# Actually, Americans aren't divided over Vietnam -- are they? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 12, 2004, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823 "2004-10-12T14:58:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/41 "2004-11-25T07:16:45Z")
**Pantom:** I said the estimate I quoted was from memory, and could be on the high side. I quoted the U.N.'s figure of 250,000. But hey, whatever you want. I just did a Google search, and the first link I found has [this chart](http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rummel/sod.tab6.1b.gif), which lists estimates of boat people dead and their sources. For example, they cite TIME magazine as saying 365,000 to 608,000 dead. One source says a high maximum of 1 million. To be fair, there are a couple of other cites that quote the range of 50 thousand or so, but a number of estimates are in the 300,000 to 500,000 range. The average of all the ‘low’ estimates is 405,000, and the average of the ‘high’ estimates is 708,000. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/42 "2004-11-25T07:18:33Z")
You have to remember that a very high percentage of the boat people were lost. As many as half of all who put to sea. That’s why the numbers are so immense. It was Russian roulette on a massive scale. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/43 "2004-11-25T07:19:06Z")
**elucidator** , looks Ok, but that’s only ethnic Chinese. From my cite, I left out Hong Kong. Some exact figures: Total for all areas where boat people landed: 802,480 Projected total based on above mortality rate, to include dead and missing: 878,949 Actual number of deaths, estimated from this rate: 76,469 Again, WAY south of 500,000. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/44 "2004-11-25T07:22:14Z")
See, you found one cite with a low number, and because I didn’t immediately accept that number you ‘wonder why you bother’. Perhaps you might consider that other estimates differ from yours? ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/45 "2004-11-25T07:27:15Z")
That chart is nigh unreadable. My little estimate was at least based on a sample of hard figures, one from a history of three years from Thailand, the other from the UNHCR. God knows what _Time_ used. I’ll trust my figures until I see what the actual primary sources are. Saying half drowned may make for good propaganda, but real life is hardly ever that extreme. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/46 "2004-11-25T07:44:37Z")
I got the same problem with that chart, I can’t figure out what the hell it says. For instance, it looks like it says 7 million died from US shelling, etc. and that just _can’t_ be right. For instance, I’ve seen figures estimating North Viet Army/VC missing in action as about 300,000. Thats _missing_, mind you, not dead, unaccounted for. But that figure is for the whole damn war. So…I dunno. Where does Time get its numbers? Dunno. Where does anybody get such numbers? By what procedure is such a count made? Who counted the people who left? Who counted the ones who arrived? By what procedure? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/47 "2004-11-25T12:10:45Z")
Here’s a collected set of estimates of the death toll: > [@](#): > > [Estimates for the number of Boat People who died:](http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat3.htm) > > - Elizabeth Becker (_When the War Was Over_, 1986) cites the UN High Commissioner on Refugees: 250,000 boat people died at sea; 929,600 reached asylum > > - The 20 July 1986 _San Diego Union-Tribune_ cites the UN Refugee Commission: 200,000 to 250,000 boat people had died at sea since 1975. > > - The 3 Aug. 1979 _Washington Post_ cites the Australian immigration minister’s estimate that 200,000 refugees had died at sea since 1975. Also: “Some estimates have said that around half of those who set out do not survive.” > > - The _1991 Information Please Almanac_ cites unspecified “US Officials” that 100,000 boat people died fleeing Vietnam. > > - _Encarta_ estimates that 0.5M fled, and 10-15% died, for a death toll of 50-75,000. > > - Nayan Chanda, _Brother Enemy_ (1986): ¼M Chinese refugees in two years, 30,000 to 40,000 of whom died at sea. (These numbers also repeated by Marilyn Young, _The Vietnam Wars_: 1945-1990 (1991)) The same guy has collected estimates of the death tolls in various phases of the primary conflict [here](http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm). I suspect that just as **Sam** ’s 500,000 boat people number doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, none of the others will either. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/48 "2004-11-25T12:19:03Z")
Touched on earlier but worth repeating. George W Bush is a draft dodger. Sure he got into the National Guard and “served” if that’s the correct word. Any one of draftable age during Nam understands very clearly that the National Guard was only for special people with connections. Clinton was another draft dodger, albeit IMHO slightly better since he did it on personal merits rather than primal geniture. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/49 "2004-11-25T12:47:26Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > **Rufus Xavier** said: > Well, how about for starters that for 30 years people have been forced to live under Communist rule? And you know they would have been better off under Thieu’s rule how exactly? > [@](#): > > How about genocide in Cambodia? ??? WTF ??? The genocide in Cambodia was _stopped_ by the Vietnamese communists. You know why I hate the Americans? Because they imposed the sharia in Afghanistan, stripped Afghan women from their rights, and blowed up century-old major pieces of art. All this in the name of their capitalist (or Islamist , can’t remember) religion!!! ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/50 "2004-11-25T12:50:34Z")
