United States. A.. B.. C.. D.. E.. F.. G.. H.. A(1780 names - 239023 bytes) B(5502 names - 737972 bytes) C(4363 names - 586584 bytes) D(2790 names - 374290 bytes) E(1082 names - 144866 bytes) F(1979 names - 265759 bytes) G(3036 names - 407075 bytes) H(4463 names - 598834 bytes) I(218 names - 29278 bytes) J(1845 names - 247563 bytes) K(2039 names - 273818 bytes) L(2594 names - 347007 bytes) The Classification History (SSS Form 102) may contain: name; date of birth; classification and date of mailing notice; date of appeal to the board; date and results of armed forces physical examination; entry into active duty or civilian work in lieu of induction (may include date, branch of service entered and mode of entry, such as enlisted or ordered); date of separation from active duty or civilian work; and general remarks. The men and women who valiantly fought in the Vietnam War certainly deserve the title of hero. Army Major Dale Buis' name is etched into the granite half an inch tall, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. What will be the evolving historical judgment for those names on the Wall? Of the 7,877 officer casualties, 7,595, or 96.4 percent, were white; 147, or 1.8 percent, were black; 24, or 0.3 percent, were Asian; 7, or .08 percent, were Native American; 104, or 1.3 percent, were unidentified by race. In some instances, names needed to be shuffled in order to fit on a line. The Vietnam War was no different. W denotes the west wall, and E denotes the east wall. Library of Congress, National Archives Reference Information Page 90 A Finding Aid to Records Relating to American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from the Vietnam War Era, 1960-1994, Records on Military Personnel Who Died, Were Missing in Action or Prisoners of War as a Result of the Vietnam War, Missing Vietnam Military Resulting from Hostile Forces, Missing Vietnam Military NOT Resulting from Hostile Forces, Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972, Medal of Honor Awards Case Files, 1965 - ca. In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Training and Service Act, creating the countrys first peacetime draft and officially establishing the Selective Service System. Buis died, as did Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand, whose name is second on the wall. Additionally, many of the names on the wall were other teenagers from the suburban white collar communities with siblings who were in, or would go on to college, but who, as individuals themselves, were slow to mature, struggled through high school and were therefore very available for the Vietnam War. Kurt Buis was 8 years old the day his father died. The Channeling Memo of July 1965, instructed all local draft boards to give status deferments to college undergraduate and post-graduate students. Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. The last 18 names listed on the bottom of Panel 1, West, also at the apex, are from May 15, 1975. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a symbol of American honor and appreciation for the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives during the Vietnam War. Since then, 379 names have been added, for a total of 58,318 (as of Memorial Day 2017). Twenty years passed before Vandegeers remains were identified and another five passed before his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. The mission of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) is to honor and preserve the legacy of service and educate all generations about the impact of the Vietnam War. Please be patient site, for searching with a word processor. Concerning, How do I find a name on the Vietnam War Memorial wall? Almost 50 percent were majors, lieutenant-colonels, colonels and three were generals. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. Database of the 58,195 Names on The Wall in Wash,D.C. Full casualty records may be retrieved online through the National Archives' Access to Archival Databases resource. The essence of the Wall is the names and the reaction of the visitor to seeing his or her reflection in this sea of remembrance. In terms of national origin/ancestries, an extensive sampling of the data-base reveals that Americans of French Canadian, Polish, Italian and other Southern and Eastern European surnames made up about 10 percent of the Vietnam casualties. It was fitting that Vandegeer finally returned home to American soil, because he spent his last weeks at war evacuating Americans as Saigon fell. If your browser displays the text file, you can then use In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. It specified the geographic areas of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and surrounding coastal areas as combat zones. Forces in Southeast Asia, 1950 - 1976 NAID 745, RG, 472, Meritorious Unit Commendations, 1967 - 1971 NAID 4726287, Medal of Honor Awards Case Files, 1965 - ca. The vision of VVMF is to ensure a society in which all who have served and sacrificed in our nation's Armed Forces are properly honored and receive the recognition they justly deserve. And there would be nothing to denote service or rank. 1970 - ca. Except for the last file, there are approximately 10,000 names per file. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall Together, we can make sure our heroes will get the reverence they deserve and the stories and sacrifices of our heroes will never be forgotten. (Surprisingly, as it turned out, the percentage of Vietnam veterans who applied for the GI Bill was higher than either World War II or Korea. Though 13 were rescued at sea, the rest died, either upon impact or soon after. John Kennedy, discussing military assignments, said that, life is unfair. Of course, the Marine, Navy, and Air Force enlisted casualties were all volunteers, but as it turned out, almost 50 percent of Army enlisted casualties were also volunteers. Physical examination and test results, medical letters, laboratory work and other medical documentation that may have been included in these files no longer exist. The Marines of Morenciled some of thebest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. The major service academies and other military colleges provided close to 900 of the Vietnam officer casualties: the U.S. Military Academy, 278; the U.S. Air Force Academy, 205; the U.S. To put a circle around the symbol beside their names would not provide the correct historical context related to their situation. This, they felt, would offer these men the opportunity to get remedial training in the service and then be able to compete successfully when they returned to civilian life. The 1970 census which is being used as our Vietnam era population base did not list an Hispanic count but gave an estimate of 4.5 percent of the American population. Message & data rates may apply. No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. Thus, there were 211,455 killed and wounded, or one in every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam. The Selective Service System remains in place today. The 58,152 names of those who died in Vietnam are etched onto the two rising black marble slabs of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands as a symbol of America's honor and recognition of the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War. On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial site in Washington, D.C., a special plaque reads: "In Memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. If officers are added, then almost 70 percent of those who died were volunteers. There are the tourists who make the circuit of all the various monuments and landmarks in our nations capital. The officer corps casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. How many women soldiers died in the Vietnam War? Individual Award Case Files, 1969 - 1970. The Army as a branch had 134,982 killed or wounded (9.5 percent), but the Marines suffered 66,227 killed or wounded (22.5 percent) or almost one of every four Marines who served. More names are added to the wall every year. Certainly, some who died did come from poor and broken homes in the urban ghettos and barrios, or were from dirt-poor farm homes in the South and Midwest. Officer casualties in Vietnam, including warrant officers, numbered 7,874, or 13.5 percent of all casualties. Note the panel and line number for the name listed. the reader loses composure. Many high-ranking military men (including General William C. Westmoreland, the U.S. commander in Vietnam) opposed the program, feeling that the effectiveness of some units would be reduced and that fellow soldiers would sometimes be put in greater jeopardy by these less mentally capable personnel. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Vietnam Wall. Thus, the wars beginning and end meet. Many of them, as experienced pilots, were older (two thirds were thirty or older) and many were high ranking. Early on President Johnson, his advisers and especially the Congress, realized that if the draft was to be truly equitable and had included combat assignments in Vietnam for the sons of the educationally advantaged and influential Americans from the professional and managerial classes, then the resulting uproar would have shut down the war. Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last From 1964 to 1973, 2,100,000 men and women served in Vietnam, but this was only 8 percent of the 26,000,000 Americans who were eligible for military service. 26 Similar Questions Some common names appear on the Memorial more than once. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall USA website is dedicated to honoring those who died in the Vietnam War. The memorial is free and open to the public 24 hours a day, with rangers on duty to answer questions from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. For a photograph of an inscription of a close friend or relative, write: This website requires a paid subscription for full access. Click to learn about the In Memory program . As a region, the South experienced the greatest numbers of dead, nearly 34 percent of the total, or 31.0 deaths per 100,000 of population. peruse. But you had stories of guys in the Air Force who would die in their aircraft over Thailand after having been shot over Vietnam. Technically, they were ineligible for inclusion on the Wall. This is the genius of Mayas design, said Scruggs. Some are drawn to the Wall like pilgrims to Mecca. The first Americans to die did not perish in a foxhole or beneath stars obscured by a jungle canopy. The affected record collections are described below. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. Order it can be difficult but there are a few ways to find a name at either end of the memorial are stands with books inside these list the names in alphabetical. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. The DOD database provides no civilian or military educational levels for the Vietnam casualties specifically, but it does give us general levels for all enlisted men across all the services during the Vietnam era. It forces us to the conclusion that many of those names on the wall were kids who just couldnt quite get it together in high school, a little late in maturing intellectually, and didnt have the resources or the guile to get out of the way when the war came. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. As they came through the door, Viet Cong guerrillas opened fire with machine guns. Many others joined the reserves or National Guard, which were not mobilized in any appreciable numbers during the war. There are the still-grieving family members who come to pay respects as they would at a cemetery, to leave mementos and make chalk renderings of a loved ones name. U.S. Army Personnel and Dependent Casualties, 1961-1981 85% of the records in this database are related to the Vietnam Conflict. A doctor arrived and gave his shaken mother a sedative. If you Nursing the wounded. I respect the process, but it can be hard to prove something thats in your heart., Thats what makes it so special when you see the name going up, she added. This is the most accurate database online. The officer corps has always drawn heavily on English/Scottish/Welsh, German, Irish and Scandinavian-American ancestries from middle-class white collar homes, with other large percentages from ambitious working class blue collar and, of course, career military families. Since the days of Alexander the Great and the Roman Legions, it has always been the young, inexperienced, low-ranking enlisted man who has taken the brunt of combat casualties. The names are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty. Marlin on March 19, 1967 and Norman on August 18, 1968 Brothers Bennett and Dennis Herrick were both killed in Vietnam. The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. columns per page. