Vietnam Wall in Terms of Vietnamese Deaths

A quick algebra problem for Veterans Day. Feel free to correct my math or dispute my numbers.

The Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C. catalogs the names of 58,260 Americans who died during the Vietnam War. The wall stretches an ominous 246 feet 9 inches, (2961 inches) which I had the opportunity to walk when we visited D.C. a few years back.

In adding up the average death calculations for Vietnamese soldiers and civilians I come up with about 1,255,000 dead. I do believe that would be a conservative estimate.

So....

2961 inches divided by 58,260 names gives us about .05 names per inch of wall.

So if the wall documented Vietnamese names instead of Americans we would take 1,255,000 million dead multiplied by our .05 names per inch gives us about 62750 inches of wall.

Or about 5229 feet.



Or about one very solemn mile.

Next four years.....

...same as the last.