Veteran's Day memories of Vietnam new video

VIETNAM WAR STATISTICS IN UNIFORM AND IN COUNTRY...
Vietnam Vets: 9.7% of their generation.
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the Vietnam Era (Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975).
8,744,000 GIs were on active duty during the war (Aug 5, 1964 - March 28, 1973).
3,403,100 (Including 514,300 offshore) personnel served in the Southeast Asia Theater (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, flight crews based in Thailand, and sailors in adjacent South China Sea waters).
2,594,000 personnel served within the borders of South Vietnam (Jan. 1, 1965 - March 28, 1973)
Another 50,000 men served in Vietnam between 1960 and 1964.
Of the 2.6 million, between 1 - 1.6 million (40 - 60%) either fought in combat, provided close support or were at least fairly regularly exposed to enemy attack.
7,484 women (6,250 or 83.5% were nurses) served in Vietnam.
Peak troop strength in Vietnam: 543,482 (April 30, 1968)
CASUALTIES...
Hostile deaths: 47,378
Non-hostile deaths: 10,800
Total: 58,202 (Includes men formerly classified as MIA and Mayaguez casualties). Men who have subsequently died of wounds account for the changing total.
8 nurses died -- 1 was KIA.
Married men killed: 17,539
61% of the men killed were 21 or younger.
Highest state death rate: West Virginia - 84.1% (national average 58.9% for every 100,000 males in 1970).
Wounded: 303,704 -- 153,329 hospitalized + 150,375 injured requiring no hospital care.
Severely disabled: 75,000 -- 23,214 - 100% disabled; 5,283 lost limbs; 1,081 sustained multiple amputations.
Amputation or crippling wounds to the lower extremities were 300% higher than in WWII and 70% higher than Korea. Multiple amputations occurred at the rate of 18.4% compared to 5.7% in WWII.
Missing in Action: 2,338
POWs: 766 (114 died in captivity)
go here for more
http://history-world.org/vietnam_war_statistics.htm

1.7 million have served in Afghanistan and Iraq so far. 1.6 million were in what was considered combat areas of Vietnam. When you think about the military operations going on today, it is stunning to know the amounts Vietnam produced and how long it went on.

The new video I did has pictures of Bringing Home The Wall built by Tom Twigg and his wife Dee, loving reconstructed in Lakeland Florida in 2006 by member of Rolling Thunder. The songs came from God Bless the USA cd, Some Gave All by Billy Ray Cyrus and 8th of November by Big & Rich. The video is not about PTSD or the wounds they carry but about how they live as veterans everyday, still caring and still grieving the loss of friends. Look to the top of the side bar from this video. It will stay at the top until after Veteran's Day.

To me, the Vietnam veterans are the greatest generation because they did not do what other veterans had done. They did not settle for excuses from the VA when it came to the wounds of combat. They fought to have their chemical exposures treated and are still fighting to have all veterans exposed to dangerous chemicals treated properly. They fought to have PTSD treated and compensated, a wound all mankind has suffered from since the beginning of time. The advances in the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD are there for the new veterans because they fought for it. They have a motto that never again will one generation leave behind another. This, they have lived up to.

We forget about the price they paid for serving the country and we forget about how many still do. What Vietnam produced was stunning and very telling about what today's veterans will experience. By 1976 when the DAV produced a study, there were 500,000 with PTSD and the rate was expected to increase, which it did. By 1986, 117,000 had committed suicide, more followed. Over 300,000 ended up homeless. Many ended up in prison because of undiagnosed and untreated PTSD, self-medicating with drugs and alcohol as well as domestic violence, all characteristic of PTSD. The newer veterans will not have to go through years of being treated like criminals for this wound because of them.

We have a lot more work to do to take care of all our veterans but we are as far as we've come because of them. One more glaring fact is that the Vietnam veterans taught this country a lesson on how we view those who serve it. Never again will the people of this nation take out their anger at what politicians decide to do on the men and women who serve. We all acknowledge that the men and women serving this country were willing to lay down their lives for the sake of this nation and we respect that and honor them. We will never all agree on where they are sent but we all agree that they are not a political issue but an obligation.

So this video is a tribute to them. They captured my heart 26 years ago and have tugged at my soul ever since I fell in love with one of them and adopted all of them.

Happy Veteran's Day to all veterans, old and young, especially the Vietnam veterans.

Senior Chaplain Kathie Costos

International Fellowship of Chaplains

Namguardianangel@aol.com

http://www.namguardianangel.org/

http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington


Nam Nights Of PTSD Still from Kathleen "Costos" DiCesare on Vimeo.