<P> Between 1953 and 1975, the United States spent $168 billion on the war ($1.02 trillion in FY2015 dollars). This resulted in a large federal budget deficit . </P> <P> More than 3 million Americans served in the Vietnam War, some 1.5 million of whom actually saw combat in Vietnam . James E. Westheider wrote that "At the height of American involvement in 1968, for example, there were 543,000 American military personnel in Vietnam, but only 80,000 were considered combat troops ." Conscription in the United States had been controlled by the president since World War II, but ended in 1973 . </P> <P> By war's end, 58,220 American soldiers had been killed, more than 150,000 had been wounded, and at least 21,000 had been permanently disabled . The average age of the U.S. troops killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years . According to Dale Kueter, "Of those killed in combat, 86.3 percent were white, 12.5 percent were black and the remainder from other races ." Approximately 830,000 Vietnam veterans suffered some degree of posttraumatic stress disorder . An estimated 125,000 Americans left for Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, and approximately 50,000 American servicemen deserted . In 1977, United States president Jimmy Carter granted a full and unconditional pardon to all Vietnam - era draft dodgers . The Vietnam War POW / MIA issue, concerning the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action, persisted for many years after the war's conclusion . The costs of the war loom large in American popular consciousness; a 1990 poll showed that the public incorrectly believed that more Americans lost their lives in Vietnam than in World War II . </P> <P> As of 2013, the U.S. government is paying Vietnam veterans and their families or survivors more than $22 billion a year in war - related claims . </P>

When did vietnam war start and end for the us