alphabetical list of names on the vietnam wall

Millions more come to experience this Memorial each year. 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. There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. It ripped men from their loved ones, family, friends, and it left a wave of death in its path. 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. Many of the 17- and 18-year olds were simply late in maturing. 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. If a service member were to return alive, a circlethe symbol of lifewould be inscribed around the plus sign. 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 DOD database shows that of the 2,100,000 men and women who served in Vietnam, 58,152 were killed. They often reveal a typically warm American family atmosphere. The draft policy at the time of the Vietnam War was called the Universal Military Training and Service Act. Indeed, officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. Another browser may inform you that it does not know how to display the file We were being fired upon by anti-aircraft guns. With the glitch discovered, Doubek and his team located and hand-corrected each error. For a photograph of an inscription of a close friend or relative, write: This website requires a paid subscription for full access. 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. that each name was a real person. It is hard to believe it has been 36 years since the last casualties. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. I.. J.. K.. L.. M. N.. O.. P.. Q.. R.. S.. T.. U.. V.. W.. X.. Y.. Z 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. As a result, the black casualty rate was reduced to 11.5 percent by 1969. 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. Full casualty records may be retrieved online through the National Archives' Access to Archival Databases resource. Of the 7,262 blacks who died, 6,955, or 96 percent, were Army and Marine enlisted men. but will allow you to download it after you specify a file name. The USO relies on your support to help service members and their families. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a symbol of American honor and appreciation for the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives during the Vietnam War. Since then, 379 names have been added, for a total of 58,318 (as of Memorial Day 2017). This number of deaths per 100,000 compared strikingly with the 23.5 in the Northeast region, 29.9 in the West and 28.4 in the North Central (Midwest) region. 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. Photo credit DOD photo. Gather facts from sources at home,and talk to relatives. 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 Names that become eligible for inclusion are added once each year, in May, a few weeks before Memorial Day. For blacks, however, only 7 percent placed in categories I and II and 93 percent placed in categories III and IV. 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. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. Every day, Americas service members selflessly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and free. ARMY AND MARINE OFFICER CASUALTIES BY RANK AND AGE. Others, later in the war, were simply ineligible because of high lottery number. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. 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. Quite a different profile emerges among the Navy and Air force officer corps. VVMF receives numerous requests each year from individuals who wish to have particular names added to the Memorial. Unfortunately, the Department of Defense and the individual service branches maintained separate casualty lists with slightly differing criteria. This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties 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. 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. The National Park Service offers these steps for locating a name: National Park Service rangers and volunteers are available to assist in locating names at the Memorial. About 58 thousand of the 7 million American service men and women who served in Vietnam died. And mores the pity, because many of them were trying to escape this background and didnt make it. Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). For men who registered for the draft prior to 1976, the only Selective Service System information available is that of the individual Draft Registration Card (SSS Form 1) and Classification History (SSS Form 102) records. the "save as" menu command to store each text file on your media. 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. In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. Its unlikely that anyone who visits the memorial on a given day would have the time, the heart or the stomach to read and consider each one. Marine Corps History Division2044 Broadway StreetQuantico, Virginia 22134Telephone: (703) 432-4877, Coast GuardU.S. West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. Their names, however, have been removed from the printed Directory of Names. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. 244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall. On the west wall, the symbol precedes the name; on the east wall, the symbol follows the name. 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 One additional factor, often overlooked, that influenced volunteer enlistment was military tradition the influence of fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles and others who had served in previous 20th century wars. Interesting Veterans Statistics Of The Vietnam Memorial Wall There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010. Air Force Historical Research Agency 600 Chenault Circle Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424Telephone: (334) 953-2395, ArmyU.S. http://www.freetoursbyfoot.com/vietna.. Through the AFQT process, the men scoring in the higher categories were more likely to be channeled into further specialized training and eventually assigned to technical and administrative units. 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 Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated on November 10, 1982, with 57,939 names. They lived only a few yards apart. The directory can be purchased on the VVMF store. We worked very hard with volunteers from the Gold Star Mothers, recalled Doubek. The numbers on the wall ascend from the center out toward the left and right extremes. Naval Academy, 130; Texas A & M, 112; The Citadel, 66; Virginia Military Institute, 43; Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 26; Norwich University, 19. I can envision a small cottage someplace, with a lot of writing paper, and a dog, and a fireplace, and maybe enough money to give myself some Irish coffee now and then and entertain my two friends , I dont think it will be too terribly long until we are together again.. Coast Guard Historians OfficeCommandant (CG-09224)U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters 2100 Second Street SW Washington, D.C. 20593. Vietnam War: in Country, Notice: Scanning of Vietnam-era Deck Logs, Vietnam War, 1961-1975. Unfortunately, he mistakenly added a small number of names of men who were still alive. Along with its wave of death, it scarred many people, especially those closest to the men that died fighting the . Another challenge was ensuring the accuracy of the names. How many Smiths can there possibly be who died in Vietnam? Only 5 to 10 percent of enlisted men in the combat units were estimated to have had some college, and less than 1 percent of these enlisted men were college graduates. Tom was killed while assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl HarborDay. Items are gathered by park staff. These young men were trained quickly and shipped to Vietnam quickly. It may come as a surprise to some that 63.3 percent of all Vietnam enlisted casualties were not draftees but volunteers. 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. Patricia Krause. It specified the geographic areas of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and surrounding coastal areas as combat zones. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. 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. offer to read the block of names that includes their special names. The panels are numbered beginning from the center out toward the ends of each wall. Congress and the Johnson administration, therefore, sought to protect our college-bound and educated young men. 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. 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. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. There are 58,267 names now listed on Vietnam Wall, including those added in 2010. In many of these families it was considered unpatriotic and indeed reprehensible to avoid active duty by requesting a status deferment or seeking out a draft counselor for advice on how to avoid the draft. 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. 