alphabetical list of names on the vietnam wall

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. 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. They were at their peak physically. Locate the line on which the name is inscribed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of President John F. Kennedys assassination. 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. This takes about 72 hours. 39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger. 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. They did not, in most cases, carry the burdens of wife or children. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. The wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is 493 feet and 6 inches long, built of thick, polished black Bangalore granite. The panel numbers are inscribed at the bottom of each panel. Many others joined the reserves or National Guard, which were not mobilized in any appreciable numbers during the war. information is available on this web site: These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed They lived only a few yards apart. For information regarding official military unit histories, contact: Air ForceU.S. Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. the "save as" menu command to store each text file on your media. The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 2,415 casualties were incurred. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old. Each name is listed with great honor and respect. 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. Thats a tragic 2,415 more names on the Vietnam Wall in a single month. Thus, there were 211,455 killed and wounded, or one in every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam. The Names - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund The Names When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. The Channeling Memo of July 1965, instructed all local draft boards to give status deferments to college undergraduate and post-graduate students. Less than 1 percent (0.8) were Jewish, Hindu, Thai, Buddhist or Muslim combined, and 5.7 listed no religion. The Army refused him, for medical reasons, both times. The DOD database shows that of the 2,100,000 men and women who served in Vietnam, 58,152 were killed. Twenty years passed before Vandegeers remains were identified and another five passed before his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. 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. If the veteran is still alive, ask his or her help finding records. 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. 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. Look at the bottom of each panel on the wall for its number. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. 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. The beginnings and endings are often hazy and the facts of the story lie at the mercy of the teller. Interested in a tour as part of your visit? 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. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. If your browser displays the text file, you can then use In the military it can be somewhat more deadly. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. It should be noted, however, that the draft was specifically designed to trigger volunteer enlistments. 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. 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. This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. 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. Message & data rates may apply. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. 997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam. 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. the requirements were expanded (by. 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. 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. Little about it is concrete. Since its adoption in 1951, at the time of the Korean War, this policy had been renewed by Congress every four years. Where previously a high school diploma had been an acceptable goal, now it was college and all the benefits it would bring. 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. They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. The lists are based on the "home of record - state" data provided by the serviceman or woman upon last entrance into military service. THE NAMES ON THE WALL: AN HISTORICAL JUDGMENT. Their sacrifices were honored July 8, 2009, in Washington during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of their deaths. Making these arrangements and printing the pages takes considerable 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. Though 13 were rescued at sea, the rest died, either upon impact or soon after. Inscription at the beginning of The Wall. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help. 244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall. 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 slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. If a person died or went missing in those areas, DoD considered that individual to be a combat zone casualty and eligible for inclusion on the Wall. But there is a beginning. Those designated by a plus sign were considered to be missing in action when the war ended. person reads for 20 minutes, (270 names) this will require 216 volunteer name The Vietnam War is no different. Although it is a truism that the young die in war, one is still unprepared for the fact that 40 percent of Marine enlisted casualties in Vietnam were teenagers; that more than 16 percent of Army enlisted casualties were also teenagers; and that nearly a quarter of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam were between the ages of 17- and 19-years old. The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. 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. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. columns per page. They went for a ride and she gently told them that their father would not be coming home. As the Vietnam War dragged on, Kurt tried twice to enlist. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. Buis was in Vietnam by his own volition. Of all enlisted men who died in Vietnam, blacks made up 14.1 percent of the total. 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 numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. 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. 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. The Selective Service System remains in place today. These directories help locate names on the wall. 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. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. A new Department of Defense (DOD) database computer tape released through the National Archives allows researchers to take a much closer look at our 58,152 Vietnam casualties. Another browser may inform you that it does not know how to display the file The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. readers. Please be patient Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. Locate the corresponding panel at the Memorial. for all 58,228 names to be read aloud. In terms of national origin/ancestries, an extensive sampling of the data-base reveals that Americans of French Canadian, Polish, Italian and other Southern and Eastern European surnames made up about 10 percent of the Vietnam casualties. 