what is a blind trust for lottery winnings; President Joe Biden on Friday awarded the Medal of Honor to a Black Army Special Forces hero from the Vietnam War who has waited close to 60 years to receive the nation's top award for valor after the Army said the paperwork couldn't be found. The Army would later charge only 14 men, including Calley, Captain Ernest Medina and Colonel Oran Henderson, with crimes related to the events at My Lai. For the period of the Vietnam War the totals are 1,310,000 between 1955 and 1964, 1,700,000 between 196574 and 810,000 between 1975 and 1984. [18], R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians in democide between 1954 and 1975 in South Vietnam, from a range of between 106,000 and 227,000, plus another 50,000 killed in North Vietnam. Jim Liles used his 106mm recoilless rifle to take out an enemy machine gun crew. Rats were given a mx99 flashlight and a 45 and sent in to flush out the enemy. Hugh Thompson, the helicopter pilot who stopped the My Lai massacre, later told the news program "60 Minutes" that he was ostracized and received death threats upon his return from Vietnam. We are looking fo. (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images). Johnson raised the number of South Vietnam deployments to 23,000 U.S. soldiers by the end of his first year in office. In 1965, already having served in Korea and Vietnam, Davis was told by his company commander he was destined for the treacherous Binh Dinh province. Three, Louder The most prominent of these events were the Hu Massacre and the M Lai Massacre. The VC pulled a machine gun mounted on a wheeled cart, using this improvised device to shoot down at our soldiers while using the cave as a hiding place. The First American Soldier Killed in Ground Combat in Vietnam. On the home front in the United States, the brutality of the My Lai massacre and the efforts made by higher-ranking officers to conceal it exacerbated anti-war sentiment and increased the bitterness toward the U.S. military presence in Vietnam. It's estimated that as many as 11 percent of deaths and 15 percent of wounds to U.S. soldiers during the conflict were a result of the kind of booby traps and landmines showcased in the clip. "The soldiers that you served with, the soldiers you were in the war with, become that Greek chorus. Marine Maj. Hubert G. Duncan, operations officer with the 4th Combined Action Group, instructs a Vietnamese. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Most of the area consisted of rice paddies. "He said, 'You know you're disobeying an order?' Congress authorized troop deployment in Vietnam, but, because it did not issue a declaration of war on North Vietnam or the Viet Cong, the Vietnam War is, technically speaking, not considered a war in the United States. ", According to the Army, "he learned [from the captives] that a vastly larger enemy force was operating in the area.". Then a 26-year-old captain, Paris Davis, now 83, led a company tearing through a larger enemy force, pushing the attack despite being shot, absorbing shrapnel and another bullet to get wounded comrades to safety, refusing to join them on the evacuation helicopter, choosing rather to stay and continue destroying the remaining adversaries. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing. Davis took this not as a warning to withdraw, but as an opportunity to attack. The question of who won the Vietnam War has been a subject of debate, and the answer depends on the definition of victory. War and Conflict, The Vietnam War, pic: December 1967, Bu Dop, South Vietnam, American soldiers if the 1st US, Infantry Division carry away a wounded. [60] Prior to the 1975 spring offensive, at least 5,336 ARVN were captured, being released in the aftermath of the Paris Peace Accords. (AP Photo/Henri Huet) It seems that the author was likely part of the cavalry platoon as . All of them were listed on the Vietnam War Memorial located in Washington D.C. In 1968 US soldiers murdered several hundred Vietnamese civilians in the single most infamous incident of the Vietnam War. Fought the Viet Cong Three! Defense Department officials believed that these body count figures need to be deflated by 30 percent. [3], A 1995 demographic study in Population and Development Review calculated 791,0001,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 196575. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. According to a 2009 study, one third of land in the central provinces of Vietnam is still contaminated with unexploded mines and ordnance. [46], The ROK Capital Division reportedly perpetrated the Bnh An/Ty Vinh massacre in February/March 1966. Their estimates for conflict deaths in Vietnam are 164,923 from 195564 and 1,458,050 from 196575 for a total of 1,622,973. Cannot annotate a non-flat selection. Including 28 civilians, originally there were 52 missing civilians. [42] This might partially explain the discrepancies between recovered weapons and body-count figures, along with exaggeration, although the NVA and VC also went to great lengths to recover weapons from the battlefield. The 106mm recoilless rifle is a flat-trajectory weapon and its main purpose is to engage tanks. A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. DI school (di school) Those who argue that the United States opponents won the war cite the United States overall objectives and outcomes. The horrific events are known as the Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of read more, The Boston Massacre was a deadly riot that occurred on March 5, 1770, on King Street in Boston. Tot Dong Field in 1426 where the Vietnamese routed the Chinese. These estimates probably include deaths of Vietnamese soldiers in Laos and Cambodia, but do not include deaths of South Vietnamese and allied soldiers which would add nearly 300,000 for a grand total of 3.4 million military and civilian dead. The relaxed atmosphere was suddenly shattered around 1 a.m. when the sounds of an explosion ripped through the base. