Source: FrontPageMagazine.com | November 5, 2001

Black America at War

By David Horowitz

We live in an age of lies manufactured by progressives to discredit America and its promise and to do this, above all, by sowing racial and ethnic hatred - in particular by spreading destructive myths among black Americans to make them hate their own country.

One of the most widespread of these myths is that black Americans fought and died in extraordinarily high proportions in the Vietnam War relative to the rest of the population. This was ostensibly the result of American racism and is a reason given by many blacks (a leftwing minority to be sure) for why they are so ready to betray their country in the current war and line up with Osama bin Laden and his friends.

This came up the other day in an e-mail exchange with a black friend of mine. The short answer (and truth) is that the only ethnic group that died in greater numbers than their proportion in the population in the Vietnam conflict was whites.

Here are the facts:

During the Vietnam War era (draft era to be precise) blacks of military age made up 13.5 percent of the total population, but only 9.7 percent of the Vietnam era military forces were black.

88.4 percent of the men who actually served in Vietnam were white.

10.6 percent of the men who actually served in Vietnam were black.

86.3 percent of the men who died in Vietnam were white.

12.5 percent of the men who died in Vietnam were black.

86.8 percent of the men who were killed in actual battle were white.

12.1 percent of the men who were killed in actual battle were black.

In sum, while the percentage of blacks of military age was 13.5 percent of the population, they accounted for 12.1percent of the deaths in Vietnam.

The black soldiers who gave their lives for freedom in Vietnam should be honored by all of us. But we should all remember to honor the country - America - which is the only country in the world – black nations included – where an ethnic minority is guaranteed protection against being sent to be slaughtered for the color of their skin or their ethnic background.

I hereby open the pages of Notepad to all those – black and white – who have slandered this country over the death rates in Vietnam, should they wish to apologize.

Sources for these figures are based on: Department of Defense, US Casualties in Southeast "Asia by Grade and Military Service, Hostile and Non-Hostile Deaths from 1 January 1961 through 31 December 1978 by Race (unpublished).

David Horowitz is editor-in-chief of FrontPageMagazine.com and president of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture.