Apr

14

WHEN STATISTICS ARE WRONG

Filed Under Tears of a Warrior, Vietnam Today 

by Janet J. Seahorn, Ph.D

6

Ok, I’ve been duped and I am not too happy about it. Several of what I thought were reputable websites have been taunting for years that only about 1/3  (850,000) Vietnam veterans were still living. I must it admit it was an unbelievable number which is why I checked it out with other sites to confirm. Turns out all of these sites were wrong, DEAD WRONG! 

            This weekend Tony and I received his Vietnam Veteran’s of American magazine (March/April 2011). In an article, Not Dead Yet: Mortality Rates Among Vietnam Veterans, Patrick Brady explains where the misleading statistic originated and what the real numbers are… as far as anyone can estimate. It seems the polluted numbers came from a nine-minute video originally posted on YouTube by a group called Veterans Appreciation Alliance. What makes this even crappier is the group was “seeking sponsors and contributions for its Grateful Red, White, & Blue Appreciation Tour” (Brady, p. 29 March/April 2011). This is a pretty despicable way to prey on the hearts and minds of patriotic Americans and makes me even more annoyed. The group’s various websites (yep, they had more than one to capture audiences for their fund rising), even used the Naval Health Research Center as one of its resources. The Center was totally unaware of what was occurring. By the way this particular source was one reason I thought the data was accurate.

            So where did this MYTH first originate; according to Brady it came from a phony website, The American War Museum, which seem to disseminate “much false information for reasons only its originator might know” (VVA, March/April 2011). A different site, The American War Library, appears to be run by another one man operation in California by the name of Phillip R.Coleman. Looks as if Mr. Coleman has over two dozen alias such as Otis Willie and Roger Simpson.  Yikes!

            Now, for the good news according to the Center for Disease Control: “In-country Vietnam veterans accounted for about a third of all Vietnam-era veterans, and if they were dying only slightly faster than the others (veterans serving in the military but not in Vietnam), then the 800,000 era veterans who died from 1960s through 2000 should have included fewer than 300,000 in-country veterans” (Brady, pp. 29-30, March/April 2011). What this really means is only around 325,000 to 350,000 out of 3,566,000 Vietnam veterans serving in-country have died, versus over 2.5 million. Quite a discrepancy in the number of deaths.

            Appears many of us were duped by deceitful websites using fancy patriotic names. Thanks to the excellent article by Mr. Brady, I’ve learned my lesson. I am a little wiser, a bit less trusting, and a lot more aggravated at those who try to capitalize on the goodness of others.

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