alphabetical list of names on the vietnam wall alphabetical list of names on the vietnam wall

Where previously a high school diploma had been an acceptable goal, now it was college and all the benefits it would bring. And mores the pity, because many of them were trying to escape this background and didnt make it. The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 2,415 casualties were incurred. An aunt came and loaded the three boys into the car. The Vietnam War was no different. Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. The VC had commandeered Air America Hueys, and they were flying them around, which simply made for a very interesting chess game. Scholars debate about when the war really began and in many ways it has never ended. 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. . When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. Alphabetical listing of the names on the Vietnam Memorial Wall . Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Vandegeer was on a mission to rescue the crew of the SS Mayaguez, a merchant ship captured three days earlier off the coast of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. Locate the line on which the name is inscribed. While VVMF finances the name additions to the Wall, it is the Department of Defense that makes these difficult and often technical decisions. while they download, thank you. While I was in training, my motivation was to get these wings and I wear them today proudly, the airman recalled in 2015. With the end of the Cold War, many now believe that at its outset the Vietnam War was a quite honorable extension of our ultimately successful policy of Communist containment; that our effort in Vietnam became flawed because of political and strategic failures having nothing to do with those who died there; and that these young Americans were asked by three presidents and six Congresses to give up their lives so that freedom would have a better chance in the world. since it was dedicated because additional casualty records were found and 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. ".for those who have died." The Selective Service System remains in place today. And there is an end. The names are listed chronologically by date of death, the first to last. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. Some have tried for years before receiving approval from DoD. 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. For families who have worked to have their loved ones name added, the journey can be long and exhausting. 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. United States. They seem honored to be putting the names on the Wall.. Kurt Buis was 8 years old the day his father died. The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). 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. Non-Archival records are those of service members who separated from the military less than 62 years ago. Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. 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. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. With the glitch discovered, Doubek and his team located and hand-corrected each error. 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. Since then, 379 names have been added, for a total of 58,318 (as of Memorial Day 2017). 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. 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. 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. 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. The Marine Corps losses were skewed even more to the lower ranks, 91 percent were privates or corporals. for all 58,228 names to be read aloud. I.. J.. K.. L.. M. N.. O.. P.. Q.. R.. S.. T.. U.. V.. W.. X.. Y.. Z 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. When the sound of exploding hand grenades rang out in the hall, Buis and others ran toward the sound. The appearance of DoD visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement. Once download compiled by Military Records and Research Library, Department of Military Affairs; edited by Julia D. Rather and Jeffrey Michael Duff, Research Our Records. Derek Turner is a freelance writer and a former senior editor of On Patrol. Beside each name is a symbol that denotes a service members status: either missing or confirmed dead. Digital History 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. This approach would allow veterans, friends and family members to find a loved one by his or her date of casualty. The same profile holds true for the Marine Corps, where 87 percent of all officer casualties (821 of 938) were warrant officers, lieutenants or captains. The Marines of Morenciled some of thebest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. What will be the evolving historical judgment for those names on the Wall? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 1982, with 57,939 names. Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. Vietnam Veterans Memorial (U.S. National Park Service) 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). This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. 1st Class Michael J. Carden, "'The Vietnam War' Sponsor Bank of America Teams With The Lumineers to Support the USO ", Programs for Service Members and Their Families. 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. The Names - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Look for clues about where he or she lived and served. The unit diary portion of the muster roll should indicate when members of the Lima Company, 3rd platoon. Of 2,590 total Air Force casualties, 1,674 or 65 percent were officers. Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. Hed volunteered to join a small U.S. military advisory team attached to the South Vietnamese army, and hed been in the village of Bien Hoa for only two days. Whether they produced battlefield images of the dead or daguerreotype portraits of common soldiers, []. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010: see the "National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries" section below. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. The burden of combat fell on the very available non-college-bound young. This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam. 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. 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. 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. You could also keep these files on a computer at your 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 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. If officers are added, then almost 70 percent of those who died were volunteers. Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons. 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. Thus, the wars beginning and end meet. Of all enlisted men who died in Vietnam, blacks made up 14.1 percent of the total. However, there have been no such cases. Blacks were 85 percent Protestant. All classes were drafted or volunteered and all served and died equally, although it must be noted that most blacks died separately. As of 2017, there are 58,318 names inscribed on The Wall. If the veteran is still alive, ask his or her help finding records. Instead its nearly in the center. Vandegeers message also depicted a man who believed the worst was behind him. No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. Click to learn about the In Memory program . 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. The west wall is on the left when standing facing the vertex, and the east wall is to the right. 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. How many women soldiers died in the Vietnam War? As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. The combination of the selective service policies with the skills and aptitude testing of both volunteers and draftees (in which blacks scored noticeably lower) conspired to assign blacks in greater numbers to the combat units of the Army and Marine Corps. This takes about 72 hours. effort, but is a very effective means to express the enormity of the war and He was a Navy enlisted man during World War II and has a degree in Political Science from Duke University. Please say a prayer for our fallen heroes, their family members, and our hero Vietnam War Veterans during your visit. 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. What happens to items left at the memorial? The Vietnam Wall. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. The Wall is about names. Look for discharge papers, pictures, medals,etc. Making these arrangements and printing the pages takes considerable is complete, or you've done a "save as", you can use any word processor How to Order a Draft Record. These were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Latino-Americans with ancestries based in Central and South America. This memorial was built with private contributions from the American people. 