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Old Thu Apr 14, 2016, 05:58 PM
bailie bailie is offline
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Continued from the article above ...

Reaching a comparable estimate for the Vietnam theater, the VA Office of Environmental Epidemiology keeps an incomplete list of 3,056,000 Vietnam theater veterans, and counts 349,000 theater veteran deaths through 2001, a count the Office considers 95 percent complete. If four out of five theater veterans served in country and if they were dying only slightly faster than other veterans, then the 349,000 theater deaths should have included 280,000 to 300,000 in country veteran deaths through 2001, an estimate in line with the CDC and Census figures through 2000.

The VA’s Veteran Population Model for 2007 estimates that 8,448,000 Vietnam-era (1964-75) veterans were living in 2000, and 7,526,000 living on September 30, 2010. While 47,000 leaving the military joined the ranks of Vietnam-era veterans during the decade, 969,000 deaths thinned those ranks. Again, if a third of era veterans were in-country veterans who were dying only slightly faster than other veterans through 2000, they should account for 325,000 to 350,000 of the 969,000 Vietnam-era deaths from 2000 to 2010, unless their mortality rate skyrocketed far above the rate for other veterans after 2000.

There is no evidence that it did, and some that it did not. A Current Population Survey by the Census Bureau for August 2009 estimated 7,183,000 living Vietnam-era veterans, including 3,566,000 living Vietnam theater veterans. Compared to other estimates, the era figure seems low, while the theater figure seems high, but the high number may cover a longer period—1961 to 1975—and may reflect inflated self-reporting of Vietnam service. But even allowing for such complications, the survey weighs against any soaring death rate for in-country Vietnam veterans. If three million or more theater veterans are alive, and four out of five of them are in-country veterans, then 2.4 million or more in-country Vietnam veterans should still live, triple the 800,000 rumored on the Internet.

Origins Of A Myth

So, thank God, most in-country veterans are not dead yet. But who started the story that they were? Doomsday dirges do not need footnotes, but mortality statistics do, and the sources cited for these Internet numbers are few and mystifying. One of them, “the Public Information Office,” likely leads to the American War Library. As one blogger warned: “The false number of 850,000 originates from the phony website of the American War Museum, which disseminates much false information for reasons only its manager (it is a one-man operation) might know.”

The blogger misidentified the site. Otis Willie and Roger Simpson of the Public Information Office of the American War Library (not Museum) disseminated the number in a June 7, 2009, posting on alt.genealogy: “The official estimate of Vietnam War ‘survivors’ as of 25May2009 is 831,000.The number of Americans who served in Vietnam between 1945 and 1975 is 3.2 mil. To 2. 7 mil. 2.7 mil. Is the number counted by DoD in 1984 when producing ‘The Vietnam War Service Index.’” While most cyberspace chats have rounded off the number of living Vietnam veterans to 800,000 or 850,000, the American War Library’s more precise number is echoed in a posting by “Still here” on Veterans Benefits Network that regrets “there are only 831,000 of our brothers/ sisters still alive.”

Calling itself “The World’s Largest On-Line Military, Veteran and Military Family Registry,” the American War Library asks: “If you are a Vietnam vet, have you verified that your name is listed in the Department of Defense’s Official Vietnam Veteran War Service Index?” This “official” index, the same one cited in the Library’s posting about 831,000 survivors, is often cited on the Internet as “officially provided by the War Library.” As far as I can tell, this Index is nowhere to be found.

The American War Library seems to be a home business run by Phillip R. Coleman in Gardena, California. Various web postings have warned that “Roger Simpson” and “Otis Willie” are two of dozens of names used by Coleman; that the Library solicits personal information from veterans but does not provide free information about veterans; and that the Library and its many related websites post myriad military stories to attract attention and gain legitimacy. For examples of the warnings, Google “American War Library–exposed” or “American War Library scam,” or seewww.armchairgeneral.com/ forums/showthread.php?t=96622

Statistics are hard enough without phony numbers thrown in. But in the available statistics, we find no evidence that the number of living in-country Vietnam veterans is only 800,000, and strong evidence that it is much higher. Again, by my own amateur extrapolations, fewer than 300,000 in-country veterans likely died before 2000, and a slightly larger number since, adding up to 600,000 or more dead, leaving two million or more alive. So if you’re a Vietnam veteran reading this, how does it feel to stand with the three out of four who are still here and mean to stay for a while?

For information used in this article, I thank Mike Wells of the VA Office of Policy and Planning, National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, and James Messinger, the treasurer of the National Vietnam War Museum.
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