The War: Over the 30,000 Mark

In one 24-hour period last week, 31 U.S. fighting men died in Viet Nam. Among them were 16 Marines helping to mop up a trapped enemy unit below Danang and one infantryman in a patrol that was ambushed 40 miles north of Saigon. One of the 31, impossible to single out, became the 30,000th American to be killed in action in Viet Nam since the grisly log was begun on Jan. 1, 1961. Almost half of the total (14,400) died this year, many in the three major offensives launched by the Communists since the Tet holiday on Jan. 30.

Already the longest war ever fought by the U.S., Viet Nam now ranks as its fifth costliest (after World War II, with 291,557 battle deaths; the Civil War, with 220,938; World War I, with 53,402; and Korea, with 33,629). With the killed-in-action rate running at roughly 200 per week, Viet Nam should move past Korea into fourth place some time this spring—unless the negotiators in Paris make dramatic progress. The war has been far more expensive for native combatants. South Viet Nam has suffered 73,118 military dead in the past eight years. The Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, according to an Allied estimate based on sometimes undependable body counts, have lost 422,979 dead since 1961.