The Dimensions of a Tragedy

 I can't remember where I dug this up, gentle reader, but it is illuminating.

Statistics can't effectively describe the full dimensions of a disaster, but they can attempt to measure it. Max Hastings described the war in Vietnam as "an epic tragedy", and when you read this collection of information, you can understand why he used those words.

Hastings, a writer who has authored many books about the conflicts of the last century, has well and truly hit the nail on the head.

Perhaps the most horrifying number on the list is the first one - the list of overall casualties. It doesn't specify that this is a figure which includes both military and civilian, but this is an assumption. I'd be happily corrected if a better source is available.

There is a line listing an estimate of 587,000 South Vietnamese killed. This seems a little dodgy. In the first place, what is the definition of a "South Vietnamese"? There was a lot of movement in both directions throughout the conflict, and many born in the north moved south either to fight or flee, and the opposite phenomenon also applied.

Are we to assume that if the number of the total of "South" Vietnamese killed together with the number of South Vietnamese Military personnel killed is subtracted from the list of overall casualties, that the figure of 4,965,833 derived is the number of "North" Vietnamese killed? If anyone has a better source, please let me know.

Paul Ham has published his own set of figures.*

To an ex-Nasho like me, the figures about national Servicemen are interesting. Note that 804,000 20-year-olds registered, but only 18,000 actually served in Vietnam. Of these 18,000 it is reasonable to assume that many of them were POGOs (Personnel on Garrison Operations), so it is clear that the actual number of individuals who shared my experience of extended periods outside the wire patrolling and ambushing is very small.

Forgetting about the details of postings, the proportion of Nashos who went to Vietnam of those who were conscripted is actually 28%. Of those who registered, but either weren't balloted, or weren't posted to units that served in Vietnam, it drops to 2.2%.

Those figures provide a telling insight into the level of political cynicism that drove the National Service Act. If you're in government, you can probably afford to lose the support of 2.2% of the population and survive politically, and this worked until about 1970, when the public mood began to change. It's also important to remember that for quite a long period into the Australian commitment of conscripts, that these same conscripts were too young to vote and have a say into their immediate future.

Other figures of note include those relating to exposure to combat, in comparison to the experience of those who served in World War 2. The average infantry soldier in Vietnam had 314 days in combat (as defined by being outside the wire, I assume), compared with 40 days in WW2. That is 12% of what was the norm in Vietnam.

No wonder many Vietnam vets, when told they hadn't experienced a "real war" by veterans of earlier conflicts became more than a little upset. This happened to me in 1975. I was more fortunate that many in that 2.2% because I was posted as a POGO in June of my tour, but I still had around 100 days as a rifleman outside the wire.

The extremely efficient Dustoff process gets a mention, as it should. It saved many lives. Mind you, it was excellent when it was implemented, but I was present when for reasons lost in the mists of time it wasn't, and a fellow digger died as a consequence.

When you consider the amount of ordnance expended (10,000 artillery rounds daily - and the total tonnage of bombs dropped of 6,727,084) and the chemicals sprayed (19,000,000 gallons of defoliants) you begin to appreciate another dimension of the tragedy.

As an American veteran of the war said to me in July 2018 when I chatted with him at the wall in Washington - "What a f***ing waste". 

The wall lists the names of the 57,000 American military personnel who died.

Paul Ham's numbers -

“The personal cost of the war, in terms of personal grief and moral degradation, is immeasurable. In our helplessness, we surrender to statistics. 520 Australian soldiers dead and 3000 wounded. 58193 Americans dead and about 300000 wounded. 220356 South Vietnamese troops dead or missing in action, and 1.17 million wounded. 660000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops dead, with the possibility that a third were civilians mistaken for enemy troops or deemed legitimate targets

* Paul Ham, Vietnam, the Australian War, Harper Collins, 2007, p 663