The Everything You Know is Wrong Department - Continued
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. - George Santayana
I have seen many, many comparisons of the current war in Iraq to Viet Nam made by people. So without further ado, a few myths about the Viet Nam conflict:
Viet Nam was Nixon’s and the Republican’s war. Let’s see what the Wall has to say about that, shall we? This is the definitive tabulation of war death stats as near as I can determine. Just glancing through it, it clearly shows that deaths peaked in 1968 then tapered down. Since Nixon did not take office until January, 1969 there’s a bit of a problem with stating it was Nixon’s war. This is not to say the war did not continue under Nixon. I merely point out that the heaviest fighting occurred when Lyndon Johnson was the President. In fact, it was a Democrat (Johnson) who escalated the war in the first place.
The casualties were disproportionately minorities. Once again, from the Wall, this is not a true statement. I calculate that close to 85% of the casualties were white, all other groups combined total just over 15%. I’m not sure what the Statistical Handbook of the US said for that time period, but I would be willing to bet that minorities made up more than 15% of the US population during that era.
Most of the dead were draftees. Again, the Wall disproves this statement. Actually only about 30% of the dead were draftees. This is actually not a surprise if you understand that the draft was designed to encourage young men to enlist. By enlisting, you could theoretically get better training and a chance at a better posting. One thing that did surprise me is that the wall shows close to 700 Marine Corps dead were draftees. I always thought they were an all volunteer branch of the service.
I’ll add more as I find them.
I have seen many, many comparisons of the current war in Iraq to Viet Nam made by people. So without further ado, a few myths about the Viet Nam conflict:
Viet Nam was Nixon’s and the Republican’s war. Let’s see what the Wall has to say about that, shall we? This is the definitive tabulation of war death stats as near as I can determine. Just glancing through it, it clearly shows that deaths peaked in 1968 then tapered down. Since Nixon did not take office until January, 1969 there’s a bit of a problem with stating it was Nixon’s war. This is not to say the war did not continue under Nixon. I merely point out that the heaviest fighting occurred when Lyndon Johnson was the President. In fact, it was a Democrat (Johnson) who escalated the war in the first place.
The casualties were disproportionately minorities. Once again, from the Wall, this is not a true statement. I calculate that close to 85% of the casualties were white, all other groups combined total just over 15%. I’m not sure what the Statistical Handbook of the US said for that time period, but I would be willing to bet that minorities made up more than 15% of the US population during that era.
Most of the dead were draftees. Again, the Wall disproves this statement. Actually only about 30% of the dead were draftees. This is actually not a surprise if you understand that the draft was designed to encourage young men to enlist. By enlisting, you could theoretically get better training and a chance at a better posting. One thing that did surprise me is that the wall shows close to 700 Marine Corps dead were draftees. I always thought they were an all volunteer branch of the service.
I’ll add more as I find them.
posted by Gaius Arbo | 11:59 AM
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