The Nightmare of Vietnam

The Vietnam war was a war very different from the others. Some have called it

pointless, and some have even condemned soldiers who served, brave men. Obviously those

who point a bitter finger have no idea what these men had to live through, day after soul

shattering day. Though they may have been warned about the conditions of war and had

trained for it, none were truly for what the would find in that beautiful war-torn land.

Many of the soldiers were not used to being in a foreign country, first of all. That

alone is scary on top of being millions of miles away from your family and loved ones. The

average age of an infantryman was 22 years old. Therefore it is a myth that most were 19. In

fact, None of the enlisted grades have an average age of less than 20 years old and there were

only five men killed in the war that were only 16 years old. 11,465 KIAs were less than

twenty years old. Either way, these were still young men, and this war in particular was

brutal. W.W.II saw around 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in

Vietnam saw about 240 days of combat in one year due to the mobility of the helicopter. One

out of every ten Americans who served in Vietnam was a casualty. The death count was

58,169 with 304,000 wounded out of the 2.59 million who served. Still, even though the

percent of death was similar to that of other wars, amputations or crippling wounds were 300

percent higher than W.W.II. 75,00 veterans are now severely disabled. Along with the

contemporary war weapons there were land mines. One could simply walk about a field and

have their leg blown off. . The men there were either half crazy or completely immoralized

by the terror they saw everyday. Some American troops were even tried for the execution of

innocent Vietnamese citizens They sat and watched friends and acquaintances get blown to

pieces knowing that just a couple of hours ago they were sitting around laughing together and

wondering if they would be next to go.