A middle-of-the-road estimate of people killed in the 20 years of the Vietnam war is about 2.5 million. A vast majority of these deaths were of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laos people. About 10% of that number were non-combatants. I was somewhat surprised to hear that only 58,000 American soldiers died in combat and noncombat situations. I don't mean to belittle their deaths, but compared to the casualties in the other ranks, it is very small. Why do you think this was?
I very much doubt the number is correct. Yes, I have also heard of 3 million deaths for the Vietnamese. However, only 10% is non-combatants? Back then there was no precision strike munition or any technology similar to that. Carpet bombing was the way. Entire villages, towns, and cities were wiped out. How is that even possible 90% of Vietnamese were combatants? Propaganda in my opinion. Of course, most of the deaths were civilians.
