Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. 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. Little about it is concrete. We honor and remember their sacrifice.". Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. 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. 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. Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. 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 . 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. We were one giant Hollywood B-17 bomber crew, one perfect socioeconomic platoon storming Omaha Beach or Okinawa. A relatively small number refused to register for the draft at all. 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. How many names are on the wall? It stands near Panel 1W, which holds the name of the last to die in combat. Search the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s database of names on the wall. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. 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. 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. Locate the corresponding panel at the Memorial. He did it allsing, dance, create music and crack wise. 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 Vietnam Wall at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park features the names of local fallen soldiers. The VC had commandeered Air America Hueys, and they were flying them around, which simply made for a very interesting chess game. Photo credit DOD photo. 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 unlikely that anyone who visits the memorial on a given day would have the time, the heart or the stomach to read and consider each one. These were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Latino-Americans with ancestries based in Central and South America. Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. 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. As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. Instead its nearly in the center. Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. At some The Moving Wall sites, the sponsor makes arrangements The feeling is that the poor, the undereducated and the minorities made up the vast majority of the combat arms during that war. Once additions are approved by DoD, VVMF receives the list of approved names, coordinates the inscribing and absorbs the costs. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. Every day at 3:00 p.m. EST, VVMF will play a daily reading of all the individuals who died upon that day in alphabetical order. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. Others, later in the war, were simply ineligible because of high lottery number. 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. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. Lower end category IVs consisting of those who scored below 20 on the AFQT were usually rejected for service. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. Lins intention from the beginning was to have the names appear chronologically, beginning and ending at the apex. 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. 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. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Army Major Dale Buis' name is etched into the granite half an inch tall, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. 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. As of 2017, there are 58,318 names inscribed on The Wall. It should be noted, however, that the draft was specifically designed to trigger volunteer enlistments. Perhaps more important, many of them probably did not yet fully understand their own mortality and were therefore less likely to be hesitant in combat. 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. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. The ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang. 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 U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics, Korean War and Vietnam War casualties listed at the National Archives, Hospital Admission Card Files, ca. 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. Buis can be found at the top middle of a slab designated Panel 1E. About 58 thousand of the 7 million American service men and women who served in Vietnam died. On Patrol caught up with Pete Peterson to find out how the U.S.-Vietnam relationship has progressed since the normalization of ties in 1995. Many others joined the reserves or National Guard, which were not mobilized in any appreciable numbers during the war. 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. The popularity of the GI Bill after Vietnam emphasized this yearning. Coast Guard casualties are included in the Navy totals. The panel numbers are inscribed at the bottom of each panel. "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. Though blessed with talent, his life wasnt without struggles. During the Vietnam War, the Navy and Air Force became substantially white enclaves enlisted and officer casualties were 96 percent white. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. The unit diary portion of the muster roll should indicate when members of the Lima Company, 3rd platoon. 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. And mores the pity, because many of them were trying to escape this background and didnt make it. 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. Every day, Americas service members selflessly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free. This was long before the advent of integrated computer databases. Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . This can help veterans or relatives find other persons who died with The resulting aptitude scores were used to classify entrants into four categories and this would, for the most part, determine their subsequent assignments. The Wall is about names. The article was written by Bill Abbott, an independent researcher and writer. 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. The Army refused him, for medical reasons, both times. More names are added to the wall every year. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. We were being fired upon by anti-aircraft guns. The appearance of DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. The men and women who valiantly fought in the Vietnam War certainly deserve the title of hero. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Vietnam Wall. Often that advice, especially for professional athletes, rock stars, sons of politicians and other celebrities, was to join the never-to-be-called-up reserves or National Guard. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. Making these arrangements and printing the pages takes considerable As we have pointed out earlier, more than 80 percent of our casualties were Army and Marine enlisted men with an average age of 19- to 20-years. http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/vietna.. Naval Academy, 130; Texas A & M, 112; The Citadel, 66; Virginia Military Institute, 43; Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 26; Norwich University, 19. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. In high school, he joined ROTC and kept his fathers medals pinned next to his own awards on a piece of crimson cloth. The Channeling Memo of July 1965, instructed all local draft boards to give status deferments to college undergraduate and post-graduate students. This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam. | In many of these families it was considered unpatriotic and indeed reprehensible to avoid active duty by requesting a status deferment or seeking out a draft counselor for advice on how to avoid the draft. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is forgotten now, but in the beginning Congress and most of the American people were behind our containment effort in Vietnam. The panels come together to form a point, linking the first and last together in enduring tribute. It ripped men from their loved ones, family, friends, and it left a wave of death in its path. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. This takes about 72 hours. and have two columns per page, rather than only one column. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. For those and a handful of other unique circumstances, Doubek made his own list of men who had died due to the injuries in the combat zonesnames that may have been listed by an individual service branch, but not by DoD. On November 7, 2021 VVMF began a daily virtual Reading of the Names. Except for the last file, there are approximately 10,000 names per file. The wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is 493 feet and 6 inches long, built of thick, polished black Bangalore granite. It may come as a surprise to some that 63.3 percent of all Vietnam enlisted casualties were not draftees but volunteers. 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. In some instances, names needed to be shuffled in order to fit on a line. Items are gathered by park staff. They seem honored to be putting the names on the Wall.. Many of the 17- and 18-year olds were simply late in maturing. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. 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. Its now one of the most popular memorials in Washington. On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. Senate. Adding to the problem was Project 100,000. . 3rd Battalion. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. 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. Lins vision prevailed. 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. 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.