THE NAMES ON THE WALL: AN HISTORICAL JUDGMENT. The Army lost the greatest number of officers 4,635 or 59 percent of all officer casualties. 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. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Their sons, if not college material, made up a significant part of the volunteers and draftees. 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. 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. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two Charles Holley; chief editor, Robert J. Martin, 4th Infantry Division. His name does not appear at either far end. ".for those who have died." Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. It was fitting that Vandegeer finally returned home to American soil, because he spent his last weeks at war evacuating Americans as Saigon fell. Marlin on March 19, 1967 and Norman on August 18, 1968 Brothers Bennett and Dennis Herrick were both killed in Vietnam. 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. How many Smiths can there possibly be who died in Vietnam? A diamond symbol signifies that the service members death was confirmed. Nursing the wounded. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. As of 2017, there are 58,318 names inscribed on The Wall. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. Inscribed dots in the margins of every other panel mark every 10 lines to aid in counting. Photo credit DOD photo. columns per page. Blacks were 85 percent Protestant. Text STOP to opt out, HELP for help. 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. 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 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. The DOD percentages reveal that nearly 75 percent of Army enlisted casualties were privates or corporals. 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. It is not surprising, for instance, that West Virginia, Montana, and Oklahoma had a casualty rate almost twice that of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. A relatively small number refused to register for the draft at all. 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. Once additions are approved by DoD, VVMF receives the list of approved names, coordinates the inscribing and absorbs the costs. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. 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. 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. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. Often that advice, especially for professional athletes, rock stars, sons of politicians and other celebrities, was to join the never-to-be-called-up reserves or National Guard. 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. It may come as a surprise to some that 63.3 percent of all Vietnam enlisted casualties were not draftees but volunteers. COL LEWIS HERBERT ABRAMS SSG SAMUEL ABRAMS Jr PFC TIMOTHY C ABRAMS Jr WO ANDREW JOHN ABRAMSON CPL MIGUEL A ABREU-BATISTA Jr SP4 ANTHONY JOSEPH ABRUZESE PFC ROBERT ALEXANDER ABRUZESE PFC MICHAEL JOHN ABRUZZESA Jr SGT WILLIAM WALLACE ABSHEAR SGT RICHARD FRANKLIN ABSHIRE PFC JAMES ESTUS ABSTON Jr SSG ROBERT JOSEPH ACALOTTO SP5 PEPITO RIVERA ACERET They went for a ride and she gently told them that their father would not be coming home. Most of the young American enlisted men who served in Vietnam were not college prospects at the time they entered the service. As the Vietnam War dragged on, Kurt tried twice to enlist. 1970 - ca. 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. 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 in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morencis mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. But there is a beginning. to open, search, edit, or print the name files. 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 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. The shining surface is intended to reflect the sun, the ground and those who stand before it. They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. information is available on this web site: These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed Making these arrangements and printing the pages takes considerable Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. Written requests should be mailed to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Their names, however, have been removed from the printed Directory of Names. | HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. These directories help locate names on the wall. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. Much more detailed 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. Only 3 returned home. 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old. Database of the 58,195 Names on The Wall in Wash,D.C. 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. The Marine Corps lost 14,836, or 5 percent of its own men. 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. The Navy fatalities were 2,556 or 2 percent. 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. Another challenge was ensuring the accuracy of the names. The ceremony is held on Mothers Day and the additions might be as simple as rectifying a clerical error or as heartbreaking as a veteran dying, all these years later, from a wound suffered during the war. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. 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. 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. . 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. Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. 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. 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. The largest age group, 8,283 were just 19 years old. 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 draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. Lins vision prevailed. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. Who were they? By providing your mobile phone number, you opt in to receive calls and texts from USO. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. It should be noted, however, that the draft was specifically designed to trigger volunteer enlistments. 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. 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. ), EDUCATIONAL LEVELS OF ENLISTED CASUALTIES. Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. The names of Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale Buis are inscribed on Panel 1E of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. The result: no comprehensive master list of Vietnam War casualties existed. 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 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. It is instructive to read the literature of the war, the letters written home from those who died, the novels and narrative accounts of those who served in combat and then returned. Honoring the men and women who served in the controversial Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial chronologically lists the names of 58,318 Americans who gave their lives in service to their country. This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. But after World War II a kind of educational apartheid had settled over the United States. This approach would allow veterans, friends and family members to find a loved one by his or her date of casualty. An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam. . We honor and remember their sacrifice.". 