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Abstract: This study explores the question of proportionality of American military deaths during the Vietnam War in terms of patterns of social stratification and ethnic mobilization. In particular, this study divides the war into two phases according to military goal: a victory phase and a withdrawal phase. Several hypotheses are tested by phase of war and indicate several important findings. First, deaths among draftees increase as the phase of war shifts from an emphasis on victory to an emphasis on withdrawal. Second, death rates among Hispanic draftees are significantly higher than death rates among other ethnic group draftees throughout the course of the whole war. Third, black servicemen die disproportionately to their to their overall death rate for the whole war in the victory phase of the war and Hispanic servicemen die disproportionately to their overall death rate for the whole war in the withdrawal phase of the war. Fourth, black and Hispanic servicemen come from less affluent communities than do white servicemen. Race, ethnicity, and social class intertwine in the saga of deaths in the Vietnam War.
Keywords: Vietnam war; death rates; race; ethnicity
Military historians have long taken the view that armies closely reflect the cultural and social structures of the nations that sustain them (Hastings, 2004; Keegan, 1993; Glenn, 2000; Myerly, 1996; Hanson, 1989). This analysis focuses on a small aspect of that view. In this paper we argue that the numbers of American deaths suffered during the Vietnam War strongly reflect American social stratification and ethnic mobilization and that during that era the unequal life chances of American society, at different points in time, exacted a heavier cost among certain groups than others (Dahrendorf, 1979).
We believe that a soldier's risk of death in the Vietnam War was not entirely random, but rather depended on the characteristics of the individual soldier, the changes in strategic military goals, and political mobilization during the course of the war. Much of prior research has focused on hypotheses concerning discrimination and the role of race and class as predictors of combat-related assignments, combat exposure, and, by implication, military deaths. This research contributes to the discussion of the role of class, race, ethnicity, political mobilization, and American deaths in the Vietnam War. We consider two...