldier has a special feeling for the ground. For troops in the field, this strategy placed a strong emphasis on "body counts," or the number of enemy soldiers killed. Yuzuk used his own funds and a crowdsourcing campaign to produce The Giant Killer, an 80-minute documentary available on Amazon Prime and iTunes, released late last year. Upon enlisting, soldiers were given a one-time bounty of $31.00 and 160 acres of land, a total later increased by Congress to $124.00 and 320 acres. That month, his platoon came under heavy automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenade fire from a North Vietnamese Army force. Yuzuk said none of the relatives or companions of Flaherty or Anness he has spoken with was aware of a relationship between the two. [McCaffrey], Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than our non-vet age group. These studies have concluded that the average U.S. soldier was a 19-year-old man from a poor or working-class family who had not attended college. After all, every spot where they stepped or sat might lead to injury or death. She knows the booby trap is there, but she doesn't warn them. But he may have left me with more mysteries than Ill ever be able to solve.. The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw about 40 days of combat in four years. This destruction left many Vietnamese people homeless and forced them to live as refugees. Somewhat interestingly, the median The constant threat of triggering a hidden explosive caused some soldiers to become paralyzed with fear and indecision. This was notable, as the financial compensation itself was more than what the average unskilled laborer earned a year. Richard Flaherty returned from war and studied at the University of Miami in Florida. It was a "civilian" (Air America) Huey not Army or Marines. It is "I hailed from a steel community and we handed out 29,000 boys from my county alone. This soldier of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam is equipped with US weapon, uniform, webbing, and radio pack. Vietnam: A History. Others resorted to drugs when they could not cope with the violence they witnessed. Some gave candy to the children and tried to help in other ways. Altogether, 27 million American men came of draft age during the Vietnam War years. The average age of American troops in Vietnam was nineteen, compared to an average age of twenty-six for U.S. soldiers in World War II (193945). With regards the first table, original studies and sources should be But somehow they knew that the enemy had been there. Item Height: 14.5 cm. (The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, i.e. Retrieved February 22, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/american-soldier-vietnam. Which made up only about 10% of the total American soldiers in Vietnam. And two are in Africa: Tanzania (October 1995) and Guinea (June 1995). Also, it has been incorrectly reported that two of Kim Phuc's brothers were killed in this incident. [VHPA Databases] Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association Databases. This low overall average probably was due to the larger number of "new" Americansimmi- grants or first-generation Americans. Approximately 5'8" average height. South Vietnamese military and political leader; president of the Republic of Vietnam, 196775 How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? When he graduated from high school, Flaherty was 4 feet, 9 inches tall three inches too short to meet the Armys height requirement at the time. They knew that the enemy was all around them, but their main form of contact came through traps or ambushes rather than large-scale battles. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. During the height of the U.S. involvement, 1965-69, blacks, who formed 11 percent of the American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam. After a while, whenever Id see him, Id give him a little head nod and hed do the same. But nothing could be further from the truth. 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. During the Vietnam War, however, at least one-third of the American troops were selected for military service through an Instead, the local farmers and villagers usually viewed the Americans with distrust or even hostility. The fertile river valleys tended to be flat and fairly open, but also extremely wet. Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation. Myth: The war was fought largely by the poor and uneducated. Maclear, Michael. Viet Cong guerillas liked to launch surprise attacks at night or during bad weather in order to gain an advantage over the Americans and their powerful weapons. By contrast, there still are 78,000 unaccounted-for Americans from World War II and 8,100 from the Korean conflict. In the jungles, they often had to hack their way through dense vegetation. In some instances, they beat up women, children, or elderly men who refused to give them information. As a result, the morale of American troops was fairly highat first. From 1957 to 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted another 58,499. Mortality studies show that 9,000 is a better estimate. More than 2.5 million American men served in Vietnam during the war. The average age of those men that died in Vietnam of all causes was 23.1; the most common age at death was 20, Yuzuk was stunned by both the sudden loss of a friend and the realization that he would need to do his own detective work to discover what Flaherty had not gotten around to telling him about his life. Many American veterans, as well as citizens who had donated their pets, were angry and disgusted at the treatment the military dogs received. In the early 1970s, the American public was shocked by a series of news reports about atrocities (acts of extreme cruelty or brutality) committed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Adopted by the U.S. Army in the early 1960s, the Huey was the aerial workhorse of the U.S. military, serving prominently with the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force. Capt. 2.3K2.3K Sometimes they would set out on foot from a U.S. base camp. Baskir, Lawrence M., and William A. Strauss. For example, some refugees sorted through dumps near U.S. military bases and carefully saved scraps of food, metal, or wood. Quang Binh Province, Vietnam We fought to an agreed stalemate. contained this quote about Vietnam, there has been "the most extensive accounting in the history of human warfare" of those missing in action. The majority of draftees serving in Vietnam happened post-1965 (generally, 1967-1970) - that is, the profile of a US soldier in Vietnam prior to 1966 was very significantly different than post-1966. vvmf.org Social Makeup