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. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. In the event a service members remains are returned or accounted for, then a diamond symbol is engraved over the plus sign. compiled by Military Records and Research Library, Department of Military Affairs; edited by Julia D. Rather and Jeffrey Michael Duff, Research Our Records. And they often show a heartbreakingly wry sense of humor with the same sensibilities as their college-bound peers. 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. 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 panel number is a number/letter combination, such as 10W or 35E. 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. If you 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. The USO is a not-for-profit organization and not part of the Department of Defense (DoD). This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. Vietnam War Casualties- Main Alphabetical Index www.VirtualWall.org Find A Name Information Memorial pages honoring Vietnam War casualties, listed by their last names. There are over 58,000 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. 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 very young were considered by many to be preferred combat material. Instead its nearly in the center. In high school, he joined ROTC and kept his fathers medals pinned next to his own awards on a piece of crimson cloth. Some common names appear on the Memorial more than once. 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. is complete, or you've done a "save as", you can use any word processor 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. Twenty years passed before Vandegeers remains were identified and another five passed before his funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. 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. I looked at the record to determine whether mortal wounds were sustained, Doubek said of the men whose names were listed by the Army, but not by DoD. Brothers Marlin and Norman Eversgerd were both killed in Vietnam. EIN: 52-1149668, Copyright 2023 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display, Look up the name in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The files are quite large in order that we could save in Rich Text Format Our combat arms were thought to be completely classless. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Except for the last file, there are approximately 10,000 names per file. The Wall is about names. 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. 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. 3rd Battalion. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. Lins vision prevailed. Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. National Mall and Memorial Parks , Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. At the time, approximately 1,300 names were designated as servicemen who were either missing or prisoners of war. Written requests should be mailed to: National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave., St. Louis, MO 63132-5100. 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. Locate the corresponding panel at the Memorial. Although the names are not listed alphabetically, it is not difficult for visitors to find a name on the Memorial. The Wall USA is a non-profit endeavor maintained by veterans . Many others joined the reserves or National Guard, which were not mobilized in any appreciable numbers during the war. They seem honored to be putting the names on 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. 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 Vietnam Veterans Memorial is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for all who wish to visit. Getting to Washington, D.C. On July 12, 1973, a disastrous fire at the NPRC destroyed approximately 16-18 million Official Military Personnel Files. 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. 26 Similar Questions Non-perishable items are archived in a storage facility. The Army suffered the most total casualties, 38,179 or 2.7 percent of its force. 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. 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. 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. The major service academies and other military colleges provided close to 900 of the Vietnam officer casualties: the U.S. Military Academy, 278; the U.S. Air Force Academy, 205; the U.S. Order it can be difficult but there are a few ways to find a name at either end of the memorial are stands with books inside these list the names in alphabetical. Forces in Southeast Asia, 1950 - 1976 NAID 745, RG, 472, Meritorious Unit Commendations, 1967 - 1971 NAID 4726287, Medal of Honor Awards Case Files, 1965 - ca. 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. Please be patient 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. On the stencil printouts, each line contained five names per row. The panels come together to form a point, linking the first and last together in enduring tribute. This page was last edited on 12 December 2022, at 18:28. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. 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. Dates of enlsitment or selective service registration will be helpful along with the name military units they served with. It would also enable veterans to find groups of friends who died during the same incident. 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. 1970 - ca. Please take a moment to let our troops know how much we appreciate their service and sacrifice. as the names on the Wall. There are officially 58,228 names on the Wall, but the database these files were derived . What will be the evolving historical judgment for those names on the Wall? Fully 50 percent were in the 17- to 24-year age group, and astonishingly, there were 764 Army officer casualties who were 21 or younger. The training for American officers is thought by most foreign military authorities to be the best in the world. We honor and remember their sacrifice.". the person they know. 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. In 2004, the total is 58,241 names. information is available on this web site: These files are lists of the names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, listed By and large, with the exception of the officer corps, most of the college bound and educated skipped the Vietnam War at the urging of, and with the approval of, their own government. If your browser displays the text file, you can then use person reads for 20 minutes, (270 names) this will require 216 volunteer name 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. Only 10 percent of enlisted men had even some college to their credit and only 1 percent were college graduates. Their sons, if not college material, made up a significant part of the volunteers and draftees. The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. These were Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and other Latino-Americans with ancestries based in Central and South America. 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 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. November 11, 1982. Army Major Dale Buis' name is etched into the granite half an inch tall, no bigger or smaller than any of the others. The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 245 deaths. 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. 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 young enlisted volunteer or draftee had not had much time to form any complicated theories about our Vietnam commitment. The article was written by Bill Abbott, an independent researcher and writer. . The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. Look at the bottom of each panel on the wall for its number. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angles open side and contained within the earth itself. More than 200 names have been added to the Wall All heroes are listed alphabetically by their last name. 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. readers. 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. 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. The Vietnam War was no different. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. 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. 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 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. No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. 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. 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam. Postscript: Since 1982, there have been 89 names added to The Wall. 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. What happens to items left at the memorial? In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. 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. Congress. Note that the files are large, and are in Rich Text Format (RTF), with two