It would take years to recover. Three alternative cost estimates are also summarized in this section. The Congress has done no better. Total estimates of the cost through FY2018 have been made earlier. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. What does human cost mean? - Definitions.net an estimated 25,000 American servicemen and 757,143 Vietnamese dead. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser. Between three million and five million people were also disabled, disfigured or seriously wounded. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. those where some times helped by the VC but the VC attacked ares around the mekondelta and around the borders of laos and cambodia. $65.7 billion in FY2016 total budget authority and $41.2 billion in adjusted budget authority. Bombarded by horrific images of the war on their televisions, Americans on the home front turned against the war as well: In October 1967, some 35,000 demonstrators staged a massive Vietnam War protest outside the Pentagon. The final charts summarize the FY2018 budget submission data for the OCO accounts in the detail provided by the DoD budget summary. The end result in both countries was a resurgence in threat capabilities that forced the U.S. to redeploygreatly increasing the marginal cost of the war. The latter report, Another report by Lynn M. Williams and Susan B. Epstein, The GAO has examined the way in which the Department of Defense includes and does not include the cost of war in the OCO account. For the last several decades, there has been little real effort to examine the costs of key missions and strategic commitments and the longer term trends in force planning and cost. It gives the Greeks a The nation grew to distrust its leaders as a result of governmental deceit, and Americans with differing views of the war were distrustful of and hostile to one another. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Yet, the theory of human capi-tal has been applied widely, as for example in estimating the costs of illness or injury.1 In 1931, J. Clark estimated the cost of death and disability resulting from the First World War [2]. Would have Kennedy have done equally as bad or worse had he had the chance? Everyone had made mistakes, in any situation I don't think it could've gone "better". In 2016, Vietnam's GDP growth was 6.2%, driven by export-oriented manufacturing and robust domestic demand. More than 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam, and more than 150,000 were wounded. The war had pierced the myth of American invincibility and had bitterly divided the nation. By nearly every metric, the Vietnam War was, in the common sense of the word, a war. See the Vietnam War unfold through the gripping firsthand accounts of 13 brave men and women forever changed by their experiences. The physical devastation of the war, coupled with the socialist policies imposed by new regimes, caused years of famine and suffering in south-east Asia. The United States lost almost 60,000 personnel and civilians in Vietnam: 58,269 servicemen were killed and another 1,672 recorded as missing. Summary: Between 1945 and 1954, the Vietnamese waged an anti-colonial war against France, which received $2.6 billion in financial support from the United States. After the My Lai Massacre, anti-war protests continued to build as the conflict wore on. The true figures, however, are probably much higher. US Air Force commander Curtis Le May once threatened to bomb [Vietnam] back to the Stone Age, a promise that was very nearly delivered. Even if one uses the higher estimate of military spending used by Todd Harrison, the total is now under 6.0%. Vietnam War - Digital History According to a survey by the Veterans Administration, some 500,000 of the 3 million troops who served in Vietnam suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction were markedly higher among veterans. Political turbulence there and two alleged North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels spurred Johnson to demand the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. The American death toll in Vietnam is dwarfed by the devastating losses suffered by local people. 1. Even today, there are an estimated five million pieces of unexploded ordnance still scattered around Vietnam. People were killed during the war. See Media Page for more interview, contact, and citation details. At the time of Vietnam there was also a large student population that resisted being sent as well as a draft. Estimated interest costs by 2050: Up to $6.5 trillion. The memorial, located near the western end of the Mall, is a black granite V-shaped wall inscribed with the names of the approximately 58,000 men and women who were killed or missing in action. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands as a symbol of America's honor and recognition of the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War. As many as one-quarter of these boat people as they became known are believed to have perished at sea. The United States pays $22 billion per year in war compensations to Vietnam veterans and their families. Total personnel are another key measure of the cost of war, particularly when high-cost all-volunteer forces are involved, and casualties are a key political consideration. Some war fighting and support costs are not included in the OCO request. The size of U.S. military spending is difficult to estimate in comparable terms. While the number of American deaths was well documented, neither the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese or the NLF (Viet Cong) kept stringent records about personnel or losses. Which best describes the cost of the Vietnam War in human terms? What were some human costs of the Vietnam War? Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson With training and equipment from American military and the CIA, Diems security forces cracked down on Viet Minh sympathizers in the south, whom he derisively called Viet Cong (or Vietnamese Communist), arresting some 100,000 people, many of whom were brutally tortured and executed. Vietnam was the first significant military defeat in US history and would shape American foreign policy for several years. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. The Department of Defense's OCO costs of the Afghan conflict since FY2001 will rise to $840.7 billionif the President's FY2018 budget request is met. Given the estimates that the real costs are already well over $4 trillion, these multipliers would be more than doubled if any of the alternative war costs cited earlier are correct. Failing to address casualties does not defuse the issues they raise or the reality that they too are a cost of war. Summary This CRS report provides estimates of the costs of major U.S. wars from the American Revolution through current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.