Vietnam War

== Casualties ==
{{Main|Casualties of the Vietnam War}}
{{See also|Vietnam War body count controversy}}
{| class="wikitable sortable floatright" style="text-align:right;"
|+ '''Military deaths in Vietnam War {{Nowrap |(1955–1975)}}'''
|-
! Year || U.S.<ref name="USarchives">{{Cite web |date=30 April 2019 |title=Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics, Electronic Records Reference Report |url=https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics#category |access-date=2 August 2021 |publisher=U.S. National Archives |at=DCAS Vietnam Conflict Extract File record counts by CASUALTY CATEGORY (as of April 29, 2008)}} (generated from the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files (as of 29 April 2008))</ref>|| South Vietnam
|-
| 1956–1959 || 4 || n.a.
|-
| 1960 || 5 || 2,223
|-
| 1961 || 16 || 4,004
|-
| 1962 || 53 || 4,457
|-
| 1963 || 122 || 5,665
|-
| 1964 || 216 || 7,457
|-
| 1965 || 1,928 || 11,242
|-
| 1966 || 6,350 || 11,953
|-
| 1967 || 11,363 || 12,716
|-
| 1968 || 16,899 || 27,915
|-
| 1969 || 11,780 || 21,833
|-
| 1970 || 6,173 || 23,346
|-
| 1971 || 2,414 || 22,738
|-
| 1972 || 759 || 39,587
|-
| 1973 || 68 || 27,901
|-
| 1974 || 1 || 31,219
|-
| 1975 || 62 || n.a.
|-
| After 1975 || 7 || n.a.
|- class="sortbottom"
! Total || 58,220 || >254,256<ref name=Clarke/>{{Rp|275}}
|}

Estimates of the number of casualties vary, with one source suggesting up to 3.8&nbsp;million violent war deaths in Vietnam for the period 1955 to 2002.<ref>{{Cite news |date=23 April 2008 |title=fifty years of violent war deaths: data analysis from the world health survey program: BMJ |url=http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7659/1482 |access-date=5 January 2013}} From 1955 to 2002, data from the surveys indicated an estimated 5.4 million violent war deaths{{Nbsp}}... 3.8 million in Vietnam.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-06-16 |title=Vietnam War {{!}} Facts, Summary, Years, Timeline, Casualties, Combatants, & Facts |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War |access-date=2023-07-08 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-03-28 |title=Vietnam War: Causes, Facts & Impact |url=https://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history |access-date=2023-07-08 |website=HISTORY |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Lind |first=Michael |year=1999 |title=Vietnam, The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lind-vietnam.html |access-date=17 January 2014 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230307092630/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lind-vietnam.html |archive-date=March 7, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Vietnam War |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/628478/Vietnam-War |access-date=5 March 2008 |quote=Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in its longest and most controversial war}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Friedman |first=Herbert |title=Allies of the Republic of Vietnam |url=http://www.psywarrior.com/AlliesRepublicVietnam.html |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120307112918/http://www.psywarrior.com/AlliesRepublicVietnam.html |archive-date=March 7, 2012 |access-date=1 May 2019}}</ref><ref name="Toledo Blade 320,000 Chinese troops" /> A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related deaths during the war for all of Vietnam, for both military and civilians.<ref name=Hirschman/> Between 195,000 and 430,000 South Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref name=Lewy/>{{Rp|450–453}}<ref name=Thayer/>{{Rp|}} Extrapolating from a 1969 US intelligence report, Guenter Lewy estimated 65,000 North Vietnamese civilians died in the war.<ref name=Lewy/>{{Rp|450–453}} Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 30,000<ref name=Tucker/>{{Rp|176,617}} to 182,000.<ref name=bfvietnam/> A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated 1.4&nbsp;million South Vietnamese civilians casualties during the war, including 415,000 deaths.<ref name="Turse" />{{Rp|12}}

The military forces of South Vietnam suffered an estimated 254,256 killed between 1960 and 1974 and additional deaths from 1954 to 1959 and in 1975.<ref name=Clarke/>{{Rp|275}} Other estimates point to higher figures of 313,000 casualties.<ref name=Gravel/><ref name="Obermeyer" /><ref name="Hirschman" /><ref name="Heuveline" /><ref name="Banister" /><ref name="Sliwinski" />