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. These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. Though 13 were rescued at sea, the rest died, either upon impact or soon after. The shining surface is intended to reflect the sun, the ground and those who stand before it. Some are drawn to the Wall like pilgrims to Mecca. VVMF does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. Of the 7,877 officer casualties, 7,595, or 96.4 percent, were white; 147, or 1.8 percent, were black; 24, or 0.3 percent, were Asian; 7, or .08 percent, were Native American; 104, or 1.3 percent, were unidentified by race. 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 July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. It specified the geographic areas of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and surrounding coastal areas as combat zones. Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. 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. 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 names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. (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. The remaining 70 percent of our Vietnam enlisted casualties were of English/Scottish/Welsh, German, Irish and Scandinavian-American ancestries, more from the South and Midwest than the other regions, many from small towns with a family military tradition. There are the tourists who make the circuit of all the various monuments and landmarks in our nations capital. Online Vietnam War Indexes & Records - Military Indexes Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Coast Guard Historians OfficeCommandant (CG-09224)U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters 2100 Second Street SW Washington, D.C. 20593. 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. West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. The DOD database listed precise religious preferences for the 58,152 Vietnam casualties. This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. 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). 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. 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. It is forgotten now, but in the beginning Congress and most of the American people were behind our containment effort in Vietnam. 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. On the west wall, the symbol precedes the name; on the east wall, the symbol follows the name. United States Vietnam War 1964 to 1972 FamilySearch Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). Maya Lin - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Military Reunions, Screensavers, Rubbings, Personal Guestbook for all Names. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. For more information on this index on, Records relating to American prisoners of war and missing in action from the Vietnam War, including lists and descriptions of the record groups covering the Vietnam War that are held by the National Archives are also found in the FS Library US/CAN Book. Colleen Pontes, whose father Kevin Joyce was added in 2003, remembered the rush of emotions she felt as she and her brother watched their dads name being inscribed in the granite. 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. 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. As a result, the software improperly truncated or abbreviated names. Nursing the wounded. There was no need to embellish. Most of the young American enlisted men who served in Vietnam were not college prospects at the time they entered the service. 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. 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. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Most of these casualties are documented in the Military Index, a FamilySearch file. 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. In the event a service members remains are returned or accounted for, then a diamond symbol is engraved over the plus sign. To put a circle around the symbol beside their names would not provide the correct historical context related to their situation. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. Unfortunately, he mistakenly added a small number of names of men who were still alive. The resulting aptitude scores were used to classify entrants into four categories and this would, for the most part, determine their subsequent assignments. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. 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. Photo credit DOD photo by Army Sgt. I could tell you about how real the fear was that I felt, since from the time we crossed the Delta and made the run into Saigon, we were over enemy territory. U.S. Army Personnel and Dependent Casualties, 1961-1981 85% of the records in this database are related to the Vietnam Conflict. If the two branches are combined, then 80 percent of the Army and Marine enlisted casualties were privates or corporals, grades E-1 to E-4. The names of Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale Buis are inscribed on Panel 1E of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. Air Force Historical Research Agency 600 Chenault Circle Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424Telephone: (334) 953-2395, ArmyU.S. 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. Alphabetical List Of Vietnam Veterans : Top Picked from our Experts 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 Wall of Faces allows family and friends to share memories, post pictures and connect with each other. Despite their inexperience, they were thought to accept discipline readily. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. 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. Buis was in Vietnam by his own volition. Its been more than 20 years since Forrest Gump debuted on the silver screen and nearly a generation later, its characters still resonate with todays service members. John Kennedy, discussing military assignments, said that, life is unfair. Buis died, as did Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand, whose name is second on the wall. Plan a Visit - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund The directory can be purchased on the VVMF store. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. 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. . 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 young enlisted volunteer or draftee had not had much time to form any complicated theories about our Vietnam commitment. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. 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. 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. I mean, it was bad.. 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. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. This can be in the form of a book, The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Directory of Names, or one of the various databases. The largest age group, 8,283 were just 19 years old. You may print these files and have the pages available for visitors to See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. The names are inscribed in the chronological order of their dates of casualty, showing the war as a series of individual human sacrifices and giving each name a special place in history. The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). Only 3 returned home. 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 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. A(1780 names - 239023 bytes) B(5502 names - 737972 bytes) C(4363 names - 586584 bytes) D(2790 names - 374290 bytes) E(1082 names - 144866 bytes) F(1979 names - 265759 bytes) G(3036 names - 407075 bytes) H(4463 names - 598834 bytes) I(218 names - 29278 bytes) J(1845 names - 247563 bytes) K(2039 names - 273818 bytes) L(2594 names - 347007 bytes) The officer corps casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. 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. Of the 7,262 blacks who died, 6,955, or 96 percent, were Army and Marine enlisted men. The training for American officers is thought by most foreign military authorities to be the best in the world. A doctor arrived and gave his shaken mother a sedative. 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. 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. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. 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. 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 Names - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund The Names When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. His name does not appear at either far end. In 2004, the total is 58,241 names. Those who died in the Vietnam War whose last names begin - Virtual Wall The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for all who wish to visit. 5th Marines were killed in . As Maya Ling Lin, the architect of the Wall, has said: It was as if the black-brown earth were polished and made into an interface between the sunny world and the quiet dark world beyond that we cannot enter. We honor and remember their sacrifice.". 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).