Answer to main question: It is considered one of history’s greater disasters, by many people.
@marinelife That’s one million military casualties. Civilian casualties are in addition to that, and estimates vary but many estimates (including Hanoi and Britannica) are also in the seven digits, so “millions” seems reasonable to say.
A quote from the French Press Agency from 1995 here reads, “The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 that the true civilian casualties of the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south. Military casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war. These figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North Vietnamese Communists to avoid demoralizing the population. ”
Meanwhile, this source lists details of many different sources, and the collator estimates 3.5 million total for the Vietnam war, also pointing out it started as a French colonial conflict.