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. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. All would be represented equally, with generals listed alongside infantrymen. Some are drawn to the Wall like pilgrims to Mecca. 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 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. Database of the 58,195 Names on The Wall in Wash,D.C. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. National Mall and Memorial Parks , Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. 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. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. I.. J.. K.. L.. M. N.. O.. P.. Q.. R.. S.. T.. U.. V.. W.. X.. Y.. Z 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 An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam. 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. Army Center of Military History103 3rd AvenueFort Lesley J. McNair, DC 20319-5058Telephone: (202) 685-4042, NavyU.S. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall 8 Women are on the Wall. Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. Once a master list was compiled, the names were checked manually for errors. You must refer to a database, which gives the names in alphabetical order and includes the position of each on the Memorial. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. They refer to older or younger siblings who are either in or on their way to college. 1972 NAID 305367, Silver Star Medal and Legion of Merit Award Case Files, 19711971 NAID 5721359. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965. The VC had commandeered Air America Hueys, and they were flying them around, which simply made for a very interesting chess game. Naval Academy, 130; Texas A & M, 112; The Citadel, 66; Virginia Military Institute, 43; Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 26; Norwich University, 19. Scholars debate about when the war really began and in many ways it has never ended. The panel number is a number/letter combination, such as 10W or 35E. This is the genius of Mayas design, said Scruggs. 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. 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. If each 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. Senate. . HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. Proving a direct correlation to the injuries is a challenge, Pontes explained. You could also keep these files on a computer at your to open, search, edit, or print the name files. 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. However, in 1980, President James E. Carter resumed Selective Service registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 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. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the individual service branches maintained separate casualty lists with slightly differing criteria. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. Instead its nearly in the center. 1970 - ca. Alphabetical listing of the names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall . 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. The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). Vietnam Veterans Memorial Learn about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in this brief introductory video. In some instances, names needed to be shuffled in order to fit on a line. 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. No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. 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. Chiseled on the wall are the names of the 58,196 men and women who either died or are still listed as missing in Southeast Asia between 1959 and 1975. . Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. 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. VVMF does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. As they came through the door, Viet Cong guerrillas opened fire with machine guns. And they often show a heartbreakingly wry sense of humor with the same sensibilities as their college-bound peers. This video can help you find the name of someone you'd like to honor. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. 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. Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. Buis can be found at the top middle of a slab designated Panel 1E. Since then, 379 names have been added, for a total of 58,318 (as of Memorial Day 2017). This can help veterans or relatives find other persons who died with Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Some common names appear on the Memorial more than once. November 11, 1982. They drew on every segment of American society. By providing your mobile phone number, you opt in to receive calls and texts from USO. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angles open side and contained within the earth itself. There are officially 58,228 names on the Wall, but the database these files were derived . Despite their inexperience, they were thought to accept discipline readily. the person they know. 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. 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. A more precise equation would be that the college bound stayed home while the non-college bound served and died. 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. 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. 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. This was long before the advent of integrated computer databases. peruse. She wanted the names to tell the journey, or the timeline, of the war. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 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. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. Kurt became the man of the house, even as a boy. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. Once additions are approved by DoD, VVMF receives the list of approved names, coordinates the inscribing and absorbs the costs. He would become instrumental in helping Doubek identify names and check spellings. The Vietnam War was no different. I mean, it was bad.. 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 Wall USA is a non-profit endeavor maintained by veterans . Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. 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. 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. And mores the pity, because many of them were trying to escape this background and didnt make it. 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. An Air Force member, with his back to the camera, holds the POW/MIA flag during a full honors funeral for Air Force Second Lieutenant Richard Vandegeer at Arlington National Cemetery on October 27, 2000. The Air Force lost 2,580 or l percent. 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. Several hundred such designation changes have been made since the Wall was built in 1982. . Sad to say, many of these recruitment promises were fudged in one way or another, and many of these young men found themselves shipped directly to Vietnam after basic training. fprintf matlab decimal places,