Is there good reason to believe that the bad stuff that happened under communism in Vietnam has something to do with the thugs in charge being communist? If it were a US-backed fascist like Saddam in charge, would that have been any better? Is there a plausible reason to believe that the communist assholes are more violent than non-commie thugs? ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2004, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/51 "2004-11-25T13:32:36Z")
Like I said, a pissing match for Thanksgiving and a fight about George Bush, not about Vietnam. The question about **Sam** ’s age is legitimate. People who did not go through the war in Vietnam in the green suit, or the blue suit, or at least at risk of being required by their friend and neighbors to follow the gideon into unpleasant places, may see that war differently than those who did and some are just blowing smoke and trying to bolster their present political positions by appeal to the Vietnam they would like to think there was and projecting their revision of that adventure on the present US involvement in the Middle East. If we are going to engage in a rational and objective historical and political analysis of Vietnam we should do so. If not, we are just immersed in a program of self abuse. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2004, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/52 "2004-11-26T06:07:14Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > **dropzone** : I tried to sign up for the Canadian Armed Forces, if you must know…Do I pass muster? Not that my **personal** situation should ever have a damned bit of relevance on this board. I don’t know a thing about you, and don’t care. But people sure seem to ask me for my resume on this board, that I might be judged worthy of speaking my opinion. I have enormous respect for the Canadian military, especially for the wonderful peacekeeping duty they perform. I also respect the Canadian government for keeping them out of ill-conceived adventures. Because of that I would not consider Canadian service to pass muster. My question was not entirely in reference to the discussion at hand but was asked in light of your consistent support for whatever fool’s errand the US government sends its military on. If you had been willing to put your own life on the line in support of the very policies you so fervently support I would have more respect for your opinions. Instead, you are as much a chickenhawk as Bush or Cheney. My own military experience is nonexistent. I made no effort to join up when the opportunity presented itself in 1972 and was smugly satisfied with a lottery number of 273. I’m not proud of this; it is just a fact. However, I also do not believe I have the right to ask others to do what I was not willing to do. By the way, I suspect the US military isn’t as picky as the Canadians these days. You still have a chance. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/53 "2004-11-26T06:21:43Z")
I see. So, because I had the bad misfortune to not be of age during the Vietnam era, I’m not allowed to have an opinion over whether or not the Communist government there has been good or bad? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2004, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/54 "2004-11-26T06:59:40Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Where does Time get its numbers? Dunno. That’s pretty easy. The Time figure was for the single year 78-79, the range given is 365,000-608,000, and the source is “a ranking US official estimates 30,000 to 50,000 per month”. Using simple extrapolation, the figure for the entire period 1973-1980 would be something like 2.5 - 4.2 million. Given that the _highest_ estimate of the number who fled was 1.7 million, why is it that I suspect that the said unnamed “ranking US official” pulled his numbers from his ass? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2004, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/55 "2004-11-26T09:11:09Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Or the three million people who died in the subsequent wars between neighbors and slaughters of civilian populations in occupied territories? **Sam** : Please provide your original cite for this number. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/56 "2004-11-27T05:03:10Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > I see. So, because I had the bad misfortune to not be of age during the Vietnam era, I’m not allowed to have an opinion over whether or not the Communist government there has been good or bad? No, I simply have no respect for your opinion because you are neither American nor have you offered up your own ass in America’s military follies yet have a knee-jerk support for them. When it is YOUR ass or YOUR child’s ass or YOUR taxes or YOUR international prestige on the line I’ll consider your opinions worthwhile. I have no objections to my countrymen giving their opinions, whatever they are, and have never called them on it because they have a stake in the outcome. I generally don’t call other foreigners on their opinions because they aren’t volunteering American soldiers to go to their deaths. You, with your gung-ho support of the Iraq debacle and your retroactive support for an escalation in Vietnam that would have cost many thousands of American lives while not risking the lives of you or anybody you knew, are a different story. I think it’s acceptable, though silly, for you to kibbitz when we discuss America’s legal or tax systems, just as it would be acceptable for me to talk about the Canadian systems, which I know very little about. It’s different when American, British, Polish, etc men and women have anted up their lives and you are sitting on the sidelines pushing them to do more. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2004, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/57 "2004-11-27T05:23:47Z")
