Johnson was the central figure when it comes to the US involvement in Vietnam. His vision was to stop the spread of communist aggression, and others shared this theory like Eisenhower, Kennedy and Truman. In the year 1964, the Northern Vietnamese apparently attacked two US destroyers. Thus, in the year 1965, the US began regularly bombing the Northern railroads, bridges and oil facilities as well as the HaiPhong harbor. With the Vietcong attack of an US base in Pleiku, the Americans were now fully involved and Operation Flaming dart came next. In April of the year 1965, Johnson was all set to Americanize this Vietnam War and sent more than 40 thousand troops to Vietnam. By mid June, Johnson was told to send in more troops in order to prevent South Vietnam’s collapse. Thus America had to plunge directly into the war, which was a better option at that time than facing defeat.
1) About 58,200 Americans were killed during the war and roughly 304,000 were wounded out of the 2.59 million who served the war.
2) The average age of the wounded and dead was 23.11 years.
3) After the war, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and The Philippines stayed free of communism.
4) During the war, the national debt was increased by $146 billion.
5) 90% of the Vietnam War veterans say they are glad they served in the war.
6) 74% say they would serve again.
7) 11,465 were less than the age of 20.
8) The number of Vietnamese killed was 500,000 and casualties were in the millions.
9) From the year 1957 to the year 1973, the National Liberation Front assassinated nearly 37,000 South Vietnamese and nearly 58,500 were abducted. Death squads mainly focused on leaders like minor officials and schoolteachers.
10) Nearly two-thirds of the men serving the war were volunteers.
I really liked the effort you put into this post, considering this is a full section/chapter in the book. The list of statistics is a neat strategy that I think i'll try again, as it lets us see the harsh numbers without the fluff around it. An excellent description of the beginning of the war.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you organized the post. It's easy to understand and you give a good idea of what had happened by listing the statistics.
ReplyDeleteI like how you broke down the information and made the statistics easy to understand. Who is Johnson though? You should include his first name as well for a better understanding of the topic.
ReplyDeleteYou did a very good job breaking down the information and summing it up
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