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. We reloaded another white phosphorous round. [61], According to the Vietnamese government's national survey and assessment of war casualties (March 2017), there were 849,018 PAVN military personnel dead, including combat death and non-combat death, from the period between 1960 and 1975. Kill Four! I looked through the scope on the 106 and could see Purple Heart Mountain. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. They fought them of by 'sxty-eight, And then they had to fight the NVA. They were shooting women and children just like anybody else, Sgt. Ooh-Rah (ooh-rah) In 1965, already having served in Korea and Vietnam, Davis was told by his company commander he was destined for the treacherous Binh Dinh province. A notorious military operation called Speedy Express killed thousands of Vietnamese civilians in the Mekong Delta, earning the commander of the operation, Major General Julian Ewell, the nickname the Butcher of the Delta.. To fire a round into the cave, I had to elevate the recoilless rifle upward and fire the round in an arcing trajectory, more like an artillery piece. Where: In Cholon, the Chinese section of Saigon, Vietnam. [35], For official US military operations reports, there was no established distinctions between enemy KIA and civilian KIA. Quote, 'America was behind me. Americans call it the "Vietnam War." The Vietnamese refer to it as the "American War" that dominated 30 years of Vietnam's history. It may well be this was the actual intent of the question. The Massacre at My Lai, by Seymour Hersh. Reconstructed battle map of the battle of Bong Song, Vietnam, June 18, 1965. Ronald H. Spector is Professor of History and International Affairs in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. President Joe Biden presents the Medal of Honor to retired U.S. Army Colonel Paris Davis during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, March 3, 2023. President Joe Biden is scheduled to award Davis with the Medal honor March 3, 2023. RF JTNXCX - Four Vietnamese and three Americans were killed, and dozens of Vietnamese buildings were heavily damaged during a Viet Cong bomb attack against a multi-story U.S. officers billet in Saigon. More than 500 people were slaughtered in the My Lai massacre, including young girls and women who were raped and mutilated before being killed. Accurate assessments of PAVN/VC losses, he wrote, were 'largely impossible due to lack of disclosure by the Vietnamese government, terrain, destruction of remains by firepower, and [inability] to confirm artillery and aerial kills.' [70], RJ Rummel estimates 1,011,000 PAVN/VC combatant deaths. I joined the Army on June 27, 1965, at age 17, two weeks after I graduated high school in Newport, Ky. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. According to the South Vietnamese military, Lm's squad had just killed 34 people associated with the police, at least 24 of whom were civilians, when he was captured on February 1st. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 1967-1972, about 130 American and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs died in captivity. The conflict energized anti-British sentiment read more, In what became known as the Munich Massacre, eight terrorists wearing tracksuits and carrying gym bags filled with grenades and assault rifles, breached the Olympic Village at the Summer Games in Munich before dawn on September 5, 1972. It did not go well for the VC. One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. By Spencer C. Tucker ", Viet Cong and Peoples Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War, Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate, "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme", "20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate", http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/, http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf, Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Rummel calculated PAVN/VC deaths at 1,062,000 and ARVN and allied war deaths of 741,000, with both totals including civilians inadvertently killed. Many saw Calley as a scapegoat, and his sentence was reduced upon appeal to 20 years and later to 10; he was paroled in 1974. Nine-year-old Kim Phuc had ripped off her burning . Deaths caused by the South Korean military, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties, Disproportion of African American casualties. Looking through the scope, I could see the round traveling in the air and watched it fly over the mountain. Seven massacres officially confirmed by the American side. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, but his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, continued the work that Kennedy had started. