Costs of the War

• US financial costs

  • $170billion cost, over $1trillion in today's money
  • Not including war pensions and widows benefits that doubled the cost of war
  • 'war on poverty', all money diverted to war
• Vietnam financial costs

  • Not much spent
  • Country was made poorer however
  • Starvation
• Environmental costs

  • 1969- Us destroyed 1 million hectares of land
  • Cancer common due to chemicals like agent orange
  • Children today still suffer from chemical damage
  • Most heavily bombed country in history
  • 7million tonnes of bombs dropped
  • Roads destroyed
• Human costs USA

  • 58,000 soldiers killed, the average age being 23
  • 300,000 wounded
  • Negative reaction on return to USA
  • Psychological impacts huge, drug use to cope
• Human costs Vietnam

  • Estimated 1 million deaths and 2 million wounded soldiers
  • Estimated 2 million deaths and 5 million wounded civilians
  • 11 million refugees, temporary houses near US bases, turned to drugs and prostitution
• Reputation USA

  • Credibility destroyed, public doesn't trust gov
  • Abroad no one sees USA as the 'land of the free'
  • USA could not contain communism and actually made it grow
  • Communism did not spread to other countries like Thailand, shows domino theory is false
• Reputation Vietnam

  • Still hostility
  • Ford opposed Vietnam joining United Nations
• Children in Vietnam

  • 100,000 children born to Vietnamese mums and US dads
  • 1975- Operation Baby Lift- 3000 flown to US and adopted worldwide
  • Lots left behind- abused and neglected