Is there a approx. age expectancy of a solider in Vietnam?

[southernleftylady]

my sister said that she heard it was like 17 or 18 days.. which seems VERY short to me but i was wondering if there was a # floating around about this
tia

[Worst Username Ever]

1. The average age of the soldiers serving in Vietnam was

19. That was NOT life expectancy, just the average age of service. Only about 10-15% of the soldiers saw really hard combat, I am not sure what their life expectancy was...

[depakid]

2. The stats on that would be misleading

Your sister probably heard someone who calculated one of the "averages" (mean, median or mode) from kids in combat units on their first tour.

Back in the 80's, there was a song about the average age of kids who died there- claiming it was 19. Not sure about that either, but it was a good song and made its point.

[southernleftylady]

3. LOL thats what she said.. she heard it in a song lol so its just a song

she really is getting into politics lately (she voted nadar and said that hell would have to freeze over for her to do that again) so i just would like to answer the questions she gives me to help her out :)