[[File:Lighting incense at the Dong Loc Junction memorial.jpg|left|thumb|Cemetery for ten unmarried girls who volunteered for logistical activities, who died in a B-52 raid at [[Đồng Lộc Junction]], a strategic junction along the [[Ho Chi Minh trail]]]]

The official US Department of Defense figure for PAVN/VC killed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1974 was 950,765. Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. Guenter Lewy asserts that one-third of the reported "enemy" killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of PAVN/VC military forces was probably closer to 444,000.<ref name=Lewy/>{{Rp|450–453}}

According to figures released by the Vietnamese government there were 849,018 confirmed military deaths on the PAVN/VC side during the war.<ref name=Chuyen/><ref name=VNMOD/> The Vietnamese government released its estimate of war deaths for the more lengthy period of 1955 to 1975. This figure includes battle deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in the Laotian and Cambodian Civil Wars, in which the PAVN was a major participant. Non-combat deaths account for 30 to 40% of these figures.<ref name=Chuyen/> However, the figures do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers.<ref name=Shenon/> These do not include the estimated 300,000–500,000 PAVN/VC missing in action. Official figures from the Vietnamese government estimate 1.1 million dead and 300,000 missing from 1945 to 1979, with approximately 849,000 dead and 232,000 missing from 1960 to 1975.<ref name="Moyar, Mark"/>

US reports of "enemy KIA", referred to as body count were thought to have been subject to "falsification and glorification", and a true estimate of PAVN/VC combat deaths may be difficult to assess, as US victories were assessed by having a "greater kill ratio".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kempster |first=Norman |date=31 January 1991 |title=In This War, Body Count Is Ruled Out: Casualties: Gen. Schwarzkopf makes it clear he's not repeating a blunder made in Vietnam. |language=en-US |work=Los Angeles Times |url=https://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-31/news/mn-442_1_body-count |access-date=3 June 2018 |issn=0458-3035}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Aman |first=Mohammed M. |date=April 1993 |title=General H. Norman Schwarzkopf: The Autobiography: It Doesn't Take a Hero; H. Norman Schwarzkopf with Peter Petre |journal=Digest of Middle East Studies |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=90–94 |doi=10.1111/j.1949-3606.1993.tb00951.x |issn=1060-4367}}</ref> It was difficult to distinguish between civilians and military personnel on the Viet Cong side as many persons were part-time guerrillas or impressed laborers who did not wear uniforms{{Sfn|Willbanks|2008|p=32}}<ref>[[Rand Corporation]] [http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf "Some Impressions of Viet Cong Vulnerabilities, an Interim Report"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216061330/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf |date=16 February 2017}} 1965</ref> and civilians killed were sometimes written off as enemy killed because high enemy casualties was directly tied to promotions and commendation.<ref name=Currey/>{{Rp|649–650}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kelman |first1=H.C |url=https://archive.org/details/crimesofobedienc0000unse/page/1 |chapter=The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience |last2=Hamilton |first2=V. |title=Crimes of Obedience: Towards a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-300-04813-1 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/crimesofobedienc0000unse/page/1 1–12]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Declassification of the BDM Study, "The Strategic Lessons Learned in Vietnam" |url=http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a096431.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20190412100450/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a096431.pdf |archive-date=12 April 2019 |publisher=Defense Technical Center |pages=225–234}}</ref>

Between 275,000<ref name=Banister/> and 310,000<ref name=Sliwinski/> Cambodians were estimated to have died during the war including between 50,000 and 150,000 combatants and civilians from US bombings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kiernan |first=Ben |url=https://archive.org/details/howpolpotcametop00kier_0 |title=How Pol Pot Came to Power: Colonialism, Nationalism, and Communism in Cambodia, 1930–1975 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-300-10262-8 |page=xxiii |author-link=Ben Kiernan |url-access=registration}}</ref> 20,000–62,000 Laotians also died,<ref name=Obermeyer/> and 58,281 U.S. military personnel were killed,<ref name=2new/> of which 1,584 are still listed as missing as of March 2021.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1 March 2021 |title=Vietnam-era unaccounted for statistical report |url=https://www.dpaa.mil/Portals/85/Statistics%20as%20of%20March%201.pdf|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407114839/https://www.dpaa.mil/Portals/85/Statistics%20as%20of%20March%201.pdf|archive-date=April 7, 2023}}</ref>