Questions tagged [vietnam-war]
11 questions
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Did 20% of US soldiers in Vietnam use heroin, 95% of whom quit afterwards?
The following claims were made around 04:50 of this TED talk by Johann Hari:
20 percent of all American troops were using loads of heroin, and if you look at the news reports from the time, they were really worried, because they thought, my God,…

d-b
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Was there a diorama at the Chicago Museum of Science where children could play shooting at a Vietnamese village?
In books and interviews, Noam Chomsky recalls that during the Vietnam War a diorama of a Vietnamese village was built at the Chicago Museum of Science where "children were supposed to come and play, and shoot at the village with the …

pinpon
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Were Vietnam veterans spat on?
The idea that Vietnam veterans in the United States were spat on when they returned seems to have taken hold. It's mentioned in the movie First Blood ("Rambo"):
Then I come back to the world and I see all those maggots at the airport protesting me,…

dont_shog_me_bro
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Was superglue invented to seal bullet injuries in Vietnam?
I cut myself recently and used superglue to seal the wound. I thought it was normal but when I tell people that act like I'm crazy. Then I tell them this story:
Superglue was invented during the Vietnam war to quickly seal bullet wounds without…

Coomie
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Did more gay men die in NYC during the AIDS crisis than US soldiers in Vietnam?
This Tumblr post, which has accumulated over 3,000 notes, claims:
During the 1980s, more gay men died in New York City during the AIDS
crisis than all recorded deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam.
Wikipedia cites US News to say that the…

Phoenix
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When John McCain was shot down was his mission to bomb a civilian light bulb factory?
From RT, "Trump is right (but only on this): McCain is no war hero"
John McCain flew ground-attack aircraft from carriers in the US Navy. He was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and spent the next six years as a prisoner of the Vietnamese, whom…

Evan Carroll
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Was 19 the average age of a combat soldier in Vietnam?
The anti-war song 19 by Paul Hardcastle claims that:
In World War II the average age of the combat soldier was 26... In Vietnam he was 19.
Are these figures accurate?
I'm more interested in the claim about Vietnam, but ideally I'd like an answer…

Tom77
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Were younger people more likely to support Vietnam war than people older than 50 years old in the 60s?
Claim: “According to Gallup polls done throughout the 1960s, young and educated people (meaning college students) were far more likely to support the war than their old and educated fellow citizens. In fact, it was the over-50 crowd that opposed the…

S182
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Are there high levels of dioxin in Vietnamese coffee?
First heard this claim on TV (yeah, I know, right).
Here's a follow-up I came across online:
Agent Orange In Vietnamese Coffee
I was sent an interesting article the other day that claimed that there was
still a substantial amount of dioxin in the…

Mou某
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Was the Buddhist monk who self-immolated in protest of the Ngo Dinh Diem policies intoxicated?
I was watching Ken Burn's Vietnam War documentary.
It described Thích Quảng Đức, a Buddhist monk whose death was famously filmed after he self-immolated.
The documentary showed Madame Nhu (Trần Lệ Xuân), suggesting the monk was intoxicated at the…

Sidney
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Did more Vietnam vets kill themselves after the war than died in it?
In his song 'Terrorist' the artist Lowkey asserts:
When more Vietnam vets kill themselves
After the war than died in it?
Is this true?

George Grainger
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