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Twenty-five years later, in an interview with People magazine, he described playing with his two younger brothers as the news reached their home in Imperial Beach, California. In addition to WWII Draft Records, the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, MO maintains Post-WWII through Vietnam Era Selective Service Records, for all men born before 1960. This approach would allow veterans, friends and family members to find a loved one by his or her date of casualty. The casualty date is the date the person was killed or wounded in combat or injured during an accident; for the missing, the date is when the person was reported missing. The memorial consists of three separate parts: The Three Soldiers statue, the Vietnam Women's Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, also known as The Wall That Heals, which is the most popular feature. . A few years after the dedication, the issue of geographic criteria was expanded by DoD to include people who had been killed outside of the war zone while on or in support of direct combat missions. Interested in a tour as part of your visit? Beginning Research in United States Military Records, National Vietnam War Veterans Day - Wikepedia, National Park Service Vietnam Veterans Memorial. True enough, but many of the surviving Vietnam casualty families would reply that the ultimate unfairness is death at an early age, in a land far from home, for reasons not clearly defined. The event begins on November 7, 2022 at 3 p.m. EST and ends at midnight on November 10, 2022. Some went to Canada or Sweden, but few of those who evaded the draft were actually prosecuted and most were eventually pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). A more precise equation would be that the college bound stayed home while the non-college bound served and died. Thats a tragic 2,415 more names on the Vietnam Wall in a single month. Each entry includes a panel number and letter; "W" is for "west" or the left half of the memorial, "E" is for east, or the right half of the memorial. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. Millions more come to experience this Memorial each year. Every day, Americas service members selflessly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free. It stands near Panel 1W, which holds the name of the last to die in combat. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. the person they know. As Vietnam War Veterans Day nears March 29, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation's Wall of Faces is nearly complete but needs help from the public to track down the last few dozen photos. The individual Draft Registration Card (SSS Form 1) may contain information such as: name, Selective Service registration number, age, date and place of birth, ethnicity, place of residence at time of registration and basic physical description. But in 1966, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara decided to institute Project 100,000 that would allow category IV men to enter the military. This page was last edited on 12 December 2022, at 18:28. Several hundred such designation changes have been made since the Wall was built in 1982. For information regarding official military unit histories, contact: Air ForceU.S. The burden of combat fell on the very available non-college-bound young. In 2004, the total is 58,241 names. Our combat arms were thought to be completely classless. This can help veterans or relatives find other persons who died with You could also keep these files on a computer at your Little about it is concrete. The Reading of the Names is an in-person event where every single name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is read in order of which it appears on The Wall. 3rd Battalion. It is not surprising, for instance, that West Virginia, Montana, and Oklahoma had a casualty rate almost twice that of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. do this, be sure to have an alternate reader assigned to take over in case In the event a service members remains are returned or accounted for, then a diamond symbol is engraved over the plus sign. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. The Army suffered the most total casualties, 38,179 or 2.7 percent of its force. With this list in hand, he went to the various locations where individual service records were kept to review files. With few exceptions, almost all of the 6,600 commissioned officers who died in Vietnam were graduates of the service academies, college Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), or the Officer Candidate School (OCS) programs. information is available on this web site: These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed Another challenge was ensuring the accuracy of the names. The National Archives has an online searchable database, entitled "Records on Military Personnel Who Died, Were Missing in Action or Prisoners of War as a Result of the Vietnam War," documenting the period 6/8/1956 - 1/21/1998. This memorial was built with private contributions from the American people. Lins intention from the beginning was to have the names appear chronologically, beginning and ending at the apex. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. This year, 14 names were etched into the wall. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. There are over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Once a master list was compiled, the names were checked manually for errors. Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics, Korean War and Vietnam War casualties listed at the National Archives, Hospital Admission Card Files, ca. The draft continued from 1948, during both peacetime and war, to 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation officially ending the draft. By providing your mobile phone number, you opt in to receive calls and texts from USO. This number of deaths per 100,000 compared strikingly with the 23.5 in the Northeast region, 29.9 in the West and 28.4 in the North Central (Midwest) region. If each A correspondingly greater tradition of military service in the other regions had its effect on U.S. regional casualties. Postscript: Since 1982, there have been 89 names added to The Wall. The Vietnam Wall at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park features the names of local fallen soldiers. In this study we will refer to casualties as the 58,152 who died in Vietnam, but it should be emphasized that there were 153,303 who were wounded seriously enough to be hospitalized. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. There was no need to embellish. Army Center of Military History103 3rd AvenueFort Lesley J. McNair, DC 20319-5058Telephone: (202) 685-4042, NavyU.S. If the demographic is expanded to 17- to 21- years, then we find there were 83 percent of Marine enlisted casualties, and 65 percent of Army enlisted casualties. The VC had commandeered Air America Hueys, and they were flying them around, which simply made for a very interesting chess game. However, there have been no such cases. West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. Family members are invited to witness the inscription and also to attend the annual Memorial Day ceremony when the new names are read at the Wall. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. Once download These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last name within a given date. It would also enable veterans to find groups of friends who died during the same incident. 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. The Selective Service System it said, has the responsibility to deliver manpower to the armed forces in such a manner as to reduce to a minimum any adverse effect upon the national health, safety, interest and progress. Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. The Air Force lost the highest percentage of officers. NAVY AND AIR FORCE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. 31 sets of brothers are on the Wall. By and large, with the exception of the officer corps, most of the college bound and educated skipped the Vietnam War at the urging of, and with the approval of, their own government. The west wall is on the left when standing facing the vertex, and the east wall is to the right. It is located north of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. along Constitution Avenue NW between 21st and 23rd streets. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. All other individual draftee files from that period were destroyed by the Selective Service System in 1978, in accordance with approved records retention schedules. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. . The ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang. This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam. Copies of WWII though Vietnam era (men born April 28, 1877 to March 28, 1957) Selective Service Records may be obtained from the National Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis, for a fee. They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two They enjoyed roaring beer busts. Vandegeer was on a mission to rescue the crew of the SS Mayaguez, a merchant ship captured three days earlier off the coast of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. The Names - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund The Names When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. How many Smiths can there possibly be who died in Vietnam? November 11, 1982. The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. By his estimate, he helped pull out close to 2,000 people. I could tell you about how real the fear was that I felt, since from the time we crossed the Delta and made the run into Saigon, we were over enemy territory. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help. Chiseled on the wall are the names of the 58,196 men and women who either died or are still listed as missing in Southeast Asia between 1959 and 1975. . The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. the "save as" menu command to store each text file on your media. As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. Thus it is safe to say that Hispanic-Americans were over-represented among Vietnam casualties an estimated 5.5 percent of the dead against 4.5 percent of the 1970 population. Some recent studies tend to refute what had been the perceived wisdom of social scientists and other commentators that our Vietnam dead came overwhelmingly from the poor communities. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morencis mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands as a symbol of America's honor and recognition of the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War. I can envision a small cottage someplace, with a lot of writing paper, and a dog, and a fireplace, and maybe enough money to give myself some Irish coffee now and then and entertain my two friends , I dont think it will be too terribly long until we are together again.. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. The names are inscribed in the chronological order of their dates of casualty, showing the war as a series of individual human sacrifices and giving each name a special place in history. Early in the war (1965 and 1966) when blacks made up about 11 percent of our Vietnam force, black casualties soared to more than 20 percent of the total. The 58,152 names of those who died in Vietnam are etched onto the two rising black marble slabs of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. If the two branches are combined, then 80 percent of the Army and Marine enlisted casualties were privates or corporals, grades E-1 to E-4. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. ), EDUCATIONAL LEVELS OF ENLISTED CASUALTIES. And they are so respectful when they do the engraving. Senate. Despite their inexperience, they were thought to accept discipline readily. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. and have two columns per page, rather than only one column. And there are the Vietnam veterans, who come to recognize the sacrifice of their fellow warriors, wondering why their own names are not there, too. As we search for proper bookends to encapsulate the story of a generation at war, perhaps the best we can do is look at what is written in stone. While their names are not on The Wall, they are never forgotten. readers. Since its controversial beginnings, feelings toward the Vietnam Veterans Memorial have changed drastically. The job of cross-referencing the information of individual branches with the DoD fell to Doubek. The feeling is that the poor, the undereducated and the minorities made up the vast majority of the combat arms during that war. When the sound of exploding hand grenades rang out in the hall, Buis and others ran toward the sound. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war.