Killed in and after Action: The Long-lasting Effects of Combat Exposure on Mortality

Abstract

This study examines long-term mortality effects of combat exposure using the Vietnam War draft lottery as a quasi-experiment. We validate the lottery by analyzing combat fatalities, revealing that 1951-1952 cohorts had notably fewer lottery-induced deployments than 1950, limiting detectable long-term mortality impacts at the cohort level. Using deceased-only datasets, we invert standard identification by modeling draft eligibility as the outcome. We find significant excess mortality among Black men in the 1950 cohort (1.09\%, approximately 2,700 additional deaths), and null effects in later cohorts. Findings suggest that pooling cohorts with limited combat exposure may prevent detection of true treatment effects at cohort levels.