Read the commenting rules carefully because they will be enforced!
I wish you the best New Year that will bring you health, happiness, success, and all that is good in 2007.
Happy New Year Spree!
Thank you and to you and yours also.
Something is seriously wrong with your figures.
9.2 million participants in Vietnam over 11 years? Are you kidding? With a tour of duty of a year (and some servicemen re-upping, others going home early from wounds) that would have meant a sustained force of more than 800,000 for each of those years, and most combat troops were out by 1973. Most veteran's groups list the actual number of servicepeople in-country as about 2.5 million. THe number you quote probably includes all Vietnam-era veterans, including those in Korea, Japan, the US, Europe, etc. who were never involved in combat.
You also list 109,000 deaths "in service," when anyone who's been to the Wall in DC knowns that there were about 58,000 combat deaths in Vietnam. Again, you seem to be conflating deaths outside of the war zone with combat fatalities.
The old canard about optimists, pessimists, and half glass of water doesn't denote the person who looks at an empty glass and says it's half full. Your description of one side of the Iraqi coin may contain some truths but so does the other side. I recently heard interviews from Iraqi vets who have formed the Iraqi veterans against the war. They've been there too. Obviously soldiers, like all human beings, have different experiences and opinions. There is also enormous evidence that the negative news of Iraq has been underreported! The 1.6 million Iraqis who have left their country in the last 40 months did so because the conditions are so horrible. The ethnic cleansing and creation of homogenous enclaves is another sign of the intolerable situation. Power, garbage collection, oil production, and employment are still not back to pre-war levels. To cite "progress" in Iraq is like that person who calls the empty glass half-full.
darrelplant,
Those numbers now have the source where they were obtained and it was the dept of veteran affairs. Take it up with them, just because you do not like the numbers, do not make them any less true.
I will happily make a correction if the dept of veteran affairs states that they were mistaken, until then, no one better to get the numbers from.
Ken,
There has been no eveidence of underreporting, there has been "speculation". The two words have a very different meaning, use something called a "dictionary". It can be found online.
Oh... one last note. The glass isn't half empty OR half full, the glass is twice the size it needs to be. heh
I'm not claiming the numbers aren't accurate numbers. They just don't represent what you're claiming they represent.
A lot of people served in the US military during the Vietnam era, which is what "Vietnam-era" means. Most of them didn't actually go to Vietnam; they served in other countries or the US, as I pointed out. They're still veterans. They wore the uniform. That number probably includes George W. Bush for his service in the National Guard, even though he never went overseas.
If you want to make a case based on statistics, it's best if you understand what the numbers you quote actually mean.
I am VERY aware of what they mean, but in typical fashion if the facts do not match what YOU want them to, you scoff at them...FACT is that is how many people WE lost during the Vietnam era. DEAL WITH IT.
You can assume and speculate and make up anything you want to, but the facts are still the facts and you simply cannot deal with it. Tough.
We have lost LESSSSSSSSSSS MEN AND WOMEN IN THIS WAR THAN IN any other war.
In fact, the dreaded AP, through Editor and Publisher, has an article dealing with this issue also...
http://
www.editorandpublisher.co...t_id=1003526309
go read it and try to tell them they are misrepresenting the numbers. The numbers are history, facts and if you cannot deal with the facts then you shouldn't be debating.
Spree. Thank you so much for reporting faithfully the truth about our wonderful troops in Iraq. I wish people would take your example and send it to every newspaper and dare them to publish the facts!
Thanks Faultline, they wouldn't publish it anyway. It doesn't fit with their agenda.
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