One‐Third of Americans Killed In Vietnam War Are Draftees (Published 1970) (2024)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11—The war in Vietnam has claimed more than 12,000 deaths among draftees, most of them in the army, the Pentagon said today.

This means that about one of every 104 draftees from June, 1965, the beginning of the Vietnam build‐up, to June, 1969, was killed in action.

Figures made public by the Defense Department show that roughly 33 per cent of Amer icans killed in combat were draftees.

In the army, which has shouldered the burden of the ground fighting, one out of every two soldiers who have died in combat have been draftees, even though draftees comprise only 40 per cent of the Army forces in Vietnam. The figure suggests that draftees are more likely than volunteers to be in combat as infantry riflemen.

The figures were made avail able in response to newsmen's questions about an article that appeared in last Sunday's issue of The New York Times Maga zine. The article said that, as the war lengthens, more and more draftees are being turned into infantrymen—“grunts” in military slang—and are conse quently forced to share and carry out a larger part of the fighting.

A spokesman of the Defense Department denied that there was a deliberate policy of send ing more draftees into infantry positions. But army officials said that the process of selec tion, which allows volunteers to choose their type of work, was unfavorable to draftees.

The Pentagon's response to the question about combat deaths by draftees showed that as of June 30, 1969, 11,946 out of 36,954 Americans killed in action were draftees. Of the total deaths, 23,366 were in the army, and 11,322 were army draftees.

The 520 other draftee deaths were in the Marine Corps. Pen tagon officials said. They said about 5 per cent of the Marines were draftees.

The latest figures show that 12,692 draftees had been killed as of Sept. 30, 1969. During a selected period between March and September of last year, a total of 2,074 inductees were killed by hostile action in Viet nam, a rate of 297 per month. This is a significantly higher monthly rate than the one for the four‐year period from June, 1965 to June, 1969, which is about 249 draftee deaths per month.