1 went to vietnam 2 killed the viet cong

Jim Liles is a retired law enforcement officer who worked for the Covington Police Department in Kentucky for 27 years and spent four years running a four-county Drug Strike Force. According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies. The wide disparity among the estimates cited below is partially explained by the different time periods of the Vietnam War covered by the studies and whether casualties in Cambodia and Laos were included in the estimates. The small village of My Lai is located in Quang Ngai province, which was believed to be a stronghold of the communist National Liberation Front (NLF) or Viet Cong (VC) during the Vietnam War. Now injured several times over, Davis saw two American comrades seriously hurt, but across enemy lanes of fire. 2023 A&E Television Networks, LLC. [73][74], Historian Christian Appy states "search and destroy was the principal tactic; and the enemy body count was the primary measure of progress" in the US strategy of attrition. It was just like any other Vietnamese villageold papa-sans [men], women and kids. [1] According to the South Vietnamese military, Lm's squad had just killed 34 people associated with the police, at least 24 of whom were civilians, when he was captured on February 1st. [58] According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. [19] Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants killed by PAVN/VC. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Vietnam War vary widely. H. Among the victims were 182 women17 of them pregnantand 173 children, including 56 infants. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. [29] American bombing in Cambodia is estimated to have killed between 30,000 and 150,000 civilians and combatants. According to Powells report, although there may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs, this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the division.. The Australian SASR first came in contact with the enemy in May, 1966, when they met a Viet Cong force in the area around Nui Dat. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. The My Lai trial began on November 17, 1970. When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed. [36][37][38][39] The My Lai Massacre was initially written off as an operational success and covered up. In the Battle of Long Tan, 18 Australians were killed and 24 wounded, all but one of the dead were from D Company. [1] Background [ edit] All Rights Reserved. Davis has speculated his race could have played a factor. Transcript of 1994 Tulane University My Lai Conference. (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images). On the morning of March 16, 1968, U.S. Army soldiers entered a Vietnamese hamlet named My Lai 4 on a search-and-destroy mission in a region controlled by Viet Cong forces that the Army referred to as Pinkville. The soldiers didnt encounter any enemy troops. Two, killed the Vietcong Another potential limitation is the relatively small sample size of the study. [6], A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 19552002. The highly skilled, highly trained and highly secret 92-man contigent of the 3rd Radio Research Unit arrived at Tan Son Nhut on May 13, 1961. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. The Colonel's speech went something like this. But I'm not leaving,'" Davis told ABC News. [citation needed] Black people often made up a disproportionate 25% or more of combat units, while constituting only 12% of the military. They fought them of by 'sxty-eight, And then they had to fight the NVA. How Colin Powell's Service in Vietnam Shaped His Leadership, How the Armys Cover-Up Made the My Lai Massacre Even Worse. [101], Agent Orange and similar chemical defoliants have also caused a considerable number of deaths and injuries over the years, including among the US Air Force crew that handled them. In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. [5], In 1995, the Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 195575. These numbers do not include civilian and ARVN military deaths result from the communist mass-internment, the refugee crisis and subsequent exodus of Vietnamese people after the Fall of Saigon. In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. They pick up the voice of saying 'We aren't gonna let this rest, we are going to keep after it until we get it done.' . The question of who won the Vietnam War has been a subject of debate, and the answer depends on the definition of victory. Everywhere wed look, wed see bodies. Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Los Angeles Times. Then a 26-year-old captain, Paris Davis, now 83, led a company tearing through a larger enemy force, pushing the attack despite being shot, absorbing shrapnel and another bullet to get wounded comrades to safety, refusing to join them on the evacuation helicopter, choosing rather to stay and continue destroying the remaining adversaries. One of my PTSD guys told of being recruited in the brig in Germany by a Colonel around 1965. E6 while there. In the summer, Davis led three other Green Berets and what the Army calls "an inexperienced company of the 883rd South Vietnamese Regional Force" on an audacious raid against a North Vietnamese base. He then consolidated his men to pull back and, while calling for artillery and aircraft attacks against the defenders, was hit by automatic weapons fire. III Album, Run to Cadence with the U.S. Marines, Vol. Among the U.S. Armys internal investigators of the My Lai massacre was Major Colin Powell, who later became Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. It is estimated that 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by the People's Army of Vietnam /Viet Cong. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. In October we were moved to the jungles of the Central Highlands. Rummel does not give a medium or high estimate. I went through jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., and was sent to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 19671972. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc had ripped off her burning . An estimate by the Department of Defense after the war gave a figure of 1.2 million civilian casualties, including 195,000 deaths. The United States entered Vietnam with the principal purpose of preventing a communist takeover of the region. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies, and advisers into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction, and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South. On 24 October 1966, 1st Lt. John F. Cochrane of the 409th Radio Research Detachment (RRD), 303d Radio Research Battalion, was killed by a Viet Cong sniper while looking for a suitable site to set . Quang Ngai province was therefore a frequent target of U.S. and South Vietnamese bombing attacks, and the entire region was heavily strafed with Agent Orange, the deadly herbicide. Posted on May 7, 2013. The United States additionally detected that a countrywide political decision could spell triumph for Ho Chi Minh and upheld dropping races. The terms of this expansion included yet more funding and arms, but a key alteration was the commitment of U.S. soldiers to the region. The enemy by my count suffered at least 15,000 dead in the area.". A notorious military operation called Speedy Express killed thousands of Vietnamese civilians in the Mekong Delta, earning the commander of the operation, Major General Julian Ewell, the nickname. In Qung Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. Webb kept going . Was the leader of the Vietnamese independence movement and the Vietnam troops he wanted the French out of Vietnam. [15][16][17] Walter Mead estimates that approximately 365,000 Vietnamese civilians to have died as a result of the war during the period of American involvement. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. [20] About 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. In late 1967, when Mathews . Oh Yeah (oh yeah), U.S. Marine Corps Lyrics provided by SongLyrics.com. Webb and another soldier moved on to a second bunker; this time, a grenade sprayed him with shrapnel, but he detonated a claymore at the bunker's entrance, killing two Viet Cong. [11][12][13][14] It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel in many instances as many individuals were part-time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms. The assailants used. Two other cleanup sites being reviewed by the United States and Vietnam are Bin Ha Air Base, in the southern province of ng Naia 'hotspot' for dioxinand Ph Ct Air Base in Bnh nh Province, according to U.S. [11][23]:106 R.J. Rummel estimated that ARVN suffered between 219,000 and 313,000 deaths during the war, including in 1975 and prior to 1960. I qualified with the M40 106mm jeep-mounted recoilless rifle, the M67 90mm recoilless rifle, and the 3.5-inch Bazooka rocket launcher. RetMilRob 5 mo. Casualties fluctuated considerably from year to year, but a degree of accuracy can be inferred from the fact that 500,000 was 59 percent of the 849,018 total and that 59 percent of the war's days had passed by the time of Fallaci's conversation with Giap. The Vietnam War (1955-1975) effectively became a proxy Cold War battle over communism, with North Vietnam supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies, and the South supported by America and anti-communist allies.. Civilian deaths caused by both sides amounted to a significant percentage of total deaths. Was My Lai just one of many massacres in Vietnam War? On 24 October 1966, 1st Lt. John F. Cochrane of the 409th Radio Research Detachment (RRD), 303d Radio Research Battalion, was killed by a Viet Cong sniper while looking for a suitable site to set . For the next 77 days, U.S. read more, The Orangeburg Massacre occurred on the night of February 8, 1968, when a civil rights protest at South Carolina State University (SC State) turned deadly after highway patrolmen opened fire on about 200 unarmed black student protestors.