The Wall is about names. 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) Please say a prayer for our fallen heroes, their family members, and our hero Vietnam War Veterans during your visit. This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam. . 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. Military Reunions, Screensavers, Rubbings, Personal Guestbook for all Names. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. Written requests should be mailed to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Alphabetical listing of the names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall . They were at their peak physically. Of 2,590 total Air Force casualties, 1,674 or 65 percent were officers. Folded American flags were presented to his parents and an Air Force helicopter flew over the ceremony. Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. No other moniker for Sammy Davis Jr. was more accurate. 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. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. They did not, in most cases, carry the burdens of wife or children. You could also keep these files on a computer at your Where previously a high school diploma had been an acceptable goal, now it was college and all the benefits it would bring. 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. "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. Several hundred such designation changes have been made since the Wall was built in 1982. 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. The officer corps casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. 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 resulting aptitude scores were used to classify entrants into four categories and this would, for the most part, determine their subsequent assignments. Bennett on March 25, 1968 and Dennis on August 02, 1970 Brothers Gabriel and Paul Trujillo were both killed in Vietnam. Yet, a civilian heroine who served in a different capacity during that difficult time also merits particular acknowledgment. On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. The Vietnam War was no different. We were one giant Hollywood B-17 bomber crew, one perfect socioeconomic platoon storming Omaha Beach or Okinawa. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. I mean, it was bad.. During the Vietnam War, the Navy and Air Force became substantially white enclaves enlisted and officer casualties were 96 percent white. Most of these casualties are documented in the Military Index, a FamilySearch file. With this list in hand, he went to the various locations where individual service records were kept to review files. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. All classes were drafted or volunteered and all served and died equally, although it must be noted that most blacks died separately. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 1982, with 57,939 names. The draft continued from 1948, during both peacetime and war, to 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation officially ending the draft. For information regarding official military unit histories, contact: Air ForceU.S. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. The Marines of Morenciled some of thebest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 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. 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. Only 5 to 10 percent of enlisted men in the combat units were estimated to have had some college, and less than 1 percent of these enlisted men were college graduates. 54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. 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. 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 DOD database listed precise religious preferences for the 58,152 Vietnam casualties. 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. Through the AFQT process, the men scoring in the higher categories were more likely to be channeled into further specialized training and eventually assigned to technical and administrative units. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. Buis can be found at the top middle of a slab designated Panel 1E. 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 they often show a heartbreakingly wry sense of humor with the same sensibilities as their college-bound peers. Please be patient 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. And, as in every American war, it is the very young who are the most willing to volunteer. THE NAMES ON THE WALL: AN HISTORICAL JUDGMENT. Blacks were 85 percent Protestant. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morencis mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. 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. Vietnam War Casualties- Main Alphabetical Index www.VirtualWall.org Find A Name Information Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. Full casualty records may be retrieved online through the National Archives' Access to Archival Databases resource. 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 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. They refer to older or younger siblings who are either in or on their way to college. Look for clues about where he or she lived and served. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. The first group, added in 1983, included 53 Marines who were killed when their R&R (rest and relaxation) flight crashed in Hong Kong. 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. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. (The 58,000 Names) Our fallen Vietnam War heroes are herethe 58,000 heroes who died in Vietnam. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). 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. Thus, there were 211,455 killed and wounded, or one in every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. 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. Nor did America recognize, on July 8, 1959the day he was killedthat another long and bloody war lay in wait. 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. Records of U.S. Military Casualties, Missing in Action, and Prisoners of War from the Era of the Vietnam War are available through the National Archives. On the west wall, the symbol precedes the name; on the east wall, the symbol follows the name. 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. Vietnam War: in Country, Notice: Scanning of Vietnam-era Deck Logs, Vietnam War, 1961-1975. The casual visitor might not immediately recognize that Buis name is the first. By his estimate, he helped pull out close to 2,000 people. Those who could have qualified for college probably did not have the funds or motivation. Locate the corresponding panel at the Memorial. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. Marine Corps History Division2044 Broadway StreetQuantico, Virginia 22134Telephone: (703) 432-4877, Coast GuardU.S. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. Dear Mr. Huddleston, Thank you for posting your request on History Hub! Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . the "save as" menu command to store each text file on your media. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. 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. The men and women who valiantly fought in the Vietnam War certainly deserve the title of hero. Today, more than 58,000 names are engraved in the wall, and more were added in May. Why are names added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall? Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. is complete, or you've done a "save as", you can use any word processor His name does not appear at either far end. 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. The Marine Corps lost 14,836, or 5 percent of its own men. The central idea of the poem is that the Vietnamese War took hundreds of lives away from the United States of America. This video can help you find the name of someone you'd like to honor. 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. Army Major Dale Buis name is etched into the granite half an inch tall, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Unfortunately, he mistakenly added a small number of names of men who were still alive. The Channeling Memo of July 1965, instructed all local draft boards to give status deferments to college undergraduate and post-graduate students. that each name was a real person. The DOD database shows that of the 2,100,000 men and women who served in Vietnam, 58,152 were killed. We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. 