Shall We Play A Game?????

I always got a kick out of hearing the computer Joshua say that....

Hopefully all who have read my previous post in this Discussion area have came to the understanding that Myth-Conceptions is nothing more then a play on the word Misconceptions. This is a process where a honest mistake in understanding can eventually take on near mythical proportions.

Survival is really very simple, but two (2) elements are required to be successful, and that is a proper mental attitude and knowledge. The mental attitude aspect is realitive simple, either you have it or you do not.

Knowledge is not that cut and dried. It's much more then having a serious working knowledge of your Survival Checklist, and how to use all the parts and pieces of it. Now my Survival Hints will continue as nothing more then options or reviews of that checklist system. Hopefully I will keep them short and sweet. They are not intended too compete with anyone elses thinking, just provide information and options.

And if my writing at times seems convoluted to some, so be it. Knowledge comes from expanding the mind and searching for a kernal of reason. So in some cases I shall make you work for it.

Now, for the game. And we will keep it simple for the first go around.

"How many people did we lose in Viet Nam due to Enemy Action?"

 

Certainly the question is fuzzy......then again, it is as clear as a crystal bell. A Purple Heart can only be awarded to an individual for wounds/injuries resulting from enemy action.

But the official records will also refer to this situation as Hostile Deaths.

Does that muddy up things even more?

 

Thats not exactly correct. You must be medivacted back past the BAS. If you recive a cut from an enemy knife and were suttered at the BAS or by a line Corpsman then returned to the line. No Purple Heart would be awarded.

OGM

 

OGM.......if that is the case... does that mean I have to return one of mine? Shessssh.... I'm gonna hate to call my brother-in-law and tell him he needs to return at least one of his 3.

Ok... that sounds like I'm picking on you, and I apopogize if it seems so, but if someone told you that when you earned a Purple Heart in order not to process the paperwork, go find the lazy SOB and kick his ass.

http://www.usmcvta.org/pheart/phcriteria.htm

 

Damn.....my original reply went off into the ether version of Never-NeverLand.

"the question is too broad to permit an answer." Not in survival it isn't. The concept of survival is neatly packaged but the details can get more convoluted then finding your wife and mistress having coffee, discussing your sexual proclivities.

OK.. try this out for size:

To lose a man means he is KIA. To have a man whose where abouts are unknown is MIA. so....how many people did we lose in Combat.

 

I was just stating the regs. as I remmeber them. They might have changed since I've been out. But that is what I remmeber it being. The link you have comes from a reg that looks like it was written in 95, I got out in 1994.

OGM

 

OGM..... you are absolutly correct concerning the reg being rewritten. They seat polishers in DC do that way too often at times. Change it one way then a few years later change them another way, then after a few years change it back, so on and so forth.

I have a cousin who was at Phu Bai during TET 68, who is a tad po'd at me cause he still has a piece of sharpnel in his hand yet was never awarded a Purple Heart for it. Such is life.

I didn't write the regs, but was often the victim of them.

Thanks for the bump on the subject. That is how information is exchanged.

 

On this Memorial Day, hopefully all are remembering those that gave all in the name of Freedom.

Now as far as answering the question I posed to the readers, the answer is not the 58, 479 men and women that is most often quoted all over the world. Please take note that I have not adjusted the original figures to account for the two (2) individuals who were mistakenly placed on the wall, nor added the individuals who were recently added to the Wall because their deaths were directly related to wounds suffered so many years ago.

And to complicate matters even more, not all died in North or South Viet Nam. The figures include those killed in Laos, Cambodia and China.

They are classified as Hostile and Non-Hostile Deaths. Hostile Deaths include four (4) major categories. Killed on the Battlefield. Died of their Wounds. Died while Missing. Died while Captured. And those figures only total 47,252.

Yes, I know, dead is dead. But how they died is often as important as the fact they are dead. Such as only 18,452 died from Gunshot or Small Arms Fire.

And the purpose of this exercise?

Knowledge. Proper Intelligence. Those are the key to survival. Accepting a single source, even mine is only for the individual who wants to be told what and how to do something. And if anyone wishes to research this further and correct my figures, please feel free to do so, because my source comes directly from a handout dated May 1987, when I first visited the Wall. Please just provide your source.

Research, multiple sources of information, to include that which is in total difference to your beliefs can mean the difference in survival in a worst case scenario.

And to add insult to injury, 841 deaths were classified as Accidental Self-Destruction. Which means they were doing something they should not have been doing without the proper knowledge or training.

So ends this thread.

 

That's about 30 percent, my guess was going to be 40 %.

 

ghrit......I see where your fuzziness comes from. You read into it more then what was there. Any suicide that occurred either in the civilian world or military envirnoment outside of SouthEast Asia, for whatever reason is not considered in the numbers.

And to clarify that aspect, there were 381 suicides listed for that conflict.

Also, it does not take into consideration those that committed suicide years after the war was over due to a varity of reasons. Such as a highly decorated Marine Staff Sergeant, who dress in his Blues, stood in the middle of darkened railroad tracks East of Barstow, California and was struck by an Express train heading for Needles.

As I alluded too earlier, the details of survival are never really simple, but they are not rocket science either.