March 29 is Vietnam Veterans Day
Some statistics in regards to those who served;
Vietnam Vets: 9.7% of their generation.
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975).
8,744,000 GIs were on active duty during the war (Aug 5, 1964 – March 28, 1973).
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).
2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (Jan. 1, 1965 – March 28, 1973)
Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
Of the 2.6 million, between 1 – 1.6 million (40 – 60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.
7,484 women (6,250 or 83.5% were nurses) served in Vietnam.
Peak troop strength in Vietnam: 543,482 (April 30, 1968)25% (648,500) of total forces in country were draftees. (66% of U.S. armed forces members were drafted during WWII.
Draftees accounted for 30.4% (17,725) of combat deaths in Vietnam.
Reservists killed: 5,977
National Guard: 6,140 served: 101 died.
Total draftees (1965 – 73): 1,728,344.
Actually served in Vietnam: 38%
Marine Corps Draft: 42,633.
Last man drafted: June 30, 1973.97% of Vietnam-era veterans were honorably discharged.
91% of actual Vietnam War veterans and 90% of those who saw heavy combat are proud to have served their country.
66% of Vietnam vets say they would serve again if called upon.
87% of the public now holds Vietnam veterans in high esteem!!!!!
Welcome home.
Category: We Remember
Welcome Home!
I see everyone listed there served from 1964 on? it used to be from 1`975 on, and they changed it to 1962 on….STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH, I was on a aircraft carrier in the south china sea, we were sending aircraft into vietnam in 1959/1960….got the armed forces expeditionary medal, but VA has records of non war time, and can’t even join the V.V.A. ! This is bullshyt!!!
Welcome Home Brothers !!!!
Welcome Home!
I was on sick call yesterday, so I missed the formation held at the county courthouse. Vets usually get a lot of love down here in South Texas.
http://www.kristv.com/clip/14229638/honoring-vietnam-veterans
BZ to all Viet Nam Vets!
You are all heroes in my eyes!
GOD Bless each and every one of you!
5.8 million who avoided service now claim to be Vietnam combat vets…….Welcome back to the real heroes.
GFY to the phoneys
Welcome home to my elder brothers and sisters in arms!
Jonn, I hope you don’t mind, but I stole the statistics from your article and am using it as the lead in for my MSII class this morning.
About time! Thank you all for your service during a very difficult era.
Thank you for those stats Jonn, we do not often hear those positive numbers. I grew up with the spector of going to Viet Nam but it ended before I turned 17.
I would like to share this post if that is acceptable.
Welcome home to all who served at a strange, difficult time in American History. You served when others ran north. You served when a lot of the public either didn’t care about you or denigrated you. We who followed in your footsteps owe you a debt of gratitude. You are our heroes.
Welcome Home.
Got off the OKIE 3 in Nov. 1966 in Norfolk and She left in early 1967 for her new home port in San Diego and operations in Viet Nam. I had a guilt trip about not shipping over but my shipmates whom I keep in contact with said that I did my time and that was good enough.
Well, aren’t I special!
We didn’t do anything greater than those before us and those that followed made us proud.
Yes! I once worried what would happen to the Army when I retired and then found out they got along just fine without me. It was a bit of a blow to the ego but as it should be when you’ve properly trained your replacements.
Welcome come to my brothers & sisters.
I have a friend John, who helped me thru some difficult parts of my life as he also did with a number of other RVN vets. I owe a lot to him.
He served in RVN during 1969-1970, first as an Infantry Sergeant with the 9th Division in the Mekong Delta and then was transferred to the 25th Division as a sniper the last half of his tour.
He wrote a number of poems concerning his experiences that many other vets can relate to.
John has also been invited to a number of gatherings to read his poetry.
If I could, I would like to share two of his poems with all of you here at TAH.
THE TELLER
I am told by the teller
that my good friend is dead.
The teller keeps on talking,
I hear no more what’s said.
Shock wave numbs my heart and soul
while teller’s standing there.
Bitterness now dams my tears.
Pretense hides my care.
For the moment I now breathe.
But I do not find my breathe.
I picture the face of my friend,
but cannot picture death.
Great God, I wrote a letter
two weeks before this date
to the parents of my friend!
Now everything’s to late.
So I grab my gear and rifle
and keep it all inside.
I have no time to accept
that my good friend has died.
THE RETURN
I have come from Vietnam
and I just can’t believe
that no one tries to kill me,
but I have no reprieve.
Daughter drops a spoon on floor
and God I am up fast!
Embarrassed my friends today,
I hope I doesn’t last.
My wife’s another problem.
a stranger she does seem.
Or is it me the stranger?
I miss the sniper team.
Then I can’t have her touch me
when I try sleep at night.
I am living on the edge
and waiting for a fight.
Everyone just stay away,
please leave my ass alone.
I have come from Vietnam,
but I have not come home.
I have been truly blessed to be able to call this man my friend.
Welcome home, John.
Those are very good. Sometimes poems can be so esoteric the point is lost on most people. Those are very relatable and make a point, with elegant simplicity, that few could miss. It reminds me of a soldier’s poem about Anzio, but that is for another time.
Thank John for me and thank you for your service.
Welcome home, all.
Welcome home.
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost fifty years since that time in my life! I’ve had a successful life. Better than most! Looking back, it’s my proudest moment, serving in Viet of the Nam!
My biggest regret is not taking more photos. If anyone is interested I recently found photos of my old outfit. it’s listed under Kenneth Watson HHT 3/17 Air Cav Phu Loi 1971 there must be over a hundred of them. I recognized many but only a few names. It was like time had stood still!
