SPIRITUAL WARRIOR
Issue 2 – May 2000
Editor: Bill McDonald
25 Years Ago
It is hard to believe but is has been 25 years since
the war in Vietnam officially ended. Those alive today who are in high school
and college were not even born yet. Their fathers or in some cases, their
mothers, may have served there. It is all in the history books now.
" No event in American history is more misunderstood
than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is miss-remembered now.
Rarely have so many people been so wrong about so much. Never have the
consequences of their misunderstanding been so tragic." (Quote from Richard
M. Nixon)
Now after so many Hollywood movies and books – we still
do not have a fair or complete picture of what happened there or who fought
there. A good example of this can be had by going to the ‘Statistics about the
Vietnam War" at www.vhfcn.org/stats.html
Some of what caught my attention are some of the following:
The old myth: Most Vietnam veterans were drafted. Actually,
of those serving in Vietnam were 2/3 volunteers – only about 1/3 were not
volunteers. The other old myth about the average age of the infantryman being 19
years old – does not hold up to the data on the 1993 data base from the (CACF)
Combat Area Casualty File, which is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
– i.e. The Wall. It shows the following:
Of all the men on the wall the average age was 23.11 years.
Of those killed, there were actually 5 men who were only 16 years old. The
oldest GI killed was 62 years old. There were 11,465 KIAs who were less than 20
years old. The breakdown for enlisted men killed was around 22 years old.
WWII VETS VS NAM VETS
So how do we Vietnam Vets stack up against our fathers and
the ‘good patriotic" War that they ran off to fight. Here are some
interesting facts:
In WWII the war was fought by , not volunteers as we have
been lead to believe, but over 2/3 draftees as compared to the combat in Nam
being fought by 2/3 volunteers.
In WWII the average infantryman in the South pacific saw
about 40 days of actual combat in 4 years. In Nam the average was 240 days of
combat in 12 months. (Thanks to the being mobile – helicopters)
In WWII and in Nam about 10% of those who served became a
casualty. Although the percent of killed is about the same the amputations, or
crippling wounds were 300 percent higher in Nam than WWII. (75,000 Vietnam Vets
are severely disabled)
HELICOPTER PILOT CASUALTIES
Although I do not have the numbers for enlisted men and
flight crews the following is from the official Department of defense data base
for helicopter pilots in Vietnam. They show some interesting numbers.
Army – 1,836 KIA 69 MIA total = 1905
Marines – 198 KIA 5 MIA total = 203
Air Force – 39 KIA 2 MIA total = 30
Coast Guard – 1 KIA 0 MIA total = 1
Air America – 1 KIA 0 MIA total = 1
Totals = 2105 KIA (US ARMY 90.49% of KIA)
76 MIA (US ARMY 90.79% of MIA)
HELICOPTER LOSSES – 1962 – 1973
US ARMY – Helicopters Hostile Loss = 2,246
Helicopters Operational Loss = 2,075
Total loss = 4,321
USAF – Helicopters Hostile Loss = 59
Operational Loss = 18
Total loss = 77
US NAVY – Helicopters Hostile Loss = 13
Helicopter Operational Loss = 35
Total = 48
US MARINES – Helicopters Hostile Loss = 270
Helicopters Operational Loss = 154
Total = 424
US Army suffered 86.79% of all Hostile Losses and 90.93% of
the Operational Losses.
FEATURED WEB SITE
Jim Benner has a great must see web site called PHU LOI FIRE BASE. For anyone
who served in that part of Vietnam it is well worth checking out at:
http://members.aol.com/hockey8976/benner.htm
Jim was a member of the 205th Assault Support Helicopter Company
(The Geronimos) at Phu Loi. Lots of photos of the base camp that many will be
able to identify with who served there.
VETERAN’S BENEFITS
READJUSTMENT COUNSELING is available through almost 200
community based vet centers that provide individual and group counseling and
limited family counseling to Vietnam, Panama, Grenada, and the Persian Gulf
veterans who cannot readjust to civilian life. The program began in response to
the unmet needs of Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD but is open to all those
veterans just mentioned. There appears to be no time limited to seek help.
FOOD FOR THE SPIRIT
"Prepare war,
stir up the mighty men.
Let all the men of war draw near,
Let them come up.
Beat your ploughshares into swords,
And your pruning hooks into spears;
Let the weak say, ‘I am a warrior’.
Joel 3.9-10
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