The ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall Though blessed with talent, his life wasnt without struggles. Early on President Johnson, his advisers and especially the Congress, realized that if the draft was to be truly equitable and had included combat assignments in Vietnam for the sons of the educationally advantaged and influential Americans from the professional and managerial classes, then the resulting uproar would have shut down the war. The names are listed chronologically by date of death, the first to last. Vietnam Memorial.com - Vietnam Memorial List of Heroes - Vietnam One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old. Buis died, as did Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand, whose name is second on the wall. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. This takes about 72 hours. Others think it is just another tourist stop until they feel the haunting power of this unique work of remembrance. Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. About the Registry - The Vietnam Registry 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. Another browser may inform you that it does not know how to display the file John Kennedy, discussing military assignments, said that, life is unfair. Only 3 returned home. U.S. Army Personnel and Dependent Casualties, 1961-1981 85% of the records in this database are related to the Vietnam Conflict. 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.. Their names, however, have been removed from the printed Directory of Names. information is available on this web site: These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed 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. All other individual draftee files from that period were destroyed by the Selective Service System in 1978, in accordance with approved records retention schedules. The names are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty. 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. The Vietnam Wall Flashcards | Quizlet The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 2,415 casualties were incurred. The beginnings and endings are often hazy and the facts of the story lie at the mercy of the teller. The vast majority of Americans who were eligible by age but did not serve in the armed forces were exempted by reason of physical, mental, psychiatric, or moral failure; or they were given status deferments because they were college students, fathers, clergy, teachers, engineers or conscientious objectors. Each name is listed with great honor and respect. Interested in a tour as part of your visit? 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. 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. The panel numbers are inscribed at the bottom of each panel. The draft continued from 1948, during both peacetime and war, to 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation officially ending the draft. 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 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. The affected record collections are described below. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. to open, search, edit, or print the name files. The Vietnam Registry - Connecting our Veterans and Stewarding their Stories as the names on the Wall. This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. There are officially 58,228 names on the Wall, but the database these files were derived . 54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. It may come as a surprise to some that 63.3 percent of all Vietnam enlisted casualties were not draftees but volunteers. 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. But given the draft policies, the hard-sell recruitment, the severe escalation from month to month and the refusal by President Lyndon Johnson to call up the older reserves and National Guard, it could not have been otherwise. Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. The officer corps casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. Army and Marine officer casualties were also quite young. Every day, Americas service members selflessly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free. Names On The Wall: A Closer Look At Those Who Died In Vietnam - HistoryNet The Vietnam War is no different. Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. 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. 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. Full casualty records may be retrieved online through the National Archives' Access to Archival Databases resource. 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. It ripped men from their loved ones, family, friends, and it left a wave of death in its path. 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. If each Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. "Home of record" does not necessarily refer to the place of birth, residence of next of kin, place of longest residence, nor other common uses of the term "hometown." Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. And there would be nothing to denote service or rank. Joe Moore's VN Memorial Wall Start Page - cantho-rvn.org In order to have your name on the Wall, you had to have died within the war zone, explained Doubek. 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. 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 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 directory can be purchased on the VVMF store. 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. Vietnam War Casualties- Main Alphabetical Index www.VirtualWall.org Find A Name Information Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. However, there have been no such cases. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. It should be noted, however, that the draft was specifically designed to trigger volunteer enlistments. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. 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. 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. Look at the bottom of each panel on the wall for its number. The largest age group, 8,283 were just 19 years old. The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010: see the "National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries" section below. 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. 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. 31 sets of brothers are on the Wall. In addition to WWII Draft Records, the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, MO maintains Post-WWII through Vietnam Era Selective Service Records, for all men born before 1960. 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. 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. 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. VVMF does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. There is no question that all segments of American society were represented. offer to read the block of names that includes their special names. The Navy fatalities were 2,556 or 2 percent. Instead its nearly in the center. But after World War II a kind of educational apartheid had settled over the United States. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. The Vietnam Wall. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. 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 WALL OF FACES - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund During one review, Doubek found a glitch with the computer software: it did not recognize the spaces that appeared within a last name, such as van der Meide. Nor could it properly discern a compounded first name, such as Billy Bob, versus a traditional first and middle name. To put a circle around the symbol beside their names would not provide the correct historical context related to their situation. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. Count down from the top of the panel. The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. 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 Selective Service System remains in place today. . It called for the registration of all 18 to 26-year old males, with induction to take place at 18 1/2 if so ordered by the local draft board. Fallen comrades could be together on the Wall, as theyd been in death. The shining surface is intended to reflect the sun, the ground and those who stand before it. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. 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. for all 58,228 names to be read aloud. Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. The makeup of U.S. combat forces in Vietnam has long been the subject of controversy among social scientists. 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. 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. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. 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. Once additions are approved by DoD, VVMF receives the list of approved names, coordinates the inscribing and absorbs the costs. 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. I looked at the record to determine whether mortal wounds were sustained, Doubek said of the men whose names were listed by the Army, but not by DoD. The names would become the memorial. It should be emphasized that 55 percent of all Navy and Air Force officer casualties came as a result of reconnaissance and bombing sorties into North Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. 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. Twenty years passed before Vandegeers remains were identified and another five passed before his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. 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. This video can help you find the name of someone you'd like to honor. 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. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. the reader loses composure. There are over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. 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. And they are so respectful when they do the engraving. NAVY AND AIR FORCE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. 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. There was no need to embellish. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of President John F. Kennedys assassination. 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. Early in the war (1965 and 1966) when blacks made up about 11 percent of our Vietnam force, black casualties soared to more than 20 percent of the total. Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded. Thus, the wars beginning and end meet. On November 7, 2021 VVMF began a daily virtual Reading of the Names. 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. 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. The popularity of the GI Bill after Vietnam emphasized this yearning. The lists are based on the "home of record - state" data provided by the serviceman or woman upon last entrance into military service. while they download, thank you. On the other end of that phone call was an former Air Force officer who had served in Vietnam. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. 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 war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angles open side and contained within the earth itself. However, if officer casualties are added to the total, then this overrepresentation is reduced to 12.5 percent of all casualties. readers. On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial site in Washington, D.C., a special plaque reads: "In Memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. This makeup, they say, was the very antithesis of what we stand for as a democracy a shameful corruption of our values and our historical sense of fairness and social justice. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Vietnam Wall. 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. While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. 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. The Army lost the greatest number of officers 4,635 or 59 percent of all officer casualties. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. 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. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. For weeks and weeks, a team worked through the list, verifying spellings and ensuring that the computer printout that was to be used for the stenciling was correct. The wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is 493 feet and 6 inches long, built of thick, polished black Bangalore granite. 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. 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. Some went to Canada or Sweden, but few of those who evaded the draft were actually prosecuted and most were eventually pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. 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. Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. Please say a prayer for our fallen heroes, their family members, and our hero Vietnam War Veterans during your visit. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. 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. Each entry includes a panel number and letter; "W" is for "west" or the left half of the memorial, "E" is for east, or the right half of the memorial. The Marine Corps lost 14,836, or 5 percent of its own men. Plan a Visit - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund 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. Little about it is concrete. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. 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). It was fitting that Vandegeer finally returned home to American soil, because he spent his last weeks at war evacuating Americans as Saigon fell. This page was last edited on 12 December 2022, at 18:28. 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.
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