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. It gives the names in alphabetical order and . While their names are not on The Wall, they are never forgotten. The civilian and military men who formed the policy did not see it necessarily as a disadvantage. United States. Search the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s database of names on the wall. 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. VVMF does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. name within a given date. The Army suffered the most total casualties, 38,179 or 2.7 percent of its force. Though 13 were rescued at sea, the rest died, either upon impact or soon after. 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. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. 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. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. Thus, the wars beginning and end meet. The burden of combat fell on the very available non-college-bound young. 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. the requirements were expanded (by. And there is an end. 1972, United States, National Archives, Military Records, 1885-2004, United States, National Archives, Korean War and Vietnam War Records, Start your Military Service Record Request, National Archives at St. Louis, Selective Service Records. The Order of Precedence For Military Ribbon Wear, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pubH-5CulqI, Military Funeral Guide for Families & Funeral Homes, The Ultimate Military Gift Guide for Unique Military Gifts, Black Military History and Black Medal of Honor Recipients. Bennett on March 25, 1968 and Dennis on August 02, 1970 Brothers Gabriel and Paul Trujillo were both killed in Vietnam. In some instances, names needed to be shuffled in order to fit on a line. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. 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 slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. The index gives birth and death dates, country of death, cause of death (air, ground, or sea), town and state of residence at time of enlistment, race, religious affiliation, marital status, service number, rank, and branch of service. On the last day of his life, in the moments before our nations history changed forever, Dale Buis was sitting around a rec center watching a movie called The Tattered Dress, starring Jeff Chandler. Frequently relatives or buddies of casualties Database of the 58,195 Names on The Wall in Wash,D.C. As Vandegeer piloted his CH-53 helicopter toward the island, a wall of anti-aircraft fire knocked it from the sky, and it crashed toward the water with 26 men aboard. Congress. Each name is listed with great honor and respect. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. If a service member were to return alive, a circlethe symbol of lifewould be inscribed around the plus sign. The article was originally published in the June 1993 issue of Vietnam Magazine and updated in November 2004. Richard Sandza received the message on the morning of May 15, 1975, the day his friend became the last American to die in combat during the Vietnam War. While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. Nursing the wounded. 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 draft continued from 1948, during both peacetime and war, to 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation officially ending the draft. 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. The panels come together to form a point, linking the first and last together in enduring tribute. The virtual Wall of Faces features a page dedicated to honoring and remembering every person whose name is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Authority Record - NARA, Records of the U.S. The young enlisted volunteer or draftee had not had much time to form any complicated theories about our Vietnam commitment. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. the reader loses composure. and have two columns per page, rather than only one column. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. ".for those who have died." Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. Indeed, officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. In an audiotape recorded for a close friend shortly before Vandegeers death, and transcribed in Bernard Edelmans book Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam, he described the perilous mission in Saigon. 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. The Air Force lost the highest percentage of officers. They went for a ride and she gently told them that their father would not be coming home. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. This was a reflection of the role of warrant officers as helicopter pilots (of the 1,277 warrant officer casualties, 95 percent were Army helicopter pilots), and of the young lieutenants and captains as combat platoon leaders or company commanders. To put a circle around the symbol beside their names would not provide the correct historical context related to their situation. All of this was one of the great and abiding agonies of the Vietnam War, causing repercussions within families and on the national political scene to this day. A new Department of Defense (DOD) database computer tape released through the National Archives allows researchers to take a much closer look at our 58,152 Vietnam casualties. The wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is 493 feet and 6 inches long, built of thick, polished black Bangalore granite. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. 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. As the Vietnam War dragged on, Kurt tried twice to enlist. Buis was in Vietnam by his own volition. Fully 50 percent were in the 17- to 24-year age group, and astonishingly, there were 764 Army officer casualties who were 21 or younger. 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. . 3rd Battalion. The training for American officers is thought by most foreign military authorities to be the best in the world. Eight women were killed in Vietnam, five Army lieutenants, one Army captain, one Army lieutenant colonel and one Air Force captain. Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. This memorial was built with private contributions from the American people. Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. Therefore, a complete listing of the records that were lost is not available. but will allow you to download it after you specify a file name. More names are added to the wall every year. Items are gathered by park staff. For families who have worked to have their loved ones name added, the journey can be long and exhausting. do this, be sure to have an alternate reader assigned to take over in case History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. The article was written by Bill Abbott, an independent researcher and writer. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. Others, later in the war, were simply ineligible because of high lottery number. It stands near Panel 1W, which holds the name of the last to die in combat. Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. Please be patient The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. Coast Guard casualties are included in the Navy totals. The Vietnam Wall at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park features the names of local fallen soldiers. The Wall USA is a non-profit endeavor maintained by veterans . Names that become eligible for inclusion are added once each year, in May, a few weeks before Memorial Day. I mean, it was bad.. 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. How many names are on the wall? W denotes the west wall, and E denotes the east wall. Kurt Buis was 8 years old the day his father died. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. https://www.historynet.com/names-on-the-wall-a-closer-look-at-those-who-died-in-vietnam/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. There is some truth to this, but it is instructive to look at what the DOD database reveals in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, religious preference and casualties by U.S. geographic areas. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. This is the genius of Mayas design, said Scruggs. The event begins on November 7, 2022 at 3 p.m. EST and ends at midnight on November 10, 2022. All would be represented equally, with generals listed alongside infantrymen. Another challenge was ensuring the accuracy of the names. Locate the corresponding panel at the Memorial. Records of individuals who left service more than 62 years ago are considered Archival Records and become records of the National Archives open to the general public. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. 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. However, if officer casualties are added to the total, then this overrepresentation is reduced to 12.5 percent of all casualties. As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. NAID 5709942, U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, National Archives Command Chronologies:Vietnam War, National Archives Command Chronologies: Vietnam War: Index to Reports, National Archves. We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. The virtual Wall of Faces features a page dedicated to honoring and remembering every person whose name is inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. 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. for all 58,228 names to be read aloud. An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. Locate the line on which the name is inscribed. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. 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. If the veteran is still alive, ask his or her help finding records. The Army refused him, for medical reasons, both times. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Learn about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in this brief introductory video. But there is a beginning. The draftee, if found physically and mentally fit, would be inducted for a period of two years, to be followed by another two year period in the active reserves and a subsequent two years in the inactive reserves. 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. Look at the bottom of each panel on the wall for its number. Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date in 1975. Several hundred such designation changes have been made since the Wall was built in 1982. These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. As a result, it was mainly the families of Navy and Air Force pilots and crewmen who suffered the great agony of the POW (prisoner of war) and MIA (missing in action) experience that came out of the Vietnam War. When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. If a person died or went missing in those areas, DoD considered that individual to be a combat zone casualty and eligible for inclusion on the Wall. With the end of the Cold War, many now believe that at its outset the Vietnam War was a quite honorable extension of our ultimately successful policy of Communist containment; that our effort in Vietnam became flawed because of political and strategic failures having nothing to do with those who died there; and that these young Americans were asked by three presidents and six Congresses to give up their lives so that freedom would have a better chance in the world. There are the tourists who make the circuit of all the various monuments and landmarks in our nations capital. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 At some The Moving Wall sites, the sponsor makes arrangements Written requests should be mailed to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100. The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. By his estimate, he helped pull out close to 2,000 people. Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall Message & data rates may apply. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. The remaining 70 percent of our Vietnam enlisted casualties were of English/Scottish/Welsh, German, Irish and Scandinavian-American ancestries, more from the South and Midwest than the other regions, many from small towns with a family military tradition. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study released in 1992, found that our Vietnam casualties were only marginally greater from the economically lowest 50 percent of our communities (31 deaths per 100,000 of population), when compared with the economically highest 50 percent (26 deaths per 100,000 population). I looked at the record to determine whether mortal wounds were sustained, Doubek said of the men whose names were listed by the Army, but not by DoD. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. This makeup, they say, was the very antithesis of what we stand for as a democracy a shameful corruption of our values and our historical sense of fairness and social justice. The list of names begins at the vertex of the walls below the date of the first casualty, 1959, and continues to the end of the east wall. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. 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. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. This is the most accurate database online. The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. As they came through the door, Viet Cong guerrillas opened fire with machine guns. Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. There are over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. columns per page. 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) They refer to older or younger siblings who are either in or on their way to college. Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded. that each name was a real person. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help. 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. One additional factor, often overlooked, that influenced volunteer enlistment was military tradition the influence of fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles and others who had served in previous 20th century wars. Count down from the top of the panel. Hed volunteered to join a small U.S. military advisory team attached to the South Vietnamese army, and hed been in the village of Bien Hoa for only two days. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. The Army lost the greatest number of officers 4,635 or 59 percent of all officer casualties. She wanted the names to tell the journey, or the timeline, of the war. The ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang.
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