Can I get a Witness?

[J. Fees]

the bottom line is iraq is a fuck up as much as vietnam was. no one is holding soldiers responsible, like some would like to think, obviously we know that when someone signs up for the army he has to do as he told.

At some level, i hope that our gov't uses our tax money and american soldiers for justifiable wars that protect our borders. most people just don't think iraq is a war that fits those conditions. Look at the recent passing of R. McNamera, and his sentiments on vietnam.

[hepkatmama]

Originally Posted by J. Fees

he said 'when do you go back?' and you say he wants you dead. .

the thing is it doesn't matter if some dummy stranger on a message board wants you dead or wants you naked or whatever the fuk they want. everyone else that reads it will recognize the punk's level of suckiness.

when you are trained to sleep with one eye open & be on the defensive to stay alive, it isn't something u just switch off on the plane trip home.

it is kinda funny that some civilian on the internet is wishing death on someone he is mad at for being a killer. pot/kettle = black

[J. Fees]

seems a bit paranoid to me as well, i see your arg for ptsd.

[Nyteshade]

the bottom line is iraq is a fuck up as much as vietnam was.

No. It's nowhere near as bad as Vietnam was. I'll leave the two simplest examples:

MUCH, MUCH higher death toll.
The draft.

[J. Fees]

Originally Posted by Nyteshade

No. It's nowhere near as bad as Vietnam was. I'll leave the two simplest examples:

MUCH, MUCH higher death toll.
The draft.

in the concept of going to war, not death toll. both wars were misguided and misled. you are right on the death toll. some people think kennedy was killed over it.

[hepkatmama]

ooo mcnamera is a GREAT person for iraq vets to learn about. his 20/20 interview in the 90's where he broke down crying out of guilt because he had sent so many boys to die for a war he KNEW was ridiculous.

seeing that old man's guilt was breathtaking.

he said something about "we knew it was wrong, but we couldn't admit it publicly for years"

i disagree about the death toll in iraq nyteshade. since the beginning i have tried to explain the massaging of numbers by the govt. e.g. they are frequently counting death & injuries in vehicles damaged by iud explosions as car accidents.

& those vets get zero benefits cause they were in a transport vehicle when something outside it exploded. soooooo wrong.

cutting corners, trying to pre-emptively avoid blame. that's ok. they will become pathetic old men one day too.

[J. Fees]

how much evil must we do, to do good?

The Fog of War (trailer)

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[hepkatmama]

i am curious about the number who served now compared to then. did having a draft mean the US force was larger in Vietnam (or just less willing)? i'd like to see the numbers if someone can point me to it.

[Nyteshade]

i disagree about the death toll in iraq nyteshade. since the beginning i have tried to explain the massaging of numbers by the govt. e.g. they are frequently counting death & injuries in vehicles damaged by iud explosions as car accidents.

The numbers I look at are generally a total count, not just death by combat action. Far more people died in one year in Vietnam than in the total 6 years we've been in Iraq.
This goes for both military and civilian casualties since things like smart bombs were still being developed so there were much more strays and our forces weren't anywhere near as discriminate about shooting civilians back then.

[PETA]

Originally Posted by hepkatmama

the thing is it doesn't matter if some dummy stranger on a message board wants you dead or wants you naked or whatever the fuk they want. everyone else that reads it will recognize the punk's level of suckiness.

when you are trained to sleep with one eye open & be on the defensive to stay alive, it isn't something u just switch off on the plane trip home.

it is kinda funny that some civilian on the internet is wishing death on someone he is mad at for being a killer. pot/kettle = black

tricky was spewing his venom because they had a political disagreement not because he thought farangba was nasty for joining the military and killing people... tricky is unable to hold in his mind the notion that reasonable people can disagree... disagreement is cause for him to hate the other

[J. Fees]

Originally Posted by Nyteshade

The numbers I look at are generally a total count, not just death by combat action. Far more people died in one year in Vietnam than in the total 6 years we've been in Iraq.
This goes for both military and civilian casualties since things like smart bombs were still being developed so there were much more strays and our forces weren't anywhere near as discriminate about shooting civilians back then.

the massive bombing campaigns in vietnam as well. either way, no iraqi citizens should have been killed or u.s. soldiers, we went for saddam, and turned a stable country into kaos.

i can totally agree with taking out the taliban in afghanistan, but damn we trained them, and really they were a bigger problem for Iran than us(directly and geographically).

[Nyteshade]

Originally Posted by hepkatmama

i am curious about the number who served now compared to then. did having a draft mean the US force was larger in Vietnam (or just less willing)? i'd like to see the numbers if someone can point me to it.

Only numbers I can find from a quick search was from History Central which peaked at 550,000. The most I remember at one time in Iraq was around 300k but I would have to look it up.

[Nyteshade]

Originally Posted by J. Fees

the massive bombing campaigns in vietnam as well. either way, no iraqi citizens should have been killed or u.s. soldiers, we went for saddam, and turned a stable country into kaos.

chaos.

When they make it a point to hide among civilians, it's unavoidable that some are going to be killed. It sucks but there's nothing you can feasibly do to avoid it.

[J. Fees]

dj kaos!

[PETA]

http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm

Vietnam War Statistics

Personnel

9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (5 August 1965-7 May 1975)

8,744,000 personnel were on active duty during the war (5 August 1964-28
March 1973)

3,403,100 (including 514,300 offshore) personnel served in the SE 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
( I January 1965 - 28 March 1973)

Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964

Of the 2.6 million, between 1 and 1.6 million (40-60%) either fought in
combat, provided close combat support or were at least fairly regularly
exposed to enemy attack.

