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==Cost of the War==

==Cost of the War==

The war exacted a huge human cost, including an estimated one to two million North and South Vietnamese,<ref>http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm</ref> 100,000 to 300,000 Cambodians<ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/deaths.htm</ref><ref>http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/demcat.htm The high is supported by UN figures. The Khmer Rouge reduced the expected 1979 population from 8.4 to 6.2 million; the UN estimated an expected 1979 population of 8.7 million in the absence of the war.  Cambodia's actual population in 1975 was roughly 8.2 million</ref> and 30-50,000 Laotians.<ref>http://www.vietnamgear.com/casualties.aspx</ref>  The most comprehensive and detailed demographic survey ever conducted on casualties during the war, from ''Population and Development Review'', estimated that nearly one million Vietnamese were killed throughout the two decades of conflict.<ref>Charles Hirschman et al., [http://www.soc.washington.edu/users/brines/vietcasualties.pdf "Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate,"] Population and Development Review, December 1995</ref> R.J. Rummel originally put the total at 1.2 million Indochinese killed on all sides.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM</ref>  Rummel later revised the estimate to over 2 million in all of Indochina, including 1.7 million in North and South Vietnam.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.TAB11.1.GIF</ref>  

195,000-430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref name="Lewy">Lewy, Guenter (1978). ''America in Vietnam''. New York: Oxford University Press. Appendix 1, pp.450-453</ref><ref>Thayer, Thomas C (1985). ''War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam''. Boulder: Westview Press. Ch. 12. </ref> 50,000-65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref>Wiesner, Louis A. (1988). ''Victims and Survivors Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam''. New York: Greenwood Press. p.310</ref><ref name="Lewy"/>  The Army of the Republic of Vietnam lost between 171,331 and 220,357 men during the war.<ref>Thayer, Thomas C (1985). ''War Without Fronts: The American Experience in Vietnam''. Boulder: Westview Press. p.106.</ref><ref name="Lewy"/> The official US Department of Defense figure was 950,765 communist forces killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. In addition, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of communist military forces was probably closer to 444,000.<ref name="Lewy"/> During the peak war years, almost a third of civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities.<ref>Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 1978), pp272-3, 448-9.</ref> Between 200,000 and 300,000 Cambodians died in the war,<ref>Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995)</ref><ref>Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia." In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.</ref><ref>Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993). "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia." In Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.</ref> as well as 20,000 Laotians.<ref>Small, Melvin & Joel David Singer, ''Resort to Arms: International and Civil Wars 1816–1980''.</ref>

 

US intelligence and available demographic evidence suggest that Hanoi's official figure<ref>Associated Press, April 3, 1995, "Vietnam Says 1.1 Million Died Fighting For North"</ref> of 3 million Vietnamese dead in the war was an exaggeration. Its figures for both military and civilian deaths are about double the accepted numbers, and they further claim that 1 million soldiers died and 600,000 were wounded--even though wounded is typically three times the number of dead.<ref>http://web.archive.org/web/20071222122211/http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1995/vp950404/04040331.htm</ref> No other independent sources arrive at such a high number. 

During the peak war years, almost a third of civilian deaths were the result of Viet Cong atrocities.<ref>Guenter Lewy, America in Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 1978), pp272-3, 448-9.</ref>

 

Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref>http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF</ref>

 

Demographic analysis indicates that the commonly cited figure of 600,000 dead in the Cambodian civil war may have been invented by Pol Pot himself and is more than the twice the real number of war-related deaths.<ref>Marek Sliwinski, Le Génocide Khmer Rouge: Une Analyse Démographique (L’Harmattan, 1995)</ref><ref>Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality in Cambodia." In Forced Migration and Mortality, eds. Holly E. Reed and Charles B. Keely. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.</ref><ref>Banister, Judith, and Paige Johnson (1993). "After the Nightmare: The Population of Cambodia." In Genocide and Democracy in Cambodia: The Khmer Rouge, the United Nations and the International Community, ed. Ben Kiernan. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.</ref>

Over the course of the war, the United States suffered 46,226 battle deaths with 153,311 wounded 5,486 missing and 10,326 non-battle deaths.  3.3 million troops fought over the course of the war, with the largest number of 625,866 reached on March 27th, 1969.  As of 2010, more veterans of the war have died from suicide than killed on the battlefield. <ref>[http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue/2010/11/on-veterans-day-some-grim-stat.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+beyondblue1+(Beliefnet:+Beyond+Blue) On Veteran's Day: Some Grim Statistic, Beliefnet, November 11, 2010]</ref> This shows a largely unaddressable or poorly administered health issues persist and the U.S. Government has failed in its obligation to care for traumatized Vietnam veterans. The North Vietnamese claimed to have lost 1 million men.<Ref>Encyclopedia of Military History, Dupuy & Dupuy, 1979, Chart Page 1221</Ref> Such a casualty rate, if applied to the United States, would have meant 13 million Americans killed and 3.9 million missing in action.<ref>Who Lost Vietnam?, by Joseph L. Galloway,  a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report</ref>

Over the course of the war, the United States suffered 46,226 battle deaths with 153,311 wounded 5,486 missing and 10,326 non-battle deaths.  3.3 million troops fought over the course of the war, with the largest number of 625,866 reached on March 27th, 1969.  As of 2010, more veterans of the war have died from suicide than killed on the battlefield. <ref>[http://blog.beliefnet.com/beyondblue/2010/11/on-veterans-day-some-grim-stat.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+beyondblue1+(Beliefnet:+Beyond+Blue) On Veteran's Day: Some Grim Statistic, Beliefnet, November 11, 2010]</ref> This shows a largely unaddressable or poorly administered health issues persist and the U.S. Government has failed in its obligation to care for traumatized Vietnam veterans. The North Vietnamese claimed to have lost 1 million men.<Ref>Encyclopedia of Military History, Dupuy & Dupuy, 1979, Chart Page 1221</Ref> Such a casualty rate, if applied to the United States, would have meant 13 million Americans killed and 3.9 million missing in action.<ref>Who Lost Vietnam?, by Joseph L. Galloway,  a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report</ref>

'''And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong. <small>---[[President Ronald Reagan]], 1986</small>'''}}

'''And we owe them something, those boys. We owe them first a promise: That just as they did not forget their missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. And there are other promises. We must always remember that peace is a fragile thing that needs constant vigilance. We owe them a promise to look at the world with a steady gaze and, perhaps, a resigned toughness, knowing that we have adversaries in the world and challenges and the only way to meet them and maintain the peace is by staying strong. <small>---[[President Ronald Reagan]], 1986</small>'''}}

The death toll from US defeat far surpassed that exacted by the war itself.

 

The death toll from US defeat surpassed that exacted by the war itself.

==Controversies about the War==

==Controversies about the War==