The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The Navy had a similar profile: 55 percent of its 622 officer casualties were 30 years of age or older, and 45 percent were ranked at lieutenant commander or above when they died. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. VVMF receives numerous requests each year from individuals who wish to have particular names added to the Memorial. The makeup of U.S. combat forces in Vietnam has long been the subject of controversy among social scientists. In some instances, names needed to be shuffled in order to fit on a line. The Air Force lost the highest percentage of officers. Almost 50 percent were majors, lieutenant-colonels, colonels and three were generals. To put a circle around the symbol beside their names would not provide the correct historical context related to their situation. Blacks were 85 percent Protestant. In an effort to further preserve the legacy of those who sacrificed all in Vietnam, VVMF is committed to finding a photo to go with each of the more than 58,000 names on The Wall. The names are listed chronologically by date of death, the first to last. 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. Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. The idea that American enlisted dead were made up largely of societys poverty stricken misfits is a terrible slander to their memory and to the solid working-class and middle-class families of this country who provided the vast majority of our casualties. And they all went to Vietnam. effort, but is a very effective means to express the enormity of the war and 5,058) had ever known and cheered. Coast Guard Historians OfficeCommandant (CG-09224)U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters 2100 Second Street SW Washington, D.C. 20593. . However, if officer casualties are added to the total, then this overrepresentation is reduced to 12.5 percent of all casualties. Who were they? It ripped men from their loved ones, family, friends, and it left a wave of death in its path. The very young were considered by many to be preferred combat material. Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. The chronological order allows veterans who were in a battle to see their friends forever united on the Wall, he explained. The Vietnam Wall. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Chronological order by date of casualty allows friends and family members to pick out their loved one from all of the others with the same name. Patricia Krause. Every one of the names on the Wall has a story worth telling, as do all who served in our nation's Armed Forces during that time. Those designated by a plus sign were considered to be missing in action when the war ended. AGE 17 TO 21 PREFERRED ARMY AND MARINE COMBAT MATERIAL. The Channeling Memo of July 1965, instructed all local draft boards to give status deferments to college undergraduate and post-graduate students. site, for searching with a word processor. However, there have been no such cases. Buis can be found at the top middle of a slab designated Panel 1E. And, as in every American war, it is the very young who are the most willing to volunteer. Please be patient Frequently relatives or buddies of casualties Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old. The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. We honor and remember their sacrifice.". The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. 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. On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. . They went for a ride and she gently told them that their father would not be coming home. He tried to make the best call he could when adding names to the list. She wanted the names to tell the journey, or the timeline, of the war. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall There are students on field trips, some solemn and curious, but some just happy to get out of class. 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. The burden of combat fell on the very available non-college-bound young. 5th Marines were killed in . 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. These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. ".for those who have died." While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. Today, more than 58,000 names are engraved in the wall, and more were added in May. Another browser may inform you that it does not know how to display the file "Walking through this park-like area, the memorial appears as a rift in the earth, a long, polished, black stone wall, emerging from and receding into the earth. 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. As a result, the black casualty rate was reduced to 11.5 percent by 1969. The Selective Service System remains in place today. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. 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. Its still fought in the bodies and minds of the men who waged it all those decades ago. The beginnings and endings are often hazy and the facts of the story lie at the mercy of the teller. 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. Lower end category IVs consisting of those who scored below 20 on the AFQT were usually rejected for service. The black granite walls are engraved with the names of more than 58,000 men and women who laid down their lives or remained missing. 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. The article was originally published in the June 1993 issue of Vietnam Magazine and updated in November 2004. The names are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty. How many Smiths can there possibly be who died in Vietnam? in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last 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. 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. Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. These names are followed by the inscription: Our nation honors the courage, sacrifice and devotion to duty and country of its Vietnam veterans. But after World War II a kind of educational apartheid had settled over the United States. The last 18 names listed on the bottom of Panel 1, West, also at the apex, are from May 15, 1975. Where previously a high school diploma had been an acceptable goal, now it was college and all the benefits it would bring. Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. Photo credit DOD photo by Army Sgt. 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. We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. | 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. Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. 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. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. Proving a direct correlation to the injuries is a challenge, Pontes explained. And mores the pity, because many of them were trying to escape this background and didnt make it. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 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. He would become instrumental in helping Doubek identify names and check spellings. Officers of all services, by tradition largely Protestant, remained so during the Vietnam war, sustaining casualties in comparison with Catholics by a 5 to 2 ratio. Note the panel and line number for the name listed. Folded American flags were presented to his parents and an Air Force helicopter flew over the ceremony. This takes about 72 hours. 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. How many women soldiers died in the Vietnam War? 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. The Marine Corps losses were skewed even more to the lower ranks, 91 percent were privates or corporals. 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. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. They came largely from California and Texas, with lesser numbers from Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, New York and a few from many other states across the country. No other moniker for Sammy Davis Jr. was more accurate. Colleen Pontes, whose father Kevin Joyce was added in 2003, remembered the rush of emotions she felt as she and her brother watched their dads name being inscribed in the granite. 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. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Vietnam Wall. They drew on every segment of American society. The first Americans to die did not perish in a foxhole or beneath stars obscured by a jungle canopy. 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. He admitted no particular feelings about the righteousness of the war, and allowed himself to look ahead into a future free of war and obligation. Several hundred such designation changes have been made since the Wall was built in 1982. Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. Thats a tragic 2,415 more names on the Vietnam Wall in a single month. The DOD percentages reveal that nearly 75 percent of Army enlisted casualties were privates or corporals. 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. . Air Force Historical Research Agency 600 Chenault Circle Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424Telephone: (334) 953-2395, ArmyU.S. 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 Vietnam Veterans Memorial is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for all who wish to visit. do this, be sure to have an alternate reader assigned to take over in case More names are added to the wall every year. 3rd Battalion. This index includes those who died or who were declared dead from 1950 to 1957 in Korea and from 1957 to 1975 in Southeast Asia. All classes were drafted or volunteered and all served and died equally, although it must be noted that most blacks died separately. Order records from the National Personnel Records Center, in St. Louis at the Start your Military Service Record Request page at the National Archives website. since it was dedicated because additional casualty records were found and is complete, or you've done a "save as", you can use any word processor In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. How to Order a Draft Record. peruse. 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. This can be in the form of a book, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Directory of Names, or one of the various databases. Fallen comrades could be together on the Wall, as theyd been in death. It should be noted, however, that the draft was specifically designed to trigger volunteer enlistments. Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). Only 3 returned home. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 1970 NAID 570973, State-Level Fatal Casualty Lists sorted Alphabetically by Last Name, List of United States servicemembers and civilians missing in action during the Vietnam War (196165) Wikipedia, U.S., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Unaccounted-for Remains, Group A (Recoverable), 1941-1975, U.S., Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, Unaccounted-for Remains, Group B (Unrecoverable), 1941-1975, Vietnamw-Era POW/MIA Databases & Documents. 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. As Maya Ling Lin, the architect of the Wall, has said: It was as if the black-brown earth were polished and made into an interface between the sunny world and the quiet dark world beyond that we cannot enter. Kurt became the man of the house, even as a boy. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 1982, with 57,939 names. If officers are added, then almost 70 percent of those who died were volunteers. to open, search, edit, or print the name files. Unfortunately, he mistakenly added a small number of names of men who were still alive. Inscription at the beginning of The Wall. 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. By his estimate, he helped pull out close to 2,000 people. 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 young enlisted volunteer or draftee had not had much time to form any complicated theories about our Vietnam commitment. This memorial was built with private contributions from the American people. Many of the 17- and 18-year olds were simply late in maturing. 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. Brothers Marlin and Norman Eversgerd were both killed in Vietnam. 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 Wall of Faces allows family and friends to share memories, post pictures and connect with each other. The west wall is on the left when standing facing the vertex, and the east wall is to the right. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. If you No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. Some are drawn to the Wall like pilgrims to Mecca. When the sound of exploding hand grenades rang out in the hall, Buis and others ran toward the sound. The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. Getting to Washington, D.C. What happens to items left at the memorial? Once a master list was compiled, the names were checked manually for errors. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. 8 Women are on the Wall. But there is a beginning. In 2004, the total is 58,241 names. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Of the 7,262 blacks who died, 6,955, or 96 percent, were Army and Marine enlisted men. His name does not appear at either far end. No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. 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. Interesting Veterans Statistics Of The Vietnam Memorial Wall There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010. They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. Black leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., protested, and President Johnson ordered black participation in combat units cut back. 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. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. They lived only a few yards apart. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 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. Indeed, officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. United States. 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 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. Once download Eight women were killed in Vietnam, five Army lieutenants, one Army captain, one Army lieutenant colonel and one Air Force captain. the requirements were expanded (by. World War II had been, for the most part, a perfect war, clear of purpose, the forces of democracy and freedom lined up against the forces of fascism and tyranny. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. Yet, a civilian heroine who served in a different capacity during that difficult time also merits particular acknowledgment. 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. 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. 54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. How many names are on the wall? Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. name within a given date. The Marines of Morenciled some of thebest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. If the veteran is still alive, ask his or her help finding records. Some have tried for years before receiving approval from DoD. Thus, the wars beginning and end meet. It gives the names in alphabetical order and . Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. All heroes are listed alphabetically by their last name. As many as 3 million people visit each year, according to some estimates, and they come for probably as many reasons. These directories help locate names on the wall. 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. Photo credit DOD photo. All would be represented equally, with generals listed alongside infantrymen. In an effort to further preserve the legacy of those who sacrificed all in Vietnam, VVMF is committed to finding a photo to go with each of the more than 58,000 names on The . 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. 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 high school, he joined ROTC and kept his fathers medals pinned next to his own awards on a piece of crimson cloth. 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. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. Senate. Buis died, as did Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand, whose name is second on the wall. This was long before the advent of integrated computer databases. Thus, there were 211,455 killed and wounded, or one in every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. About 58 thousand of the 7 million American service men and women who served in Vietnam died. 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. A correspondingly greater tradition of military service in the other regions had its effect on U.S. regional casualties. Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. Individual Award Case Files, 1969 - 1970. . The ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang. The officer corps casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. A relatively small number refused to register for the draft at all. This page has been viewed 167,336 times (0 via redirect). EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. 244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. person reads for 20 minutes, (270 names) this will require 216 volunteer name There is no question that all segments of American society were represented. By providing your mobile phone number, you opt in to receive calls and texts from USO. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. The Army lost the greatest number of officers 4,635 or 59 percent of all officer casualties. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the individual service branches maintained separate casualty lists with slightly differing criteria. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. The names of the 2,504 Americans missing in action from the Vietnam War are on the Tablets of the Missing at the ABMC Honolulu Memorial. The Selective Service registration requirement was later suspended in April 1975. Others think it is just another tourist stop until they feel the haunting power of this unique work of remembrance. Their sacrifices were honored July 8, 2009, in Washington during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of their deaths. Look at the bottom of each panel on the wall for its number. If each Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. 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. 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. He accepted the tradition of military service passed on to him by the popular culture and by President John F. Kennedys ringing words, Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, MA; he was listed by theDepartment of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. NAVY AND AIR FORCE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. As one walks the Wall slowly, examining the ineffably American names, one is struck by the same recurring surnames. These officer casualties came more from the South and West regions, 4.1 deaths per 100,000, in contrast to 3.5 from the Northeast and Midwest regions. This year, 14 names were etched into the wall. During and after the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense (DoD) compiled a list of combat zone casualties according to criteria in a 1965 Presidential Executive Order. The panels come together to form a point, linking the first and last together in enduring tribute. The combination of the selective service policies with the skills and aptitude testing of both volunteers and draftees (in which blacks scored noticeably lower) conspired to assign blacks in greater numbers to the combat units of the Army and Marine Corps. 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. They did not, in most cases, carry the burdens of wife or children. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. 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. 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 first group, added in 1983, included 53 Marines who were killed when their R&R (rest and relaxation) flight crashed in Hong Kong. Scholars debate about when the war really began and in many ways it has never ended. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. Though the memorial continues to grow and evolve, the last name on the wall still belongs to Air Force Second Lieutenant Richard Vandegeer, a pilot who died after his helicopter crashed on May 15, 1975, during the wars final combat action.
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