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 Re: This is a classic scene
 
DavidS
988 posts
www.novelier.com
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Re: This is a classic scene
Posted: 17 Mar 08 11:50 AM Modified By DavidS on 3/17/2008 11:52:45 AM)
Skink, Like most men who served in combat, I came home and, after a short period of adjustment, got on with my life. I rarely give any details about my combat experiences for the simple reason that nobody who hasn't been there can understand them. Unlike some here, I read very little military fiction, SF or otherwise. That's because I demand a level of verisimillitude that can be given only by someone who was there, and too few people who write military fiction ever wore the uniform or heard a shot fired with intent. I can tell very quickly whether an author writing about combat actually served, saw combat, or (if he's writing about Marines) was a Marine.

Some very few, William Keith (Ian Douglas) and WEB Griffin come immediately to mind, write almost-convincingly about Marines even though they were navy and army respectively. But I believe Keith/Douglas served with Marines and Griffin paid close attention to a Marine who vetted his stories.

For your youtube links, I've looked at very few of them. I don't need to see them, I lived them. But it was a long time ago. I reached Chu Lai in the middle of the night in the middle of March, 1966, just about exactly 42 years ago today. I'm long past the war.

As for how horrible it was:

In eight years (1965-1973) of combat, we lost 58,000 men. In the Civil War, we lost--Dan, how many millions?--in less than four years. In WWI, we lost 100,000 in about a year and a half. More than a million in less than four years in WWII (Dan, help me with the number?). Korea cost us 40,000 in two years.

Had we had the same KIA rates in Vietnam, it would have cost us more than twice as many dead as died in the Civil War; compared to WWI, more than half a million; compared to WWII, more than twice as many millions; compared to Korea, 160,000.

Relatively speaking, we got off lightly. And bear in mind that the US population was smaller during those earlier wars, so the fatalities were far larger as a portion of the population.

We've had nearly 4,000 troops killed in five years in Iraq. I'm glad the casualties are so relatively light.
DavidS
988 posts
www.novelier.com
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1/23/2006
Re: This is a classic scene
Posted: 17 Mar 08 11:56 AM
Just in case anybody gets the impression I'm downplaying the horrors of combat in Vietnam and Iraq, let me quote something that appeared in an issue of The Marine Corps Gazette about 20 years ago:

"Any fire fight, no matter how small, is World War Three to the men in it."
Skink
1077 posts
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12/17/2007
Re: This is a classic scene
Posted: 17 Mar 08 2:22 PM Modified By Skink on 3/17/2008 2:28:43 PM)

Well Thanks David for your comment. Here is a very recent movie about Nam. It takes a little while to load sorry.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=kqnghdEgZaE
Finucane
1932 posts
2nd
Joined
1/25/2006
Re: This is a classic scene
Posted: 17 Mar 08 4:43 PM

I know that when you speak of 4,000 KIA as "relatively light" casualties, it sounds heartless; for the dead and their comrades and families it's tragic.  But for comparison, here's a table of the estimated killed in all our wars and actions.  Note the duration of each conflict:

 

CONFLICT  SPAN  TOTALS
War of Independence  (1775-1783)  25,000
Quasi-War  (1798-1800)  20
Barbary Wars  (1801-1815)  35
War of 1812  (1812-1815)  20,000
1st Seminole War  (1817-1818)  30
2nd Seminole War  (1835-1842)  1,500
Mexican-American War  (1846-1848)  13,283
3rd Seminole War  (1855-1858)  26
Civil War  (1861-1865)  623,026
Indian Wars  (1865-1898)  919
Spanish-American War  (1898)  2,446
Phillipine War  (1898-1902)  4,196
Boxer Rebellion  (1900-1901)  37
Mexican Revolution  (1914-1919)  35
Haiti Occupation  (1915-1934)  146
World War 1  (1917-1918)  116,708
World War 2  (1941-1945)  407,316
Korean War  (1950-1953)  36,914
Vietnam War  (1964-1973)  58,169
El Salvador  (1980-1992)  20
Beirut  (1982-1984)  266
Persian Gulf Support  (1987-1988)  39
Invasion of Grenada  (1983)  19
Invasion of Panama  (1989)  40
Gulf War  (1991)  269
Somalia  (1992-1993)  43
Bosnia  1995  12
Afghanistan  (2002-2008)  482
Iraqi  (2003-2008)  3,975
eric_bean34
2334 posts
www.myspace.com/mcbaencreations
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Joined
7/22/2006
Re: This is a classic scene
Posted: 17 Mar 08 11:51 PM
 Finucane wrote

I know that when you speak of 4,000 KIA as "relatively light" casualties, it sounds heartless; for the dead and their comrades and families it's tragic.  But for comparison, here's a table of the estimated killed in all our wars and actions.  Note the duration of each conflict:

 

CONFLICT  SPAN  TOTALS
War of Independence  (1775-1783)  25,000
Quasi-War  (1798-1800)  20
Barbary Wars  (1801-1815)  35
War of 1812  (1812-1815)  20,000
1st Seminole War  (1817-1818)  30
2nd Seminole War  (1835-1842)  1,500
Mexican-American War  (1846-1848)  13,283
3rd Seminole War  (1855-1858)  26
Civil War  (1861-1865)  623,026
Indian Wars  (1865-1898)  919
Spanish-American War  (1898)  2,446
Phillipine War  (1898-1902)  4,196
Boxer Rebellion  (1900-1901)  37
Mexican Revolution  (1914-1919)  35
Haiti Occupation  (1915-1934)  146
World War 1  (1917-1918)  116,708
World War 2  (1941-1945)  407,316
Korean War  (1950-1953)  36,914
Vietnam War  (1964-1973)  58,169
El Salvador  (1980-1992)  20
Beirut  (1982-1984)  266
Persian Gulf Support  (1987-1988)  39
Invasion of Grenada  (1983)  19
Invasion of Panama  (1989)  40
Gulf War  (1991)  269
Somalia  (1992-1993)  43
Bosnia  1995  12
Afghanistan  (2002-2008)  482
Iraqi  (2003-2008)  3,975



Before you sleep tonight Forumites...bow your head and say thank you to the 1,314,971 men and women that died so you could sleep under that warm comforter.
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