I had posted this in the Worst US President thread:
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueballsdc
Maximum US troop strength (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, Coast Guard) in Vietnam was in 1968 at 536,100. Of course this doesn't include all the allied troops (ANZACs, Korea, etc...) which added up to about 100,000 or the South Vietnamese army which was about 800,000. Not all of the US troops saw combat. Only about 40% saw combat or were in combat situations (coming under fire). All total some 3.5 million saw service in the whole SE Asia theatre during the period. This includes Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, etc...
When you consider that there were about 10 million active duty service members during the whole Vietnam era the numbers become even more staggering. At the time of Kennedy's death (by whatever person or persons  ) there were only 163,000 troops in Vietnam. It steadily grew until 1968 and then dropped after that. |
and a couple of people had asked me for my sources. I thought it would be best to answer here (nice new thread btw Palo
).
My info comes from a number of history books that I have but the information can also be found online here:
http://www.americanwarlibrary.com/vietnam/vwatl.htm
http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm
Both of which get their info from the DOD. They are fairly reputable. From one DOD document I saw, technically, US forces peaked in one week in January of 1969 when we had some 549,000 troops in country. However that includes several thousand that were transitioning out of the country. So I tend to use the other numbers as I don't consider troops that have been disarmed and sitting at a base well outside of the combat zones waiting for a plane or boat back home as being involved. Of course it is always difficult to determine exact numbers as we could argue all day and night about who was involved. (Do pilots flying from carriers in the South China Sea count? How about B-52s that launched from another country?)
I have a great interest in the Vietnam War as I have a couple of cousins whose names are on the wall in DC. Also my father, both his brothers, one of his sisters, and her husband all served in and around Vietnam. Funny how nobody had any problems sending them there despite all being married and having children. I guess we didn't have the right connections. Either that or we actually believe in serving our country (or we are all mighty stupid).