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. 1. A NEW DOCUMENTARY called Unclaimed claims to introduce the world to former Army Sergeant John Robertson, lost over Vietnam in 1968 . [77] Additionally, according to the U.S. military, they also lost up to 101,511 personnel as defectors due to the Chieu Hoi program,[78] but one analyst speculates that less than 25% of those were genuine. E6 while there. Called the American War in Vietnam (or, in full, the War Against the Americans to Save the Nation), the war was also part of a larger regional conflict (see Indochina wars) and a manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. A pre-dawn mortar assault kills five Americans, two South Vietnamese, and wounds . Two dash (two dash) Although that is no bad thing, it also demonized General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, which was something Eddie Adams was extremely sorry for. In addition to killing unarmed men, women and children, the soldiers slaughtered countless livestock, raped an unknown number of women, and burned the village to the ground. "Davis was wounded leading the initial assault, but continued moving forward, personally engaging the enemy in hand-to-hand combat and killing several enemy soldiers," the Army said in a release. It was a fraction of a second that jolted Americans' view of the Vietnam War. Among the victims were 182 women17 of them pregnantand 173 children, including 56 infants. [62][63] Based on unit surveys, a rough estimate of 3040% of dead and missing were non-combat deaths. Other atrocities, such as a similar massacre of villagers at My Khe, are less well known. But, you know what Captain Davis said after learning that he would finally receive the Medal of Honor? The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children. Paratroopers of the U.S. 2nd Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade hold their automatic weapons above water as they cross a river in the rain during a search for Viet Cong positions in the jungle area of Ben Cat, South Vietnam, Sept. 25, 1965. Davis described a war of words with the senior officer. Davis leads assault in the early morning at Bong Song, clearing an enemy headquarters hut. They also assert that the U.S. overall suffered fewer casualties than its opponents. [36][37][41] All individuals killed in declared free-fire zones, combatants or not, were considered enemy killed in action by US forces . -Attack by VC and NVA. Army commanders had advised the soldiers of Charlie Company that all who were found in the Son My area could be considered VC or active VC sympathizers, and ordered them to destroy the village. US jobless claims climb for first time in 5 weeks, to 353,000. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200. [89], The total number of casualties, both KIA and non-hostile deaths, for drafted and volunteer service personnel (figures are approximated):[90], During the Vietnam War, 30% of wounded service members died of their wounds. Regarding accusations of atrocities committed by American soldiers, Powell stated that, In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal Division soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent, a statement that many critics have derided as whitewashing, and accusing Powell of being a participant in the My Lai cover-up. The Vietnam War (1955-1975) effectively became a proxy Cold War battle over communism, with North Vietnam supported by the Soviet Union, China and other communist allies, and the South supported by America and anti-communist allies.. President Joe Biden on Friday awarded the Medal of Honor to a Black Army Special Forces hero from the Vietnam War who has waited close to 60 years to receive the nation's top award . The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." (USIA) NARA FILE #: 306-MVP-5-3 WAR & CONFLICT BOOK #: 420 The brutality of the My Lai massacre and the official cover-up fueled anti-war sentiment and further divided the United States over the Vietnam War. The United States additionally detected that a countrywide political decision could spell triumph for Ho Chi Minh and upheld dropping races. [62], According to American writer Joseph Babcock, the Vietnamese government estimated 300,000 PAVN/VC missing-in-action (MIA) in 2019, but that the real number of MIA is widely believed to be closer to 500,000 people, whose bodies were either never found or buried anonymously and never identified. After five months he became a squad leader in the 1 st Cavalry, which would fly in to help other units if they needed backup. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. He further suggests that 222,000 civilians may have been counted as enemy military deaths by the U.S. in compiling its "body count" raising the total to 627,000 killed. However, the situation significantly escalated since 6 February 1965, the VC attacked the U.S. compound in Pleiku, leaving eight Americans dead and . In Vietnam, Mathews was a machine gunner. I saw it fly through the air, and this time I saw it go directly in the cave. He said they could not go inside the cave due to the white phosphorous, but could smell the burnt hair and flesh. Davis again broke cover, braving enemy fire, to retrieve the second soldier. He got on the radio and I was given permission to try. