The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. 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. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. See Access to Non-Archival Records for more information. Naval History & Heritage CommandWashington Navy Yard, Bldg 57 (3rd Floor)Washington, DC 20374Telephone: (202) 433-3224, Marine CorpsU.S. The popularity of the GI Bill after Vietnam emphasized this yearning. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. 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. The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 245 deaths. Coast Guard Historians OfficeCommandant (CG-09224)U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters 2100 Second Street SW Washington, D.C. 20593. He accepted the tradition of military service passed on to him by the popular culture and by President John F. Kennedys ringing words, Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. 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. Air Force Historical Research Agency 600 Chenault Circle Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424Telephone: (334) 953-2395, ArmyU.S. . Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. The Navy fatalities were 2,556 or 2 percent. Download our app to find events, locations and programs near you. If a service member were to return alive, a circlethe symbol of lifewould be inscribed around the plus sign. 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. Beginning Research in United States Military Records, National Vietnam War Veterans Day - Wikepedia, National Park Service Vietnam Veterans Memorial. 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam. 5th Marines were killed in . Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the individual service branches maintained separate casualty lists with slightly differing criteria. Since its adoption in 1951, at the time of the Korean War, this policy had been renewed by Congress every four years. . 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. No duplicate copies of the records that were destroyed in the fire were maintained, nor was a microfilm copy ever produced. If your browser displays the text file, you can then use Kurt Buis was 8 years old the day his father died. 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. The draft continued from 1948, during both peacetime and war, to 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed legislation officially ending the draft. "The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund's registry enables veterans across the world to be able to locate fellow Vietnam Veterans and of course, connect their stories with those who made the ultimate sacrifice. as the names on the Wall. 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 will be the evolving historical judgment for those names on the Wall? Many of the 17- and 18-year olds were simply late in maturing. The figures show that on average 65 percent of white enlisted men and 60 percent of black enlisted men were high school graduates. The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. and have two columns per page, rather than only one column. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons. The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 2,415 casualties were incurred. Less than 1 percent (0.8) were Jewish, Hindu, Thai, Buddhist or Muslim combined, and 5.7 listed no religion. The Marine Corps losses were skewed even more to the lower ranks, 91 percent were privates or corporals. However, in 1980, President James E. Carter resumed Selective Service registration in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 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. Postscript: Since 1982, there have been 89 names added to The Wall. 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 directories are organized alphabetically by last name. 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. 1972 NAID 305367, Silver Star Medal and Legion of Merit Award Case Files, 19711971 NAID 5721359. Locate the line on which the name is inscribed. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 1982, with 57,939 names. If officers are added, then almost 70 percent of those who died were volunteers. Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . 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. . Ziomek's name was finally inscribed on the Washington memorial on Sept. 15, 2020; he was one of just three veterans added in 2020. 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. 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 names would become the memorial. 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. The DOD percentages reveal that nearly 75 percent of Army enlisted casualties were privates or corporals. With the glitch discovered, Doubek and his team located and hand-corrected each error. The index gives birth and death dates, country of death, cause of death (air, ground, or sea), town and state of residence at time of enlistment, race, religious affiliation, marital status, service number, rank, and branch of service. 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. This is the most accurate database online. 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. 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. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angles open side and contained within the earth itself. Most of the young American enlisted men who served in Vietnam were not college prospects at the time they entered the service. 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. The first group, added in 1983, included 53 Marines who were killed when their R&R (rest and relaxation) flight crashed in Hong Kong. Her name? On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. It is more notable, perhaps, only because his was the first name engraved into The Wall. 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. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed in chronological order of the casualty date and then alphabetical by last name within a given date. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. 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 person they know. Unfortunately, he mistakenly added a small number of names of men who were still alive. The names are listed in chronological order, according to the date of casualty. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. In the event a service members remains are returned or accounted for, then a diamond symbol is engraved over the plus sign. 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. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. 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. Be the first to learn about news, service member stories and fundraising updates from USO. About 58 thousand of the 7 million American service men and women who served in Vietnam died. Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. Frequently relatives or buddies of casualties HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. She wanted the names to tell the journey, or the timeline, of the war. But after World War II a kind of educational apartheid had settled over the United States. 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. Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. 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 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. The wall at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington is 493 feet and 6 inches long, built of thick, polished black Bangalore granite. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. Beside each name is a symbol that denotes a service members status: either missing or confirmed dead. These were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Latino-Americans with ancestries based in Central and South America. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. The essence of the Wall is the names and the reaction of the visitor to seeing his or her reflection in this sea of remembrance. 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. They drew on every segment of American society. the "save as" menu command to store each text file on your media. During one review, Doubek found a glitch with the computer software: it did not recognize the spaces that appeared within a last name, such as van der Meide. Nor could it properly discern a compounded first name, such as Billy Bob, versus a traditional first and middle name. Perhaps more important, many of them probably did not yet fully understand their own mortality and were therefore less likely to be hesitant in combat. For families who have worked to have their loved ones name added, the journey can be long and exhausting. The National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis maintains Vietnam War Official Military Personnel Files (OMPF). No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. Click to learn about the In Memory program . Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. 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. There were no indexes created prior to the fire. 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. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Its still fought in the bodies and minds of the men who waged it all those decades ago. Who were they? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. 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.