I recently picked up the book "The Walking Dead" that chronicles the 9th Marine division and their involvement in Vietnam. I'm very interested in reading this book as it chronicles one of the most casualty inflicted divisions in Vietnam. I'll have to let you guys know how it is and if i reccomend it!
Whoops made a mistake saying 'division' above, meant regiment but ah well. Anyways, finished this book a few days ago (now reading Rangers in WW2), and it was a pretty good book. It really gives you the mindset of the classic vietnam Marine. Very interesting account of some battles, patrols etc along with interesting information regarding the ARVN forces and the VC. I reccomend you read it if you are interested in vietnam or just Marine Corps history in general! 93% KIA that is a ridiculous statistic! They surely are the Walking Dead.
First of all the entire 9th Marines were not known as the "Walking Dead", it was 1st Battalion 9th Marines (1/9). My dad served with a Recon Unit attached to 9th Marines during this time up around Con Thien. The NVA decided they would pick a Marine Corps unit and annihilate them for propoganda purposes and 1/9 was it. 1/9 did suffer tremendous casualties but the 93% KIA rate is misleading. The 747 KIA took place over 47 months, the typical Marine Corps tour was 13 months, and the typical Marine battalion 800 men. So you have (47months/13months) for 3.615 tours x 800men=2892men serving in the battalion during the time frame. This is the minimum figure for men serving because Marines were frequently rotating in and out of the unit. 747 is 25.82% KIA not the oft quoted 93.37 percent. This too is misleading because for every KIA the Marine Corps had in Vietnam an additional 3.549 Marines were wounded. So 747 x 3.549=2651 WIA, plus the 747 KIA=3398 casualties or 117%. The Marine Corps overall had a 3.8% KIA rate and 13.2% WIA rate in Vietnam. So 1/9 did get schwacked pretty hard. Historically, 117 percent is a very high but not unheard of casualty rate, there were a number of U.S. Army Infantry Divisions that well surpassed 100 percent casualties in WWII. The 3rd, 4th, 9th, 36th and 45th were the 5 hardest hit WWII Army Divisions and collectively, averaged 176% casualties.
Oh wow, i didnt realize the statistics were like that. Really crazy stuff, i can't believe how hard 1/9 got hit, was your dad apart of the "walking dead" or just 9th in general??
