Casualties and Injuries as a Result of the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was one of the bloodiest and most traumatic wars in the history of the world. The deaths and injuries inflicted by it are a monument to the horrors of war, and what simple disagreements can do to tear apart the world.
John McCain's Injury story
He spent 5½ years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam receiving minimal care and wretched conditions. He was the son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific. On October 26th 1967 McCain was flying over Hanoi to bomb it when a Russian missile hit his plane. In a personal account he describes the events, “I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection—the air speed was about 500 knots. I didn't realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right arm in three places, and my left arm. I regained consciousness just before I landed by parachute in a lake right in the corner of Hanoi, one they called the Western Lake. My helmet and my oxygen mask had been blown off. I hit the water and sank to the bottom. Some North Vietnamese swam out and pulled me to the side of the lake and immediately started stripping me, which is their standard procedure. Of course, this being in the center of town, a huge crowd of people gathered, and they were all hollering and screaming and cursing and spitting and kicking at me. They took me to a room which was not particularly small—about 15 by 15 feet—but it was filthy dirty and at a lower level, so that every time it rained, there'd be about a half inch to an inch of water on the floor.”
The full account is on http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account
Basically he says the Vietnamese find out who his father is and they say he has to sign a paper that bashes on America and then they will release him. He refuses to sign the paper and finally after 5 and a half years he gets rescued but the point of this story is that he went through hell and back just to stay loyal to America. John McCain is one of Americas most loyal and will always be remembered for what he did.
The newspaper article below is from a woman named Nam Borg who was a U.S. nurse. She gives a personal account of how the war was and how understaffed the first aid response team was.
John McCain's Injury story
He spent 5½ years in captivity as a POW in North Vietnam receiving minimal care and wretched conditions. He was the son of the admiral who commanded the war in the Pacific. On October 26th 1967 McCain was flying over Hanoi to bomb it when a Russian missile hit his plane. In a personal account he describes the events, “I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection—the air speed was about 500 knots. I didn't realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right arm in three places, and my left arm. I regained consciousness just before I landed by parachute in a lake right in the corner of Hanoi, one they called the Western Lake. My helmet and my oxygen mask had been blown off. I hit the water and sank to the bottom. Some North Vietnamese swam out and pulled me to the side of the lake and immediately started stripping me, which is their standard procedure. Of course, this being in the center of town, a huge crowd of people gathered, and they were all hollering and screaming and cursing and spitting and kicking at me. They took me to a room which was not particularly small—about 15 by 15 feet—but it was filthy dirty and at a lower level, so that every time it rained, there'd be about a half inch to an inch of water on the floor.”
The full account is on http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account
Basically he says the Vietnamese find out who his father is and they say he has to sign a paper that bashes on America and then they will release him. He refuses to sign the paper and finally after 5 and a half years he gets rescued but the point of this story is that he went through hell and back just to stay loyal to America. John McCain is one of Americas most loyal and will always be remembered for what he did.
The newspaper article below is from a woman named Nam Borg who was a U.S. nurse. She gives a personal account of how the war was and how understaffed the first aid response team was.
Major Casualties by Nationality:
Vietnamese civilian dead: 245,000–2,000,000 Cambodian Civil War dead: 200,000–300,000 Laotian Civil War dead: 20,000–200,000 Total civilian dead: 465,000–2,500,000 Total dead: 1,102,000–3,886,000 South Vietnam 195,000–430,000 civilian dead 171,331–220,357 military dead 1,170,000 wounded United States 58,220 dead; 303,644 wounded South Korea 5,099 dead; 10,962 wounded; 4 missing Australia 500 dead; 3,129 wounded |
New Zealand
37 dead; 187 wounded Thailand 351 dead;1,358 wounded Total dead: 430,538–714,564 Total wounded: ~1,490,000+ North Vietnam & Viet Cong 50,000-65,000 civilian dead 400,000–1,100,000 military dead or missing 600,000+ wounded China 1,446 dead; 4,200 wounded Soviet Union 16 dead Total dead: 451,462–1,166,462 Total wounded: ~604,200 Over all roughly 4 million were dead and more than half were Vietnamese civilians. |