Look at the bottom of each panel on the wall for its number. It stands near Panel 1W, which holds the name of the last to die in combat. Inscribed dots in the margins of every other panel mark every 10 lines to aid in counting. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. The names would become the memorial. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. 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. 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 names are listed chronologically by date of death, the first to last. As Vietnam War Veterans Day nears March 29, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Foundation's Wall of Faces is nearly complete but needs help from the public to track down the last few dozen photos. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. 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. Of 2,590 total Air Force casualties, 1,674 or 65 percent were officers. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. It was fitting that Vandegeer finally returned home to American soil, because he spent his last weeks at war evacuating Americans as Saigon fell. Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). 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 are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty. Her name? He tried to make the best call he could when adding names to the list. Scholars debate about when the war really began and in many ways it has never ended. When the sound of exploding hand grenades rang out in the hall, Buis and others ran toward the sound. Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of President John F. Kennedys assassination. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. During the Vietnam War, the Navy and Air Force became substantially white enclaves enlisted and officer casualties were 96 percent white. Look for clues about where he or she lived and served. The Names - Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund The Names When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. 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 of Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale Buis are inscribed on Panel 1E of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. The panel numbers are inscribed at the bottom of each panel. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. Their names, however, have been removed from the printed Directory of Names. 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. Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. 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. . 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. 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. As they came through the door, Viet Cong guerrillas opened fire with machine guns. The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 245 deaths. The job of cross-referencing the information of individual branches with the DoD fell to Doubek. The VC had commandeered Air America Hueys, and they were flying them around, which simply made for a very interesting chess game. 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. These young men were trained quickly and shipped to Vietnam quickly. 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). As a result, the black casualty rate was reduced to 11.5 percent by 1969. Almost 50 percent were majors, lieutenant-colonels, colonels and three were generals. 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 A doctor arrived and gave his shaken mother a sedative. The result: no comprehensive master list of Vietnam War casualties existed. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Congress and the Johnson administration, therefore, sought to protect our college-bound and educated young men. Marine Corps History Division2044 Broadway StreetQuantico, Virginia 22134Telephone: (703) 432-4877, Coast GuardU.S. We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. But there is a beginning. 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. The central idea of the poem is that the Vietnamese War took hundreds of lives away from the United States of America. 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. This video can help you find the name of someone you'd like to honor. 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. The directories are organized alphabetically by last name. to open, search, edit, or print the name files. 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. while they download, thank you. 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. A correspondingly greater tradition of military service in the other regions had its effect on U.S. regional casualties. The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. Buis can be found at the top middle of a slab designated Panel 1E. There are officially 58,228 names on the Wall, but the database these files were derived . The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. The DOD database shows that of the 2,100,000 men and women who served in Vietnam, 58,152 were killed. Most of the young American enlisted men who served in Vietnam were not college prospects at the time they entered the service. As Vandegeer piloted his CH-53 helicopter toward the island, a wall of anti-aircraft fire knocked it from the sky, and it crashed toward the water with 26 men aboard. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | 3033 Wilson Blvd, Suite 300 | Arlington VA 22201 | 202.393.0090 Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. The Vietnam Wall. 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. 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. Naval History & Heritage CommandWashington Navy Yard, Bldg 57 (3rd Floor)Washington, DC 20374Telephone: (202) 433-3224, Marine CorpsU.S. Buis was in Vietnam by his own volition. This is close to, but not exactly in the same order as the names on the Wall. These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. Since its controversial beginnings, feelings toward the Vietnam Veterans Memorial have changed drastically. Look for discharge papers, pictures, medals,etc. Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. 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 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. 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. Inscription at the beginning of The Wall. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. The Classification History (SSS Form 102) may contain: name; date of birth; classification and date of mailing notice; date of appeal to the board; date and results of armed forces physical examination; entry into active duty or civilian work in lieu of induction (may include date, branch of service entered and mode of entry, such as enlisted or ordered); date of separation from active duty or civilian work; and general remarks. VVMF does not have the authority to overrule those who adjudicate these matters. 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 this study we will refer to casualties as the 58,152 who died in Vietnam, but it should be emphasized that there were 153,303 who were wounded seriously enough to be hospitalized. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morencis mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. All classes were drafted or volunteered and all served and died equally, although it must be noted that most blacks died separately. 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. 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 Vietnam War was no different. AGE 17 TO 21 PREFERRED ARMY AND MARINE COMBAT MATERIAL. And there would be nothing to denote service or rank. 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. The names of Army Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand and Major Dale Buis are inscribed on Panel 1E of the Vietnam War Memorial Wall. 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. 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. The Air Force lost the highest percentage of officers. West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. Only the Navy, with 50 percent of its enlisted casualties over 21, and the Air Force, with 75 percent over 21, showed an older, more experienced age demographic. The figures show that on average 65 percent of white enlisted men and 60 percent of black enlisted men were high school graduates. All would be represented equally, with generals listed alongside infantrymen. (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.
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