Items are gathered by park staff. It ripped men from their loved ones, family, friends, and it left a wave of death in its path. 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. Vietnam Memorial.com - Vietnam Memorial List of Heroes - Vietnam Dear Mr. Huddleston, Thank you for posting your request on History Hub! Congress and the Johnson administration, therefore, sought to protect our college-bound and educated young men. Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . All classes were drafted or volunteered and all served and died equally, although it must be noted that most blacks died separately. Who were they? 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 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. Click to learn about the In Memory program . The Navy fatalities were 2,556 or 2 percent. Congress. They lived only a few yards apart. This memorial was built with private contributions from the American people. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. Making these arrangements and printing the pages takes considerable Thus it is safe to say that Hispanic-Americans were over-represented among Vietnam casualties an estimated 5.5 percent of the dead against 4.5 percent of the 1970 population. Interested in a tour as part of your visit? HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. As one walks the Wall slowly, examining the ineffably American names, one is struck by the same recurring surnames. The directory can be purchased on the VVMF store. The civilian and military men who formed the policy did not see it necessarily as a disadvantage. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. . The event begins on November 7, 2022 at 3 p.m. EST and ends at midnight on November 10, 2022. 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. Why are names added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall? Joe Moore's VN Memorial Wall Start Page - cantho-rvn.org 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. 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. Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded. Digital History EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. And, as in every American war, it is the very young who are the most willing to volunteer. Millions more come to experience this Memorial each year. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. John Kennedy, discussing military assignments, said that, life is unfair. Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics, Korean War and Vietnam War casualties listed at the National Archives, Hospital Admission Card Files, ca. 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 ship had been taken to the island of Koh Tang. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. 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. Naval History & Heritage CommandWashington Navy Yard, Bldg 57 (3rd Floor)Washington, DC 20374Telephone: (202) 433-3224, Marine CorpsU.S. peruse. . An aunt came and loaded the three boys into the car. 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 resulting aptitude scores were used to classify entrants into four categories and this would, for the most part, determine their subsequent assignments. The result: no comprehensive master list of Vietnam War casualties existed. 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. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. World War II had been, for the most part, a perfect war, clear of purpose, the forces of democracy and freedom lined up against the forces of fascism and tyranny. This approach would allow veterans, friends and family members to find a loved one by his or her date of casualty. For information regarding official military unit histories, contact: Air ForceU.S. Its now one of the most popular memorials in Washington. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. His name does not appear at either far end. 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. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. Maya Lin - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund In an audiotape recorded for a close friend shortly before Vandegeers death, and transcribed in Bernard Edelmans book Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam, he described the perilous mission in Saigon. 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. We searched the National Archives Catalog and located a series titled Muster Rolls and Personnel Diaries, 1941-1980 in the Records of the U.S. Marine Corps (Record Group 127). Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. 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. A diamond symbol signifies that the service members death was confirmed. The makeup of U.S. combat forces in Vietnam has long been the subject of controversy among social scientists. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. 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. The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). Every day at 3:00 p.m. EST, VVMF will play a daily reading of all the individuals who died upon that day in alphabetical order. 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 hard to believe it has been 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. How to Find a Name on Vietnam Wall - YouTube Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. 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. 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. But in 1966, President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara decided to institute Project 100,000 that would allow category IV men to enter the military. In the military it can be somewhat more deadly. If a service member were to return alive, a circlethe symbol of lifewould be inscribed around the plus sign. They did not, in most cases, carry the burdens of wife or children. Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. Its still fought in the bodies and minds of the men who waged it all those decades ago. Army Center of Military History103 3rd AvenueFort Lesley J. McNair, DC 20319-5058Telephone: (202) 685-4042, NavyU.S. 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. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. The names of Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale Buis are inscribed on Panel 1E of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. As many as 3 million people visit each year, according to some estimates, and they come for probably as many reasons. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. 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. 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. The affected record collections are described below. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. And there is an end. Seeking Names of Marines killed in Vietnam in D | History Hub Dates of enlsitment or selective service registration will be helpful along with the name military units they served with. Please say a prayer for our fallen heroes, their family members, and our hero Vietnam War Veterans during your visit. 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. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the individual service branches maintained separate casualty lists with slightly differing criteria. The panels come together to form a point, linking the first and last together in enduring tribute. November 11, 1982. Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. 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). But there is a beginning. Frequently relatives or buddies of casualties There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Vietnam Wall. 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. Photo credit DOD photo by Army Sgt. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. More names are added to the wall every year. The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Their sons, if not college material, made up a significant part of the volunteers and draftees. ".for those who have died." Names that become eligible for inclusion are added once each year, in May, a few weeks before Memorial Day. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 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. Kurt Buis was 8 years old the day his father died.