8 Women are on the Wall. 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam. 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. 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. However, if officer casualties are added to the total, then this overrepresentation is reduced to 12.5 percent of all casualties. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Vietnam Wall. She wanted the names to tell the journey, or the timeline, of the war. Nor did America recognize, on July 8, 1959the day he was killedthat another long and bloody war lay in wait. Many of the 17- and 18-year olds were simply late in maturing. Additionally, many of the names on the wall were other teenagers from the suburban white collar communities with siblings who were in, or would go on to college, but who, as individuals themselves, were slow to mature, struggled through high school and were therefore very available for the Vietnam War. On November 7, 2021 VVMF began a daily virtual Reading of the Names. 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. 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. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. The Wall USA is a non-profit endeavor maintained by veterans . The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for all who wish to visit. About 58 thousand of the 7 million American service men and women who served in Vietnam died. AGE 17 TO 21 PREFERRED ARMY AND MARINE COMBAT MATERIAL. Frequently relatives or buddies of casualties If the demographic is expanded to 17- to 21- years, then we find there were 83 percent of Marine enlisted casualties, and 65 percent of Army enlisted casualties. Its still fought in the bodies and minds of the men who waged it all those decades ago. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. 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. How many names are on the wall? The Vietnam Wall at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park features the names of local fallen soldiers. Individual Award Case Files, 1969 - 1970. Coast Guard casualties are included in the Navy totals. The individual Draft Registration Card (SSS Form 1) may contain information such as: name, Selective Service registration number, age, date and place of birth, ethnicity, place of residence at time of registration and basic physical description. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. The first Americans to die did not perish in a foxhole or beneath stars obscured by a jungle canopy. The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 245 deaths. 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. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. 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. . 5,058) had ever known and cheered. 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. . Kurt became the man of the house, even as a boy. There are the still-grieving family members who come to pay respects as they would at a cemetery, to leave mementos and make chalk renderings of a loved ones name. Physical examination and test results, medical letters, laboratory work and other medical documentation that may have been included in these files no longer exist. You could also keep these files on a computer at your As many as 3 million people visit each year, according to some estimates, and they come for probably as many reasons. Many of them, as experienced pilots, were older (two thirds were thirty or older) and many were high ranking. 54 soldiers on the Wall attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/vietna.. As a result, the black casualty rate was reduced to 11.5 percent by 1969. Full casualty records may be retrieved online through the National Archives' Access to Archival Databases resource. The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. Thats a tragic 2,415 more names on the Vietnam Wall in a single month. On the other end of that phone call was an former Air Force officer who had served in Vietnam. Yet, a civilian heroine who served in a different capacity during that difficult time also merits particular acknowledgment. The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). 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. 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 Marines of Morenciled some of thebest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. (Surprisingly, as it turned out, the percentage of Vietnam veterans who applied for the GI Bill was higher than either World War II or Korea. 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. They seem honored to be putting the names on the Wall.. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. If you This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam. Search the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s database of names on the wall. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. In civilian life, poor aptitude testing can have a tremendous negative impact, whether for college placement or for simple job advancement. is complete, or you've done a "save as", you can use any word processor An aunt came and loaded the three boys into the car. 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. The DOD database provides no civilian or military educational levels for the Vietnam casualties specifically, but it does give us general levels for all enlisted men across all the services during the Vietnam era. In high school, he joined ROTC and kept his fathers medals pinned next to his own awards on a piece of crimson cloth. The burden of combat fell on the very available non-college-bound young. Those who could have qualified for college probably did not have the funds or motivation. During the Vietnam War, the Navy and Air Force became substantially white enclaves enlisted and officer casualties were 96 percent white. 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. In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. 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. 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. When the sound of exploding hand grenades rang out in the hall, Buis and others ran toward the sound. 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. Although valuable, this study was almost certainly misinterpreted by its authors when they said that their data showed that most privileged and influential segments of American society were not insulated from the perils of Vietnam conflict. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. Alphabetical listing of the names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall . They were struggling through or dropping out of high school, or if a high school graduate, had tested poorly for college entrance. The beginnings and endings are often hazy and the facts of the story lie at the mercy of the teller. Black leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., protested, and President Johnson ordered black participation in combat units cut back. 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.