The division in America that was caused by the Viet Nam war will only be over when all of us that fought, on one side of the issue or the other, are dead. Cheer up! The way I feel today it probably won’t be that much longer. ---
**Author:** ![pervert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@pervert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pervert)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/58 "2004-11-28T05:35:45Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > No, I simply have no respect for your opinion because you are neither American nor have you offered up your own ass in America’s military follies yet have a knee-jerk support for them. When it is YOUR ass or YOUR child’s ass or YOUR taxes or YOUR international prestige on the line I’ll consider your opinions worthwhile. I have no objections to my countrymen giving their opinions, whatever they are, and have never called them on it because they have a stake in the outcome. I generally don’t call other foreigners on their opinions because they aren’t volunteering American soldiers to go to their deaths. You, with your gung-ho support of the Iraq debacle and your retroactive support for an escalation in Vietnam that would have cost many thousands of American lives while not risking the lives of you or anybody you knew, are a different story. I think it’s acceptable, though silly, for you to kibbitz when we discuss America’s legal or tax systems, just as it would be acceptable for me to talk about the Canadian systems, which I know very little about. It’s different when American, British, Polish, etc men and women have anted up their lives and you are sitting on the sidelines pushing them to do more. I tried to ferret out the appropriate anti foriegner screed from this, but I think the post stands as a whole. [Allow me to post this](http://www.vwam.com/vets/canadians.html) _But while Canada as a nation was not involved, Canadians themselves formed the largest foreign contingent in the U.S. military during the Vietnam era. Some estimate that their numbers far suppressed the more than 30,000 Americans draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid military service during the war. While exact numbers are impossible to obtain, from my work as a military historian with the Canadian War Museum, I estimate that of the many thousands who served in the U.S. Vietnam-era military, some 12,00 Canadians actually served in Vietnam itself._" It also contains a lot of other information about Canadians serving in the American military (40 medal of honor recipients) and Americans serving in the Canadian military. [This is a more personal story.](http://www.vwam.com/vets/canada.html) It also contains some better researched numbers for Vietnam. Can we argue opinions without arguing about the opinion holder? ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/59 "2004-11-28T22:49:23Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > It is reasonable to ask not only what position someone has taken, but what actions that person has done to advance that position. > > Most pro-lifers, for instance, don’t want anything to do with clinic bombers, and will denounce these actions. > > Likewise, I think Kerry could have protested the Vietnam War without broadly calling soldiers war criminals, and throwing his medals on the ground. Very many people have real problems with these actions, since they went way beyond normal political protest. > > There has been a fuss over these things for a long time. If Kerry is overwhelmed with the reaction to them now, it is due to very poor preparation on his part. He should have addressed these concerns forthrightly, in a manner that did not make him seem politically calculating, like his current position seems to demonstrate. Did he call them war criminals or did he questions their tactics as those we presecuted during WWII as war crimes? ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823/60 "2004-11-28T23:52:38Z")
**RickJay** Posting #30 \*You have to admire a PR machine that managed to make a combat veteran look worse than a chicken. But they did. \* Oh you hit the proverbial nail on the head in your posting. It’s incredible how the Americans fall for bullshit. Hey I remember in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, John Wayne was shooting his mouth off extolling the cause of our military presence in Vietnam. Of course _he_ never spent one day in the military. And how about George Dubya Bush parading on the aircraft carrier as if he really fought in a war on foreign soil? Oh by all means talk tough (Dubya Bush, John Wayne, Cheney, Ashcroft, Kemp, Engler, Ronald Reagan, etc) but don’t ever do the actual fighting). The funny thing is (as I’ve said before) I do not know how many of the alleged swift boat veterans were for real but if they were, what did they accomplish? They helped torpedo a candidate who really served in Vietnam and succeeded in getting the spoiled kid with the right connections become re-elected. Nice work guys. What’s that expression? Cutting off your nose to spite your face? And as I’ve also mentioned **3 real, genuine, served in the Vietnam War, veterans** were defeated by Dubya. America falls for bullshit every time doesn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actually-americans-arent-divided-over-vietnam-are-they/268823.md?page=4)