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by 100 percent. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. At the time, morale among U.S. soldiers on the ground was dwindling, especially in the wake of the North Vietnamese-led Tet Offensive, which was launched in January 1968. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items! Our 9 best-selling history titles feature in-depth storytelling and iconic imagery to engage and inform on the people, the wars, and the events that shaped America and the world. Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. He returned from Vietnam to experience some of his fellow soldiers crossing to the other side of the street when they saw him in America.". [8], Lewy estimates that 40,000 South Vietnamese civilians were assassinated by the PAVN/VC; 300,000 were killed as a result of combat in South Vietnam, and 65,000 were killed in North Vietnam for a total of 405,000 killed. On Feb. 16, 1967, I was wounded while taking part in Operation Sam Houston in Kontum Province. Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. They pick up the voice of saying 'We aren't gonna let this rest, we are going to keep after it until we get it done.' "The Vietnam Wars." Charlie Company was sent to the area on March 16 for a search-and-destroy mission. Footnote: The last U.S. serviceman to die in combat in Vietnam, Lt. Col. William B. Nolde, was killed by an artillery shell at An Loc, 60 miles northwest of Saigon, only 11 hours before the. Jim Liles is a retired law enforcement officer who worked for the Covington Police Department in Kentucky for 27 years and spent four years running a four-county Drug Strike Force. I went through jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., and was sent to the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. I served in the Army for three years. [6], A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 19552002. READ MORE: How the Armys Cover-Up Made the My Lai Massacre Even Worse. In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. November 2, 2021 . In the middle of the mountain, about two-thirds of the way up, I observed three Viet Cong coming out of a cave. Casualties fluctuated considerably from year to year, but a degree of accuracy can be inferred from the fact that 500,000 was 59 percent of the 849,018 total and that 59 percent of the war's days had passed by the time of Fallaci's conversation with Giap. "Due to lack of records, we cannot say for sure, but we are pleased that the president will soon bestow this overdue honor to Col. Paris Davis and his family," Army spokeswoman Madison Bonzo told ABC News on Wednesday. Of all the special operations forces in the U.S. military, Navy SEALs receive the . Significant numbers resettled in the United States, Canada, Italy, Australia, France, West Germany, and the United Kingdom.[105]. Among the allies, South Korea suffered the highest casualties with 4,407 killed in action 4; Australia had 500 5; Thailand . Webb and another soldier moved on to a second bunker; this time, a grenade sprayed him with shrapnel, but he detonated a claymore at the bunker's entrance, killing two Viet Cong. ", Picking up the story, he continued, "And although the men who were with him on that June day immediately nominated Captain Davis to receive the Medal of Honor, somehow the paper -- the paperwork was never processed, not just once, but twice. Here we go (here we go) III. . We had no casualties. The study's authors stated that methodological limitations of the study include imbalance between rural and urban areas and the potential exclusion of high mortality areas. starts and ends within the same node. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. The two Vietnams (1954-65) Vietnam (1954-76) The agreements concluded in Geneva between April and July 1954 (collectively called the Geneva Accords) were signed by French and Viet Minh representatives and provided for a cease-fire and temporary division of the country into two military zones at latitude 17 N (popularly called the 17th parallel). Paris Davis, Black Green Beret in Vietnam, Finally Awarded Medal of Honor at White House President Joe Biden awards the Medal of Honor to retired Army Col. Paris Davis for his heroism during the. In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. ABC News asked Davis what would have happened had he obeyed. But it was mostly done with a machine gun. According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies. [11], Author Mark Woodruff noted that when the Vietnamese Government finally revealed its estimated losses (in April 1995) as being 1.1 million dead or missing, U.S body count figures had actually underestimated enemy losses. -More and more troops were sent to Veitnam, caused large amounts of anti war movments in the United States. Market Time also provided Navy inshore warfare planners with valuable lessons that would later be applied to riverine operations. Paris Island (paris island) One, went to Vietnam Two, killed the Vietcong Three, didn't smoke no grass Four, kicked a-lot ass One, Louder Two, Louder Three, Louder Four, Louder 1, 2, 3, 4 United States Marine Coprs, Ooh-Rah (ooh-rah) Ooh-Rah (ooh-rah) Here we go (here we go) On a run (on a run) Just for fun (just for fun) Oh Yeah (oh yeah) Submit lyrics correction 55k Like The New Yorker. Despite finding only a few