I gave all my memorabilia to Texas Tech. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in their Viet Nam Archive fr those who are interested.
https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive/
I’ve been downloading the 1st Recon reports from the TT archives and building a database of all who served in the 1st Recon battalion. It is a slow process and I’m maybe a 1/4 way through, but when finished, I’ll be able to rapidly tell you if someone served in Recon. I’ve been working backwards from when Recon stood down in ’71 (when I was with them). Wish me luck in finishing the project.
I put together a PDF of my 100+ pictures. Does TT take something like that?
Evidently they’ll take any collection regardless of size or viewpoint as long as it’s Viet Nam related. My collection included slides, pictures, books, magazines, MPC, coins, etc. Check the link for information regarding donations.
https://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/donors/materials.php
In three minutes, where I am, it will be 30/3/18.
God bless you all
Dungeon Master, any hard links for those stats?
I don’t doubt your word, but I would like to use those stats and I need hard links for that.
Thank you.
If you’re talking to me, the link is posted above.
Sorry, I didn’t see the linky.
Thank you!
They always leave out this statistic:
Of the 9,087,000 military personnel who served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975), 265,000++ were women in the various branches of the Armed Forces.
Thank YOU for YOUR service too, Ex-PH2!
It is truly a shame that the female vets from that era are often forgotten.
That’s one of the reasons I included “sisters” in my post above earlier.
Thanks for doign that, Skyjumper.
THANK YOU & WELCOME HOME
I’m getting all misty-eyed looking at the graphic at the top of the post. The eye-catching helmet with the net cover is particularly poignant. I remember when we would tie entire nuoc mam bushes to our heads and fake those nasty little VC right the fuck out…
“nuoc mam bushes”?
They grew them in Phuc Thup Valley in Long Wang Province…
And to quote Michael Kelso:
“Fall is harvest time for the farmer. My Father and I were up early picking carrots straight off the trees.”/s
I’ve heard of the region. Isn’t that where Long Duc Dong (GONG) was from?
That is what they make that sauce from that smells like rotting dead fish.
What a fabulous graphic. But the millennial who likely created it needs to make it more “inclusive.” In addition to the poorly done depiction of a WWII steel pot with camo net, he/she/xse/x-whatsit needs to add an NVA pith helmet. After all, we have quite a few ex-NVA and VC living here now. There is a NVA LTC living across the street from my sister in Floriduh. Those commie veterans of the Vietnam War certainly need to be commemorated as well. According to Time and Newsweek, we all are Socialists/crypto-communists now, anyway.
That helmet looks like an Imperial Japanese Army helmet from WWII, complete with Imperial Japanese camo netting…
I agree with your assessment. US camo netting had a tighter mesh, and the helmet doesn’t look like our steel pots. But I still maintain the graphic was done by a millennial or someone else with no knowledge of US military history.
Banzai!!!!!
I’m embarrassed to say that in my hometown during that era, all the “ heroes” were the hippies and draft dodgers…that made quite an impression on me growing up in the late sixties and early seventies…my scout troop was run by “role model” long haired lib college kids, few of whom gave a shit about promoting scout advancement and were more interested in camping and smoking dope. It really took Reagan in the early 80s to undo my mistrust of our military and to honor military service, and to also realize how much damage that Viet Nam era did to other formerly venerable and respected institutions..
Was your hometown San Francisco or Berkeley?
Just another Berkeley-influenced east-coast college town, complete with anti-war protests including attacks on ROTC…it was all so trendy and nothing has changed much since…but now it’s cool to hate war but “support” the troops, whatever that means
It means one wants to pretend to support the troops without admitting they really dislike the military, but that is not very popular anymore, like it was back in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. If you ask these a-holes who profess to “support the troops,” but “hate war” to explain why they didn’t enlist/sign up, they would have dozens of excuses why they couldn’t, didn’t or wouldn’t.
You Vietnam Vets are my heroes and role models. Live Long and Prosper…
Thanks, I am working on those goals every day. As the chief said in “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” I am “endeavoring to persevere.”
Thanks to all of you for the great comments.
RVN: 67-68
Sorry, but I still call it, Saigon.
BZ to ANZAC and US troops. And a special Fuck You to Jane Fonda and her commie hippie ilk.
RIP CPL Nate Reddick, Swiftwater, PA 1968;
RIP MAJ Edward Silver, TAC USAF, Tuscon, AZ 1968
Good people gone too soon
please help any others suffering from this time
CPL Scott F. Andresen.
He lasted two weeks in country.
Story here: http://www.tallcomanche.org/May_1969.htm
He is not forgotten.
Folks look at me and think I’m crazy when I said my tour there with the 1/101 and 3/82nd was the best thing that ever happened to me (except wives and kids). Doing what was trained to do in the company of outstanding troopers.
‘I was Only 19′ by Redgum
Mum and dad and Danny saw the passing out parade at Puckapunyal
It was a long march from cadets
The sixth battalion was the next to tour and it was me who drew the card
We did Canungra and Shoalwater before we left
And Townsville lined the footpaths as we marched down to the quay
This clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean
And there’s me in me slouch hat with me SLR and greens
God help me
I was only nineteen
From Vung Tau riding Chinooks to the dust at Nui Dat
I’d been in and out of choppers now for months
And we made our tents a home, V.B. and pinups on the lockers
And an Asian orange sunset through the scrub
And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can’t get to sleep?
And night time’s just a jungle dark and a barking M.16?
And what’s this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?
God help me
I was only nineteen
A four week operation, when each step can mean your last one on two legs
It was a war within yourself
But you wouldn’t let your mates down ’til they had you dusted off
So you closed your eyes and thought about somethin’ else
And then someone yelled out contact, and the bloke behind me swore
We hooked in there for hours, then a God almighty roar
And Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon
God help me
He was goin’ home in June