7,484 women served in Vietnam, of whom 6,250 or 83.5% were nurses.

Peak troop strength in Vietnam was 543,482, on 30 April 1969.

Casualties:

Hostile deaths: 47,359

Non-hostile deaths: 10,797

Total: 58,156 (including men formerly classified as MIA and Mayaguez casualties).

Highest state death rate: West Virginia--84.1. (The national average death rate for males in 1970 was 58.9 per 100,000).

WIA: 303,704 - 153,329 required hospitalization, 50,375 who did not.

Severely disabled: 75,000, 23,214 were classified 100% disabled. 5,283 lost
limbs, 1,081 sustained multiple amputations. Amputation or crippling wounds to the lower extremities were 300% higher than in WWII and 70% higher than in Korea. Multiple amputations occurred at the rate of 18.4% compared to 5.7% in WWII.

MIA: 2,338

POW: 766, of whom 114 died in captivity.

Draftees vs. volunteers: 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 KIA: 5,977

National Guard: 6,140 served; 101 died.

Ethnic background:

88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian, 10.6%
(275,000) were black, 1.0% belonged to other races

86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (including Hispanics)
12.5% (7,241) were black.
1.2% belonged to other races

170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam; 3,070 (5.2%) of whom died there.

86.8% of the men who were KIA were Caucasian
12.1% (5,711) were black; 1.1% belonged to other races.
14.6% (1,530) of non-combat deaths were black
34% of blacks who enlisted volunteered for the combat arms.

Overall, blacks suffered 12.5% of the deaths in Vietnam when the percentage
of blacks of military age was 13.5% of the population.

Socioeconomic status:

76% of the men sent to Vietnam were from lower middle/working
class backgrounds
75% had family incomes above the poverty level
23% had fathers with professional, managerial, or technical occupations.
79% of the men who served in 'Nam had a high school education or better.
63% of Korean vets had completed high school upon separation from the service)

Winning & Losing:

82% of veterans who saw heavy combat strongly believe the war was lost because of a lack of political will. Nearly 75% of the general public (in 1993) agrees with that.

Age & Honorable Service:

The average age of the G.I. in 'Nam was 19 (26 for WWII) 97% of Vietnam era vets were honorably discharged.

Pride in Service:

91% of veterans of actual combat and 90% of those who saw heavy combat are proud to have served their country. 66% of Viet vets say they would serve again, if called upon. 87% of the public now holds Viet vets in high esteem.

Helicopter crew deaths accounted for 10% of ALL Vietnam deaths. Helicopter losses during Lam Son 719 (a mere two months) accounted for 10% of all helicopter losses from 1961-1975.

Women Who Died In Vietnam:

U.S. Army

* 2nd Lt. Carol Ann Elizabeth Drazba
* 2nd Lt. Elizabeth Ann Jones

Lt. Drazba and Lt. Jones were assigned to the 3rd Field Hospital in Saigon. They died in a helicopter crash near Saigon, February 18, 1966. Drazba was from Dunmore, PA, Jones from Allendale, SC. Both were 22 years old.

* Capt. Eleanor Grace Alexander
* 1st Lt. Hedwig Diane Orlowski

Capt. Alexander of Westwood, NJ, and Lt. Orlowski of Detroit, MI, died November 30, 1967. Alexander, stationed at the 85th Evac., and Orlowski, stationed at the 67th Evac. in Qui Nhon, had been sent to a hospital in Pleiku to help out during a push. With them when their plane crashed on the return trip to Qui Nhon were two other nurses, Jerome E. Olmstead of Clintonville, WI, and Kenneth R. Shoemaker, Jr. of Owensboro, KY. Alexander was 27, Orlowski 23. Both were posthumously awarded Bronze Stars.

* 2nd Lt. Pamela Dorothy Donovan

Lt. Donovan, from Allston, MA, became seriously ill and died on July 8, 1968. She was assigned to the 85th Evac. in Qui Nhon. She was 26 years old.

* 1st Lt. Sharon Ann Lane

Lt. Lane died from shrapnel wounds when the 312th Evac. at Chu Lai was hit by rockets on June 8, 1969. From Canton, OH, she was a month short of her 26th birthday. She was posthumously awarded the Vietnamese Gallantry Cross with Palm and the Bronze Star for Heroism. In 1970, the recovery room at Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, where Lt. Lane had been assigned before going to Viet Nam, was dedicated in her honor. In 1973, Aultman Hospital in Canton, OH, where Lane had attended nursing school, erected a bronze statue of Lane. The names of 110 local servicemen killed in Vietnam are on the base of the statue.

* Lt. Col. Annie Ruth Graham, Chief Nurse at 91st Evac. Hospital, Tuy Hoa

Lt. Col. Graham, from Efland, NC, suffered a stroke in August 14, 1968 and was evacuated to Japan where she died four days later. A veteran of both World War II and Korea, she was 52.

U.S. Air Force

* Capt. Mary Therese Klinker

Capt. Klinker, a flight nurse assigned to Clark Air Base in the Philippines, was on the C-5A Galaxy which crashed on April 4 outside Saigon while evacuating Vietnamese orphans. This is known as the Operation Babylift crash. From Lafayette, IN, she was 27. She was posthumously awarded the Airman's Medal for Heroism and the Meritorious Service Medal.