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Thanks for the work you're doing on this. I did some research also and came up with what seems to make quite a bit of sense at this site:

Casualties - US vs NVA/VC

These are updated numbers. I'll go with 1.1 million NVA and VC KIA's, and that's a far cry from the 2.5 million posted in this article. But then, numbers aren't really that important all these years later. The families of MIA's still have no idea what really happened and that is the damn shame.

Well, I've got lots of FOIA docs and letters from Congress, et al on my desk but I was hoping to find an internet source. The 1.1 million figure is NVA only. By simple extrapolation, and knowing the nature of that war, the Viet Cong dead was at least as high. That makes 2.2 million, at least. But you're right, in the end, numbers don't matter, especially for the enemy who I could still not give a d*&m about.

As for the MIA families, that is a travesty this country won't soon be able to live down. The recent revelation about Speicher from Desert Storm seemed only to be a continuation of this pathetic U.S. policy of classifying servicemember losses on the basis of political considerations rather than fact. Only now, when foreign policy towards Iraq is becoming irrlelvant, do we see any interest in finding out what happened to the guy. U.S. behavior on MIAs is so predictable. I do not agree with the reasoning that foreign policy is vulnerable to the MIA issue for one simple reason; if Vietnam did hold any POWs after Operation Homecoming, that by itself is an act of war and we should annihlate the sh&*thole. In other words, it seems to me that foreign policy should be affected by the MIA issue. There is a lot more I could say on that but that is another thread :-)

One way or the other, even if I'm ninety years old, I'm gonna find out what really happened.

I read the source. Good site. The press release it refers to is the information I was talking about. Vietnam also released even more in the months and years that followed that 1995 release. Notice in the press release that the Vietnamese Communists refer to "soldiers killed" or something to that effect. They were talking about NVA, not Viet Cong, I believe. A lot of people have read this and assumed they were talking about all Communist 'combatants'.

The Vietnamese 'government' has also inadvertently released information that shows their hand with respect to their lies about MIAs. Documents were mistakenly released that showed their complicity in the affair. It would be humorous if it weren't so serious.