Vietnam War: Facts, Stats & Myths

Comments

Vernon - June 30, 2020

I appreciate your comments now but when I came back from Vietnam I didn’t want to join nothing or even talk to anybody I just was isolated but thank you brother and God bless you made it home to

Murray M. Hermanson - June 30, 2020

Kapena, It hasn’t change that much, we did the same thing in Vietnam on operation Hickory. 2/26 tried to cross the fire break as we called it. One day in May and couldn’t, I had been with F 2/26 a few weeks before but now was with H 2/9. We arrived at the south side where F 2/26 was, I saw some of the guys I had been with, they ask me where we were going I said tomorrow morning we are crossing to the north side, they smiled and said we tried that yesterday, good luck. Next day came we got on line and started across. Just before we got to the other side we laid down a base of fire, as we got into the tree line all hell broke loose. We were across. I remember smokes going off, and thought they can’t bring a Med chopper in here. Then I realized some guys that had smokes on them were hit. We moved up and dug in on the north side. The NVA had their artillery and we had ours, but we had Jets too. It’s all the same the dates and names change, it’s WAR. Murray 1371

‘Stoney’ Brook - June 30, 2020

The Vietnam Memorial uses 1 Nov 1955 to 15 May 1975

Harry 1371 - June 30, 2020

To receive the “Vietnam Era Pin” you would have had to serve between 1955 and 75 , even if you were not in country at the time. Harry

Harry 1371 - June 30, 2020

I think the official date for Vietnam era could be debated ,(1955 to 1975, 1959 to 1975, 1961 to 1975, 1964 to 1975) could probably go back even further. Harry

Kapena - June 30, 2020

Strange how the art of war is fought. I was just watching a civil war movie and both sides were in formation facing off at some distance and each side would artillery each other and one side would commence marching across an open field! Suffering massive casualties! Peace to all you warriors. Semper Fi.

Nick 0311 - June 30, 2020

I was raised in a small town just west of Nashville and remember going to the Legion with my Dad when I was a youngster. The stories I heard there were incredible and interesting. When I got back from Vietnam I could not wait to become a member and tell some of my own stories. It was not to be, I was shunned by the most of them. Not sure if i was even able to join at that point. Those guys are all gone now but If i could talk to them now I would tell them how much that affected me over the years. A year later i left that town and tried to move on only to find that that attitude was most everywhere. In todays world it is a different. Years later iwas finally able to tell my stories but in a different venue, “The VA”.

Bill 0331 - June 30, 2020

The one myth about the war that always ticked me off was that the combat in vietnam was not as intense as Korea or WW-2 . I was told often, early on, by some WW-2 and Korean vets “You guys have no idea what real combat is” Fact is that the average combat time for WW-2 vets was 40 days, in the south Pacific, not sure about Korea, the average combat time in vietnam was 240 days, thanks to “Choppers”. Does that make it more intense? Was not in WW-2 or Korea so i can’t say. Bill 0331 P.S. not even sure the exact amount I had in the field. seemed like a long time to me.