Title: The costs of the Vietnam War
Headings: The costs of the Vietnam War
The costs of the Vietnam War
Contents
A 20th-century tragedy
America’s war grief
Criticisms of US policy
Shattered confidence
Suffering of veterans
‘Agent Orange’
Vietnamese losses
Post-war refugee crisis
Famine and destruction

Content: Many refugees fled Indochina in overcrowded boats, usually converted fishing boats, poorly maintained and unsuited to the open ocean. These boats were manned by fishermen unfamiliar with navigating the open sea and some even left without a specific destination in mind. From 1975 to the early 1980s, the world press was filled with horror stories about refugee boats sinking or disintegrating at sea, while thousands of refugees drowned, starved or were murdered by pirates. As many as one-quarter of these ‘boat people’ – as they became known – are believed to have perished at sea. The vast exodus of refugees from Indochina led to humanitarian camps being set up in Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia and other Asian countries. Almost two million refugees were eventually relocated to the US, Australia, Canada, France and other European countries. Famine and destruction
More than 40 years after the war, land mines still pose danger in Vietnam
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. A decade of warfare left Vietnam, particularly its northern provinces, utterly devastated. US Air Force commander Curtis Le May once threatened to “bomb [Vietnam] back to the Stone Age”, a promise that was very nearly delivered. Vietnam’s infrastructure, one of the few positive legacies of French colonialism, was left i