Military Ratio of Participation

The Wars

© 2005 Roger W Hancock www.PoetPatriot.com

  
Military Ratio

     The "Ratio" is percent (%) of people under arms. The advent of the Industrial Revolution causes some skewing. The Revolutionary war was fought before the Industrial Revolution. The impact of the Civil War came after it was fought.

      The "Served" figures are personnel maintained in the service, the numbers among the wars prior to 1900 may lack integrity

     The figures for the wars prior to 1945, also include a substantial number of military forces that were securing other global commitments.

     Prior to the Civil War the population base figures may, or may not, have included Blacks who were held as slaves.  The population of  enslaved Blacks were included in the base for the Civil War statistics.  Of course, after emancipation all people were included in the population count.

> And Counting - 2006 Months Project to June.
© 2005 Roger W Hancock www.PoetPatriot.com  .

     The Financial Costs Chart compares the current dollar "of the time" with the 2005 dollar. As only a rough guide, it does give an idea of relative costs of the eleven wars on an adjusted basis. Keep in mind the large change in social structure; i.e.: 1776 Farmers used little money, women entered the work force during WWII and the fact that Americans are much more affluent today.
     Pension costs are not included as also the damage to the infrastructure during the wars on American soil.  The Confederate figures are estimated.
     The Gulf War ultimately cost the American taxpayer less than the $61 billion expended, as many nations of the allied coalition reimbursed 88%, $54 billion, of the $61 billion shown, leaving the actual cost to the U.S. of nearly $7 billion. At only $23.66 per American citizen it is one of the least expensive American Wars.

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    Due to various methods used to record information the figures shown in the tables for POW - MIA are ball-park figures to give a general Idea of what the actual statistic is. The more recent figures tend to be, of course, more accurate. More specific details can be found at Congressional Research Service.

Vietnam War POWs & MIAs

     In the two months required by the Vietnam War peace treaty (January 27, 1973 the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (South Vietnamese Communist; also called the "National Liberation Front") released 591 American POWs. 67 American civilians (not a part of the official unaccounted) were trapped, or stayed voluntarily after April, 1975 when South Vietnam fell. The civilians were released by late 1976. Since 1976, Americans still imprisoned were Naturalized Americans of Vietnamese birth or ancestry and were mostly held on criminal offences, some "political" crimes as defined by the Vietnamese Authorities. Only one member of the U.S. Military has returned alive, from Vietnam since 1973.
     Marine Corps PFC Robert Garwood listed as POW by the U.S., but not by the Vietnamese, returned voluntarily to the U.S. in 1979 and was convicted of collaboration with the enemy receiving a sentence that did not include prison time.
     2.583 military personnel remained unaccounted, after the return of 591 POWs in 1973. Since the end of the war in January, 1973, 734 identified remains have been returned from: Vietnam, 511; Laos, 192; Cambodia, 28; and China, 3. The Department of Defense has been actively seeking the recovery of 1,186 remains. The DOD expects that it will be unable to recover the remains of 663 which include the 468 men lost over water and crewmen of aircraft that was witnessed by both Americans and Vietnamese to have exploded without signs of ejection.

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                                              Explanations

Not all figures are available for all wars. Attempts to recover were not as diligent as they became during the Korean War.
Names are shifted to new status as new information becomes available.

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    The Director of the DOD Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO), also serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs (DASD POW/MIA) oversees the direction and control of DOD POW/MIA matters. The Indochina activities are under DOD's Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA). The task force maintains the files on POW/MIAs conducting interviews and research in Indochina. The U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CIL-HI) has the job to identify remains from around the world. Established separate from the DPMO, at Congressional direction the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has its own POW/MIA intelligence organization.
     The ongoing investigations examine information from refugees, other contacts, and assets or physical evidence such as "dog tags," photographs, and debris of aircraft or other equipment. Communication intel. and aerial reconnaissance as well as open sources are also used investigating leads of sightings or other word of POW/MIAs.  22,519 reports concerning Americans in Southeast Asia had been received by the U.S. between April 1975 and September 23, 2004. Of those there were 1,956 alleged first-hand sightings with most being resolved as many had already been accounted for. A little less than one third were determined to have been fabricated. A scant 45 related to incidences that occurred and resolved during the war prior to 1975. The focus remained on 14 sightings of Americans with 13 captive and one non-captive. Of those 11 were reported to have occurred between 1973 and 1976; two between 1976 and 1980; and one occurring since 2000.
     Access to aircraft crash sites, Vietnamese records, Vietnamese civilians has greatly increased since 1971 allowing the permanent presence of U.S. military and civilian personnel to investigate POW/MIA reports. From September 1991 throught September 2004 the status of 422 MIAs have been resolved. Duplicate information found, and information already in U.S. hands or that pertain to cases already resolved as well as a "Vietnamese Government disinformation program," has made the investigations a formidable task.

More information on POW/MIAs can be found at Congressional Research Service.