On April 30, 1975, South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam following the fall of Saigon, the South Vietnamese Capital. The war was over, and the communists had achieved their goal. Our troops served honorably in Vietnam, but ultimately it seemed too high a price to pay, given the outcome. One would think there would be more reminders of the lessons we allegedly learned in Vietnam when discussing Afghanistan, a war that is now in its 10th year (recently surpassing Vietnam) and is expected to continue until at least 2014, say our military leaders.
According to the Mobile Riverine Force Association (MRFA) http://www.mrfa.org/vnstats.htm, American troop strength reached its peak in Vietnam in April 1969 when there were 543,482 Americans in country, which of course is many times more than we've ever sent to Afghanistan. The total number of casualties in Vietnam, on both sides, were staggering, and I suspect surprising for people too young to remember this protracted, brutal conflict.
According to the MRFA, these are the total number of American Casualties:
These are the total number of Vietnamese casualties, according to www.vietnam-war.info:
