Things You Probably Didn't Know

[IceWizard]

About The Vietnam War




On October 22, 1957, American forces suffered their first casualties in Vietnam
when 13 Advisory Americans were wounded in three terrorist bombings



American Troops Used People Sniffers

One of the weirder tools used by the Americans during the Vietnam War was
the "people sniffer", also know as Operation Snoopy. Northern troops on the
Ho Chi Minh Trail were notoriously difficult to find, so the Americans used
sensors to detect human sweat and urine. These sensors were deployed
when troops wanted to find anyone who might be hiding. While they frequently
turned up false results, leading to attacks on civilians and cattle, they did
prove to be somewhat effective. The North Vietnamese Army eventually
learned to hang buckets of mud mixed with urine from trees to throw
off the sensors.



Americans Played Ghost Noises In The Jungle

One of the ways American troops would try to weaken North Vietnamese troops
was to scare them into thinking they were surrounded by ghosts. American troops
would play recordings that sounded like ghosts were haunting the area. This was
called Operation Wandering Soul and was based on the Vietnamese belief that
dead people needed to have a proper burial ritual or they would become
wandering ghosts. Since many bodies didn’t get proper burials during the war,
there would’ve been plenty of upset ghosts. The Americans preyed on this fear
by playing ghost noises on hidden speakers in the jungles at night.



It Wasn't Technically A "War"

It looked like a war and affected people like a war would, so the battles that took
place in Vietnam are referred to and treated as a war. At least, unofficially speaking.
In official terms, the years of fighting and death are technically a conflict and not a
war because the U.S. never officially declared war on Vietnam or any of the forces
fighting there. This meant the war was technically a conflict, though neither side
actually thought of it this way.



The Death Toll Was Almost Entirely Vietnamese

In the Vietnam War, 58,220 Americans died. By comparison, including both north and
south, approximately 2 million Vietnamese civilians died. That doesn’t even include
soldiers, which would add another approximately 1.35 million Vietnamese deaths.
That puts Americans at less than 2% of the total deaths.



It’s Called The American War in Vietnam

Wars generally have names that distinguish them from other conflicts in the same country.
The Americans refer to the war in Vietnam as the Vietnam War. For the Vietnamese,
however, the war is called the American War
(or, in full, the “War Against the Americans to Save the Nation”).