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. 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. Only 10 percent of enlisted men had even some college to their credit and only 1 percent were college graduates. In addition, millions of documents had been lent to the Department of Veterans Affairs before the fire occurred. These were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Latino-Americans with ancestries based in Central and South America. The names are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty. No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 245 deaths. The panel numbers are inscribed at the bottom of each panel. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for all who wish to visit. Senate. 39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger. The DOD percentages reveal that nearly 75 percent of Army enlisted casualties were privates or corporals. For more information on this index on, Records relating to American prisoners of war and missing in action from the Vietnam War, including lists and descriptions of the record groups covering the Vietnam War that are held by the National Archives are also found in the FS Library US/CAN Book. Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. Honor Vietnam Veterans you know with a gift from our VVA store, or a custom military embroidered shirt, jacket, or polo so they can proudly demonstrate their service to their grateful nation. And there would be nothing to denote service or rank. We honor and remember their sacrifice.". Twenty years passed before Vandegeers remains were identified and another five passed before his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. 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. 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. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. These young men were trained quickly and shipped to Vietnam quickly. An aunt came and loaded the three boys into the car. 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. An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam. How to Order a Draft Record. Their sacrifices were honored July 8, 2009, in Washington during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of their deaths. readers. Her name? 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 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. The unit diary portion of the muster roll should indicate when members of the Lima Company, 3rd platoon. 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 went through the whole list of names eight times, because I was concerned about the correct formatting, remembered Doubek. The National Park Service offers these steps for locating a name: National Park Service rangers and volunteers are available to assist in locating names at the Memorial. She wanted the names to tell the journey, or the timeline, of the war. In 1964 an Ohio woman took up the challenge that had led to Amelia Earharts disappearance. Coast Guard casualties are included in the Navy totals. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. Coast Guard Historians OfficeCommandant (CG-09224)U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters 2100 Second Street SW Washington, D.C. 20593. Kurt became the man of the house, even as a boy. And they are so respectful when they do the engraving. | HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Congress. The appearance of DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. 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. They were struggling through or dropping out of high school, or if a high school graduate, had tested poorly for college entrance. The feeling is that the poor, the undereducated and the minorities made up the vast majority of the combat arms during that war. Only the Navy, with 50 percent of its enlisted casualties over 21, and the Air Force, with 75 percent over 21, showed an older, more experienced age demographic. Though blessed with talent, his life wasnt without struggles. All other individual draftee files from that period were destroyed by the Selective Service System in 1978, in accordance with approved records retention schedules. Many of them, as experienced pilots, were older (two thirds were thirty or older) and many were high ranking. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. The popularity of the GI Bill after Vietnam emphasized this yearning. name within a given date. The civilian and military men who formed the policy did not see it necessarily as a disadvantage. Click to learn about the In Memory program . There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall. Another browser may inform you that it does not know how to display the file History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. do this, be sure to have an alternate reader assigned to take over in case 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. 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. 26 Similar Questions In order to have your name on the Wall, you had to have died within the war zone, explained Doubek. 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. It may come as a surprise to some that 63.3 percent of all Vietnam enlisted casualties were not draftees but volunteers. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. Air Force Historical Research Agency 600 Chenault Circle Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424Telephone: (334) 953-2395, ArmyU.S. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angles open side and contained within the earth itself. For a photograph of an inscription of a close friend or relative, write: This website requires a paid subscription for full access. 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. Fill out the tour request form. This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. The Vietnam Wall at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park features the names of local fallen soldiers. The Selective Service registration requirement was later suspended in April 1975. person reads for 20 minutes, (270 names) this will require 216 volunteer name At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. 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. Instead its nearly in the center. 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. Names can also be located on The Wall of Faces on VVMFs web site, www.vvmf.org/wall-of-faces, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Concerning, How do I find a name on the Vietnam War Memorial wall? For men who registered for the draft prior to 1976, the only Selective Service System information available is that of the individual Draft Registration Card (SSS Form 1) and Classification History (SSS Form 102) records. Dates of enlsitment or selective service registration will be helpful along with the name military units they served with. They lived only a few yards apart. Except for the last file, there are approximately 10,000 names per file. One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old. ), EDUCATIONAL LEVELS OF ENLISTED CASUALTIES. 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old. compiled by Military Records and Research Library, Department of Military Affairs; edited by Julia D. Rather and Jeffrey Michael Duff, Research Our Records. If you Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. 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. 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. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. The lists are based on the "home of record - state" data provided by the serviceman or woman upon last entrance into military service. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. while they download, thank you. Army and Marine officer casualties were also quite young. 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. 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. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. 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. The training for American officers is thought by most foreign military authorities to be the best in the world. Only 3 returned home. 5th Marines were killed in . The Army refused him, for medical reasons, both times. It is forgotten now, but in the beginning Congress and most of the American people were behind our containment effort in Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
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