General Statistics about the Vietnam War
A special thanks to Mary Kimsey, JMU Department of Integrated Science and Technology, for her research assistance on Vietnam War statistics.
• Sixty-one (61) percent of the men who were killed in the Vietnam War were twenty-one (21) years of age or younger.
• The Vietnam War lasted sixteen (16) years (1959 to 1975).
• The state of West Virginia had the highest death rate, based on a per capita population, with eighty-one (81) percent. The national average was fifty-eight point nine (58.9) percent for every 100,000 males.
• Only twenty-five (25) percent of the total United States forces serving in Vietnam were draftees as compared to sixty-six (66) percent during World War II.
• Approximately 2,031 people were missing in action during the Vietnam War. Seven hundred sixty-six (766) were POWs and one hundred fourteen (114) died in captivity.
• The educational level of the draftees during the Vietnam War brakes down as seventy-nine (79) percent had high school or higher educations. Seventy-six (76) percent of these were from lower middle/working class families.
• The average age of the soldiers serving during the Vietnam War was nineteen (19). The average age of the soldiers serving during World War II was twenty-six (26).
• Approximately ninety-seven (97) percent of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.
• Approximately sixty-six (66) percent of Vietnam Veterans have said that they were proud of the time in service and what they did during the Vietnam War.
• Approximately eight-seven (87) percent of the general public now hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.
• Vietnam Veterans make up nine point seven (9.7) percent of their generation.
• 9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (5 August 1964 through 7 May 1975.
• 8,744,000 personnel were on active duty during the war (5 August 1964 through 28 March 1973).
• 3,403,100 (including and additional 514,000 offshore) served in the Southeast Asia Theater which include 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 (1 January 1965 to 28 March 1973).
• Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
• Of the 2.6 million personnel who served within the borders of South Vietnam, 40% to 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. 6,250 (approximately 83.5% were nurses).
• Peak troop strength in Vietnam was 543,482 (30 April 1969).
• There were 47,359 hostile deaths.
• There were 10,797 non-hostile deaths.
• Total of 58,156 (which includes men formerly classified as MIA and Mayaguez casualties). Twenty-seven (27) additional men have died of wounds sustained in the Vietnam War which brings the death total to 58,183.
• 8 nurses died in Vietnam - one was Killed In Action.
• 17,539 of the men killed in Vietnam were married.
• 303,704 personnel were wounded - 153,329 were hospitalized and 150,375 required no hospital care.
• 88.4% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Caucasian.
• 10.6% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were Black.
• 1% of the men who actually served in Vietnam were of other races.
• 86.3% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasian (includes Hispanics).
• 12.5% of the men who died in Vietnam were Black.
• 1.2% of the men who died in Vietnam were of other races.
• 170,000 Hispanics served in Vietnam. Of that total, 3,070 (5.2% of the total) died there.
• 34% of the Blacks who enlisted, volunteered for combat duty.
Source of the above information, Vietnam Veterans of America, Speakers Bureau Handbook provided by the PublicAffairsCommittee. Internet source for the above statistics: http://www.njscvva.org/vietnam_war_stats.htm
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8 nurses died -- 1 was killed in action. She was 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.
Source: http://25thaviation.org/id275.htm#women_who_died_in_vietnam
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• More than 200,000 South Vietnamese troops died • More than a million Vietnamese civilians died • There were more than 6.5 million displaced war refugees
Source: The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1998, World Almanac Books, 1997.
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Agent Orange: Approximately 20 million gallons of herbicides were used in Vietnam between 1962 and 1971 to remove unwanted plant life and leaves which otherwise provided cover for enemy forces during the Vietnam Conflict. Shortly following their military service in Vietnam, some veterans reported a variety of health problems and concerns which some of them attributed to exposure to Agent Orange or other herbicides.
Source: http://www.va.gov/agentorange/
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