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. He would become instrumental in helping Doubek identify names and check spellings. 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. But there is a beginning. The lists are based on the "home of record - state" data provided by the serviceman or woman upon last entrance into military service. 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. These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. 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. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two 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. | How many names are on the wall? 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). At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. 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. 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. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. They seem honored to be putting the names on the Wall.. Eight women were killed in Vietnam, five Army lieutenants, one Army captain, one Army lieutenant colonel and one Air Force captain. 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. 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 Selective Service System remains in place today. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. and have two columns per page, rather than only one column. 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. He tried to make the best call he could when adding names to the list. Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. Army and Marine officer casualties were also quite young. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. since it was dedicated because additional casualty records were found and Kurt became the man of the house, even as a boy. 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. The Marine Corps lost 14,836, or 5 percent of its own men. For information regarding official military unit histories, contact: Air ForceU.S. The officer corps casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. The feeling is that the poor, the undereducated and the minorities made up the vast majority of the combat arms during that war. 31 sets of brothers are on the Wall. Many others joined the reserves or National Guard, which were not mobilized in any appreciable numbers during the war. United States. 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. On the west wall, the symbol precedes the name; on the east wall, the symbol follows the name. 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 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. 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 war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angles open side and contained within the earth itself. During the Vietnam War, the Navy and Air Force became substantially white enclaves enlisted and officer casualties were 96 percent white. "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's registry enables veterans across the world to be able to locate fellow Vietnam Veterans and of course, connect their stories with those who made the ultimate sacrifice. The Buddies of Midvale LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. 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. 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. 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. With the glitch discovered, Doubek and his team located and hand-corrected each error. I mean, it was bad.. This uneven impact was caused by a number of factors: (1) While the South was home to some 53 percent of all blacks in the 1970 census, almost 60 percent of black casualties came from the South; (2) Although we cannot be as precise, we do know that a considerable majority of Hispanic-American casualties came from the West, (California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado) and the South (Texas); (3) Better employment opportunities in the Northeast reduced the number of volunteers; (4) Greater college matriculation in the Northeast increased the number of status deferments for the regions 17- to 24- year olds; (5) More anti-war sentiment in the media and on college campuses in the Northeast. The same profile holds true for the Marine Corps, where 87 percent of all officer casualties (821 of 938) were warrant officers, lieutenants or captains. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. Less than 1 percent (0.8) were Jewish, Hindu, Thai, Buddhist or Muslim combined, and 5.7 listed no religion. 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 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. And there is an end. 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. Getting to Washington, D.C. Scholars debate about when the war really began and in many ways it has never ended. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display, Look up the name in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Thus, there were 211,455 killed and wounded, or one in every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam. as the names on the Wall. As many as 3 million people visit each year, according to some estimates, and they come for probably as many reasons. Full casualty records may be retrieved online through the National Archives' Access to Archival Databases resource. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. The panels come together to form a point, linking the first and last together in enduring tribute. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. . Database of the 58,195 Names on The Wall in Wash,D.C. An aunt came and loaded the three boys into the car. The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. 5th Marines were killed in . At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. for all 58,228 names to be read aloud. 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. Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. The DOD database listed precise religious preferences for the 58,152 Vietnam casualties. Individual Award Case Files, 1969 - 1970. Locate the corresponding panel at the Memorial. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. 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. . All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. Most of the young American enlisted men who served in Vietnam were not college prospects at the time they entered the service. What the MIT study almost certainly showed was that members of the so-called working class consisting of carpenters, electricians, plumbers, firemen, policemen, technicians, skilled factory operatives, farmers, etc., were living in middle class communities and were, therefore, part of our burgeoning middle class. On the other end of that phone call was an former Air Force officer who had served in Vietnam. 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. The training for American officers is thought by most foreign military authorities to be the best in the world. Alphabetical listing of the names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall . Many of the 17- and 18-year olds were simply late in maturing. Authority Record - NARA, Records of the U.S. Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics, Korean War and Vietnam War casualties listed at the National Archives, Hospital Admission Card Files, ca. Although valuable, this study was almost certainly misinterpreted by its authors when they said that their data showed that most privileged and influential segments of American society were not insulated from the perils of Vietnam conflict. 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 most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 2,415 casualties were incurred. This is the most accurate database online. Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Kansas, Sheridan County, Viet Nam records, 1955-1975, Vermont, National Guard, Vietnam war, 1950-1953, University of Utah - American West Center - Saving the Legacy/ Vietnam Veterans, https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/index.php?title=United_States_Vietnam_War_1964_to_1972&oldid=5123794, Personnel discharged November 1, 1912 to January 1, 1960, Personnel discharged, September 25, 1947 to January 1, 1964, The Military Index is available at the FamilySearch Library and at most FamilySearch centers. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. 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. Each name is listed with great honor and respect. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. It was fitting that Vandegeer finally returned home to American soil, because he spent his last weeks at war evacuating Americans as Saigon fell. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. the reader loses composure. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Bennett on March 25, 1968 and Dennis on August 02, 1970 Brothers Gabriel and Paul Trujillo were both killed in Vietnam. Locate the line on which the name is inscribed. The National Archives prepared these state level casualty lists by creating extracts from the Korean War Extract Data File and the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File, both as of April 29, 2008, of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Files, part of Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. These directories help locate names on the wall. 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. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. 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. Some common names appear on the Memorial more than once. For blacks, however, only 7 percent placed in categories I and II and 93 percent placed in categories III and IV. In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall USA website is dedicated to honoring those who died in the Vietnam War. The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). 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 names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. On November 7, 2021 VVMF began a daily virtual Reading of the Names. This is the genius of Mayas design, said Scruggs. 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. They drew on every segment of American society. The shining surface is intended to reflect the sun, the ground and those who stand before it. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. And, as in every American war, it is the very young who are the most willing to volunteer. The casual visitor might not immediately recognize that Buis name is the first. in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last 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. This can be in the form of a book, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Directory of Names, or one of the various databases. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. Please be patient What will be the evolving historical judgment for those names on the Wall? Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. Concerning, How do I find a name on the Vietnam War Memorial wall? While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. 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. Only 10 percent of enlisted men had even some college to their credit and only 1 percent were college graduates. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. At some The Moving Wall sites, the sponsor makes arrangements This was long before the advent of integrated computer databases. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. If the veteran is still alive, ask his or her help finding records. VVMF does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. Officer casualties in Vietnam, including warrant officers, numbered 7,874, or 13.5 percent of all casualties. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Though blessed with talent, his life wasnt without struggles.

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