Fall of Saigon

Melissa Hung
April 30, 2005

Here is a look at the Vietnam War in numbers. The sources are Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century's war death tolls.

These numbers exclude the war between 1954, when Vietnam was divided, and 1965, when the US officially entered the war, or took over from the French.

American deaths: 58,226; wounded: 153,303
Allies deaths (Filipinos, Koreans, Australians, Thais, New Zealanders & Canadians): 7,000
Vietnamese military deaths (North & South): 1.8 million
Vietnamese civilian deaths (North & South): 2 million, and counting

Furthermore, these numbers exclude casualties as the result of political executions, imprisonment, famine, and the refugee EXODUS. It's all part of the larger conflict involved the peoples of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, that seems to have lasted for almost a century. Though no longer with bullets and on the battlefield, it is still raging on in parts of the expatriate communities.

*****
Listen to Sonny's commentary on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" which aired earlier this week here.

See him on CNN tonight at 7:30 pm Pacific Time/10:30 pm Eastern Time.

Contributor: 

Melissa Hung

Founding Editor

Melissa Hung is the founding editor of Hyphen. She was editor in chief for the magazine's first five years and went on to serve in many other leadership roles on the staff and board for more than a decade. A writer and freelance journalist, Melissa has written for NPR, Vogue, Pacific Standard, Longreads, and Catapult. She grew up in Texas, the eldest child of immigrants.

Comments

Comments

Cathy wrote on Fri, 01/20/2006 - 3:03pm
Thank you so much for this site! Being English, and in England, the Asian people in my school are vastly outnumbered and picked on in a way that makes me feel sick! Thanks for being so spirited and helping me stick up for my cause! As long as racism continues, we need more people like you
anthony wrote on Sun, 12/09/2007 - 6:43pm
im facinated with anythign to do w/ vietnam thank u for remembering all the vets R.I.P Grandpa