of Forces in Vietnam The US soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War were different in many ways from those who had fought in earlier wars. Rather than trying to capture and hold territory as they had in Communism A political system in which the government controls all resources and means of producing wealth. Click here to stay informed and subscribe to the Mountain States Trusted News Source. They believed that the military offered opportunities for training and career advancement that were not available to them in civilian society. The average age of U.S. troops in Southeast Asia was 23, and more than 80 percent had a high school diploma, twice as many as the World War II generation. Indian army is 57 to 59 and some are 6ft but not all "My father had served, everyone in our community had served. Yuzuk said it was not long after he moved to Florida in 1999 and joined the Aventura Police Department that he noticed Flaherty. And I would have died right there with him if he wouldn't have found that wire.". "My time in Vietnam is the memory of ignorance," O'Brien wrote. When they got back on dry land, they had to check their skin for blood-sucking leeches. The final Thousands of villages were destroyed by U.S. bombing missions or American combat patrols. Others grew frustrated with the U.S. military strategy, which seemed to risk their lives on endless patrols without any clear purpose. About 60 percent, or 16 million, of these draftable men avoided service in legal ways. In his new life as a civilian, Flaherty studied at the University of Miami in Florida, but entered a period of despondency after a girlfriend died in a car wreck in 1975. Antiwar groups claimed that the increasing numbers of desertions proved that the American combat troops opposed the war. Rather than trying to convince a draft board that they were physically unable to serve in the military, these men could get a note Vietnam War Reference Library. "The military mission became to inflict casualties and the primary reason for existence became to minimize your own casualties. Book review. What was the avreage age of a soldier killed in combat in Vietnam? [CACF] (Combat Area Casualty File) November 1993. Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture was Vietnamese. On average there were only about 35,000 combat soldiers in Vietnam, on the average. "Every time we slapped someone around, or trashed a village, or shouted curses from a jeep, we defined ourselves as the enemy and thereby handed more power and legitimacy to the people we had to beat.". We believe that the Huey along with the Huey Cobra have more combat flight on 29 April 1975 from UPI's offices on the top floor of the Saigon Hotel which He was struck and killed in a hit and run in 2015. Americans were tall because North Vietnamese military leader Upon arriving in Vietnam, American soldiers found themselves in a strange land of watery fields and dense jungles. Vo Nguyen Giap What as the average height of US SOldier in Vietnam? No matter where in Vietnam these American units patrolled, the landscape made travel difficult. U.S. Army general and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; commander of the American troops in Vietn, Nguyen Cao Ky Another problem associated with the decline in morale of U.S. soldiers was increased drug use. As the overall situation for American troops became worse, race relations within the U.S. military also deteriorated. "The Marines provided them with a guaranteed annual income, free medical care, free clothing, and something else, less tangible but just as valuableself-respect," former U.S. Marine Philip Caputo explains in A Rumor of War. 36. In some cases, men who entered the service by enlisting rather than being drafted received better duty assignments. Richard Flaherty (far right) seen with members of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. It was led by a U.S.-supported government. In the American Civil War, a typical Union soldier might carry a total of 60 lbs. When American soldiers arrived in Vietnam, they entered a land, climate, and culture that was very different from the United States. [CACF]. The great majority of these efforts have erroneously portrayed many myths about the Vietnam War as being facts. Meanwhile, Flahertys burial spot, just behind Lisa Davis Annesss grave, remains unmarked as another Veterans Day approaches. Packaging: Original (Unopened) Theme: TV, Movie & Video Games. Regionally, Asia and Europe accounted for 70% of the U.S. active-duty military presence worldwide in 2016. Part of the problem was that most American soldiers did not understand the South Vietnamese people and culture. WebA weighted average gives us a figure of 22.96 (Standard Deviation: 5.85) which is pretty close to the linked information above from the CACF. This unfamiliar environment made their jobs more difficult and unpleasant. [Burkett] Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation was Robbed of its Heroes and its History by B.G. [McCaffrey], Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group by more than 18 percent. The movie and a book the movie was based on contend that the CIA condoned a drug trade conducted by a Laotian client; both agree that Air America provided the essential transportation for the trade; and both view the pilots with sympathetic understanding. Jokes are funnier, green is greener. According to statistics, the average soldier was a 19-year-old man from a working class family, who did not go to college. Many soldiers used them to escape from the boredom of their daily lives or to rebel against military authority. In the rice paddies, the U.S. soldiers often slogged through water and mud that came up to their waists. So they trained the villagers to recognize subtle signs of a mine or booby trap. . You have permission to edit this article. In reality, few soldiers left their units during combat patrols of South Vietnampartly because it was even more dangerous to travel through the countryside alone. Flaherty returned to the U.S. later that year, and graduated from the Armys Special Warfare School at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, becoming a member of the elite Green Berets. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973. American-owned airlines never knowingly transported opium in or out of Laos, nor did their American pilots ever profit from its transport. During most of the Vietnam War, nineteen-year-olds were not even allowed to vote. [All That We Can Be]. 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. Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. [People], The evacuees were Vietnamese not American military. 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