weapons, Calley ordered his men to begin shooting the villagers. Over the next four years, the general directed much of U.S. military strategy during read more, The Battle of Khe Sanh began on January 21, 1968, when forces from the Peoples Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) carried out a massive artillery bombardment on the U.S. Marine garrison at Khe Sanh, located in South Vietnam near the border with Laos. Two hundred and forty-five Vietnamese dead were found on the battlefield, with captured documents later suggesting hundreds more had been killed or wounded. [53][54] A separate study was carried out by RAND Corporation employee Terry Rambo, who conducted interviews in 1970 on reported Korean atrocities in ARVN/civilian areas. The Viet Cong attacked close to midnight on 10 June 1965, letting loose a 200-round barrage of 60mm mortars followed by a wave of hundreds of Viet Cong attacking the walls of the compound.. [62] Across all three wars including the First Indochina War and the Third Indochina War there was a total of 1,146,250 PAVN/VC confirmed military deaths, included 939,460 with bodies recovered and 207,000 with the bodies unfound. Photo Summary: General Nguyen Ngoc Loan killing Vietcong operative Nguyen Van Lem. As Billy Cole, Davis' commanding officer, arrives on the battlefield, Cole spots Davis carrying Waugh fireman-style. According to Powells report, although there may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs, this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the division.. BBC News. [99][100] In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance and claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. According to the Information Bureau of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam (PRG), a shadow government formed by North Vietnam in 1969, between April 1968 and the end of 1970 American ground troops killed about 6,500 civilians in the course of twenty-one operations either on their own or alongside their allies. How Colin Powell's Service in Vietnam Shaped His Leadership, How the Armys Cover-Up Made the My Lai Massacre Even Worse. Twenty-one were wounded. Four, Louder For the next 77 days, U.S. read more, The Orangeburg Massacre occurred on the night of February 8, 1968, when a civil rights protest at South Carolina State University (SC State) turned deadly after highway patrolmen opened fire on about 200 unarmed black student protestors. To fire a round into the cave, I had to elevate the recoilless rifle upward and fire the round in an arcing trajectory, more like an artillery piece. "The general said 'If I was down there, I'd probably kick your ass.' Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. "They gave us some information -- exactly where the preponderance of the troops were. Search and destroy was a term to describe operations aimed at flushing the Viet Cong out of hiding, while body count was the measuring stick for operation success and this resulted in exaggeration and listing civilian deaths as enemy KIA. The My Lai massacre reportedly ended only after Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an Army helicopter pilot on a reconnaissance mission, landed his aircraft between the soldiers and the retreating villagers and threatened to open fire if they continued their attacks. [4] Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Over a mile away loomed a large mountain we soon named Purple Heart Mountainour company had several soldiers killed on missions around that summit. I never killed no Viet Cong Three! The paratroopers had been searching the area for 12 days with no enemy contact. [45] One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many My Lais". They are rigorously trained for tactical missions that are often quite difficult and dangerous. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. In 1998, Thompson and two other members of his crew received the Soldiers Medal, the U.S. Armys highest award for bravery not involving direct contact with the enemy. And that's the saving grace I'm so thankful for," he said. (AP) Flag-draped coffins of eight American Servicemen killed in attacks on U.S. military installations in South Vietnam, on February 7, are placed in . Michael Bernhardt, a soldier at the scene, later told a reporter. The enemy by my count suffered at least 15,000 dead in the area.". Da Nang was the primary storage site of the chemical. III, Here we go (here we go) U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. For his actions, he was awarded the nation's third-highest military decoration, the Silver Star. U.S. soldiers hold a memorial service for seven men of the U.S. 101st Airborne Brigade in a clearing near a former French rubber plantation in Lai Khe, Vietnam, Dec. 17, 1965. The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. A little while later, I saw soldiers from the second platoon on the mountain near the cave. "Like World War I . We make safe shipping arrangements for your convenience from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He never landed, and I never kicked his ass," Davis said. Civilian deaths were partly caused by assassinations, massacres, and terror tactics. This led to increased racial tension in the military. Rummel estimates 212,000 killed by Khmer Rouge (19671975), 60,000 killed by U.S. and 1,000 killed by South Vietnam (196773).