I was browsing a brief history of the Vietnam war and some statistics that it through up were that of the 54000 (approximate) American troops killed up to a fifth were victims of “friendly fire.” Also 50% of the natural forestation was destroyed.
I can well beleive the removal of so much vegetation because of bombings and the deliberate use of chemicals to destroy it, but was the proportion of US troops killed by they’re own side so high? It seems a bit much if true.
You might want to check the source. That’s total bullshit. Thirty tears after the fact,everybody’s an expert.
Thats why I was asking, the stats were on a CDROM encyclopedia, Hutchinson IIRC. I would have expected it to be more thorourghly researched so I was surprised to read this. I’ll bump the post up incase anyone wants to disagree/agree.
Well, according to this webpage, for deaths in Vietnam,
2.3% were friendly fire
2.0 were vehicle crashes
0.7 were suicide
5.8 were homicides or other accidents
2.0 were ‘other’
1.6 were due to illness
I can see how you could add those up and list them as “not caused by enemy action,” but of course, that’s not the same this as “friendly fire.”
thing! Not the same thing as “friendly fire!” :smack: