For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! Why are names added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall? 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. 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. This can help veterans or relatives find other persons who died with The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. As Vietnam War Veterans Day nears March 29, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation's Wall of Faces is nearly complete but needs help from the public to track down the last few dozen photos. His name does not appear at either far end. The appearance of DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. 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. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two ), EDUCATIONAL LEVELS OF ENLISTED CASUALTIES. Those who could have qualified for college probably did not have the funds or motivation. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. Of all enlisted men who died in Vietnam, blacks made up 14.1 percent of the total. The job of cross-referencing the information of individual branches with the DoD fell to Doubek. Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded. Beginning Research in United States Military Records, National Vietnam War Veterans Day - Wikepedia, National Park Service Vietnam Veterans Memorial. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam. 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. Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. And there would be nothing to denote service or rank. 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. Click to learn about the In Memory program . Vietnam Veterans Memorial Learn about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in this brief introductory video. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 Army lost the greatest number of officers 4,635 or 59 percent of all officer casualties. Another challenge was ensuring the accuracy of the names. Order it can be difficult but there are a few ways to find a name at either end of the memorial are stands with books inside these list the names in alphabetical. Their sons, if not college material, made up a significant part of the volunteers and draftees. In the military it can be somewhat more deadly. 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. Marine Corps History Division2044 Broadway StreetQuantico, Virginia 22134Telephone: (703) 432-4877, Coast GuardU.S. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Military Reunions, Screensavers, Rubbings, Personal Guestbook for all Names. Search the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s database of names on the wall. This approach would allow veterans, friends and family members to find a loved one by his or her date of casualty. On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. Army Major Dale Buis name is etched into the granite half an inch tall, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. 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. An aunt came and loaded the three boys into the car. 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 resulting aptitude scores were used to classify entrants into four categories and this would, for the most part, determine their subsequent assignments. 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. 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 This is the most accurate database online. The shining surface is intended to reflect the sun, the ground and those who stand before it. The casualty date is the date the person was killed or wounded in combat or injured during an accident; for the missing, the date is when the person was reported missing. 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. 26 Similar Questions Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . Most of these casualties are documented in the Military Index, a FamilySearch file. 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. 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. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the individual service branches maintained separate casualty lists with slightly differing criteria. Folded American flags were presented to his parents and an Air Force helicopter flew over the ceremony. The central idea of the poem is that the Vietnamese War took hundreds of lives away from the United States of America. The casual visitor might not immediately recognize that Buis name is the first. Their names, however, have been removed from the printed Directory of Names. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. Most of the young American enlisted men who served in Vietnam were not college prospects at the time they entered the service. 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. 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. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Getting to Washington, D.C. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. Some have tried for years before receiving approval from DoD. the requirements were expanded (by. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. 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. 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). offer to read the block of names that includes their special names. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. Thus, the wars beginning and end meet. To put a circle around the symbol beside their names would not provide the correct historical context related to their situation. 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. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Buis can be found at the top middle of a slab designated Panel 1E. 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 . In 2004, the total is 58,241 names. compiled by Military Records and Research Library, Department of Military Affairs; edited by Julia D. Rather and Jeffrey Michael Duff, Research Our Records. Twenty years passed before Vandegeers remains were identified and another five passed before his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. 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. do this, be sure to have an alternate reader assigned to take over in case person reads for 20 minutes, (270 names) this will require 216 volunteer name Army Major Dale Buis' name is etched into the granite half an inch tall, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. 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. 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. 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. This year, 14 names were etched into the wall. 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. This is the genius of Mayas design, said Scruggs. Those designated by a plus sign were considered to be missing in action when the war ended. It may come as a surprise to some that 63.3 percent of all Vietnam enlisted casualties were not draftees but volunteers. As she wisely predicted, this would help bring the veterans back in timeand a cathartic healing would occur for many by facing this loss again.. 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 Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. Once download But you had stories of guys in the Air Force who would die in their aircraft over Thailand after having been shot over Vietnam. Technically, they were ineligible for inclusion on the Wall. November 11, 1982. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. I went through the whole list of names eight times, because I was concerned about the correct formatting, remembered Doubek. The article was originally published in the June 1993 issue of Vietnam Magazine and updated in November 2004. Thats a tragic 2,415 more names on the Vietnam Wall in a single month. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. As many as 3 million people visit each year, according to some estimates, and they come for probably as many reasons. that each name was a real person. 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. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall. They lived only a few yards apart. There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. Items are gathered by park staff. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. Bennett on March 25, 1968 and Dennis on August 02, 1970 Brothers Gabriel and Paul Trujillo were both killed in Vietnam. 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. 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. Army and Marine officer casualties were also quite young. 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 training for American officers is thought by most foreign military authorities to be the best in the world. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. On the other end of that phone call was an former Air Force officer who had served in Vietnam. . Physical examination and test results, medical letters, laboratory work and other medical documentation that may have been included in these files no longer exist. All heroes are listed alphabetically by their last name. They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam. We honor and remember their sacrifice.". Only 10 percent of enlisted men had even some college to their credit and only 1 percent were college graduates. 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. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. On that panel, above the names is this inscription: In honor of the men and women of the armed forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. The Air Force lost the highest percentage of officers. On average, 43 percent of white enlisted entrants placed in categories I and II (scoring 65 to 100) and 57 percent in categories III and IV (scoring 10 to 64). Look for discharge papers, pictures, medals,etc. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. The first group, added in 1983, included 53 Marines who were killed when their R&R (rest and relaxation) flight crashed in Hong Kong. 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. About 58 thousand of the 7 million American service men and women who served in Vietnam died. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. 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. The ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang. 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. There is no question that all segments of American society were represented. 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. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order These were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Latino-Americans with ancestries based in Central and South America. 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. As they came through the door, Viet Cong guerrillas opened fire with machine guns. No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. 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. The Marine Corps lost 14,836, or 5 percent of its own men. Inscribed dots in the margins of every other panel mark every 10 lines to aid in counting. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. The Vietnam Wall at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park features the names of local fallen soldiers. peruse. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. Written requests should be mailed to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100. the person they know. Access to Non-Archival Military Service Records is limited. The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. . The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. The Marines of Morenciled some of thebest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. 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. The affected record collections are described below. Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. If your browser displays the text file, you can then use Today, more than 58,000 names are engraved in the wall, and more were added in May. 997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam. They did not, in most cases, carry the burdens of wife or children. The names of Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale Buis are inscribed on Panel 1E of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. Certainly, some who died did come from poor and broken homes in the urban ghettos and barrios, or were from dirt-poor farm homes in the South and Midwest. 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. Message & data rates may apply. 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. in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last
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