|
|
Names On The Wall: A Closer Look At Those Who Died In VietnamVietnam | 7 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post …’In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. Inscription at the beginning of The Wall. Subscribe Today
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. The slabs meet at a vertex of 125 degrees, 10 feet above ground level to form the Wall. The shining surface is intended to reflect the sun, the ground and those who stand before it. The names are listed chronologically by date of death, the first to last. As one walks the Wall slowly, examining the ineffably American names, one is struck by the same recurring surnames. How many Smiths can there possibly be who died in Vietnam? There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. Who were they?
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE DATABASE
A new Department of Defense (DOD) database computer tape released through the National Archives allows researchers to take a much closer look at our 58,152 Vietnam casualties. 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.
DEFERMENTS AND EXEMPTIONS
The vast majority of Americans who were eligible by age but did not serve in the armed forces were exempted by reason of physical, mental, psychiatric, or moral failure; or they were given status deferments because they were college students, fathers, clergy, teachers, engineers or conscientious objectors. Others, later in the war, were simply ineligible because of high lottery number. Many others joined the reserves or National Guard, which were not mobilized in any appreciable numbers during the war. A relatively small number refused to register for the draft at all. Some went to Canada or Sweden, but few of those who evaded the draft were actually prosecuted and most were eventually pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1977.
CASUALTIES BY BRANCH OF SERVICE
The DOD database shows that of the 2,100,000 men and women who served in Vietnam, 58,152 were killed. The Army suffered the most total casualties, 38,179 or 2.7 percent of its force. The Marine Corps lost 14,836, or 5 percent of its own men.
The Navy fatalities were 2,556 or 2 percent. The Air Force lost 2,580 or l percent. Coast Guard casualties are included in the Navy totals. Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded.
Eight women were killed in Vietnam, five Army lieutenants, one Army captain, one Army lieutenant colonel and one Air Force captain. All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. An estimated 11,000 women served in Vietnam.
WOUNDED
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. Thus, there were 211,455 killed and wounded, or one in every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam. 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.
CASUALTIES BY AGE-ENLISTED
Since the days of Alexander the Great and the Roman Legions, it has always been the young, inexperienced, low-ranking enlisted man who has taken the brunt of combat casualties. The Vietnam War was no different. The DOD percentages reveal that nearly 75 percent of Army enlisted casualties were privates or corporals. The Marine Corps losses were skewed even more to the lower ranks, 91 percent were privates or corporals. 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. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Vietnam War
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
What is HistoryNet?The HistoryNet.com is brought to you by the Weider History Group, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 5,000 articles originally published in our various magazines. If you are interested in a specific history subject, try searching our archives, you are bound to find something to pique your interest. |
From Our Magazines
|
Weider History Group |
Weider History Network: HistoryNet | Armchair General | Great History | Achtung Panzer! Terms of Use | Copyright © 2009 Weider History Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. |
||
Loading ...
7 Comments to “Names On The Wall: A Closer Look At Those Who Died In Vietnam”
The statistics given are schewed when USAF USCG,and USN services, heavily represented by career specialists and fixed wing pilots, are included. Naturally exeptions must be made for special operations within the combat zone by (comparatively) very small units from these services. Despite numbers of pilots in these services that were lost, the fact is that the vast majority of casulties in this war were in the Marines and Army enlisted ranks, lower ranked officer and warrant officer (flight), and in the traditional combat MOS categories. Males enlisted for many reasons. My reason and that of many comrades in arms was the desire to avoid being drafted into the Marines. The 2 year enlistment RA gave an outwardly better chance of surviving if being drafted appeared inevitable…as it was for me. The draft made it virtually impossible for a male to become employed at most companies if he had a 1-a status, as they did not want to spend money on training draft bait or be tied with a drafted worker and the issues of post service reemployment. Enlistment for 2 years was the only option short of a quick marriage and immediate multiple pregnancies. The option of service in the Coast Guard, navy or air force was subject to highly competitive entry requirements and, in many cases, connections with political figures. A better assessment would be to evaluate the losses by age and MOS. My information places the average age of Army and Marine KIA and DOW at 19 years and 2 months. Similar studies on WWII place the same measure at 28, Korea at 24, and for the Civil War in the thirties. The main reason cited is the virtual exemption from Vietnam Service for NG and ER, especially in the combat arms units. Casulty numbers are also schewed by bean counters in government by including a very wide theater description that extended well outside the Vietnam combat operational area to units that did not serve in Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos. Finally, even inside the combat arms, there was a grading system which placed combat MOS in field units by in country assignments. Units like the 1st Air Cavalry, 82nd Airborne, 173rd Airborne, and 1st Division got high “draft” picks. Units like the Americal, 4th Division, and 101st (Now called “Airmobile”) were favored with lower quality (and much more likely to be drafted) remnants. If my memory serves, the Americal (23rd Division) was 80% enlisted Draftee in 2 of it’s brigades in 1970. The same applied to assignment of military academy junior officers. “Elite” units such as the 1st Cavalry and 82nd Abn got combat arms officers from the academy and the Americal got ROTC and, even worse, OCS officers with virtually no field skills, or West Pointers with non combat arms experience transferred from a missle silo in Montana. Ted Macinski
By Ted J. Macinski on Jul 4, 2008 at 3:07 pm
its good for my report on vietnamese.
By malikathompson on Oct 24, 2008 at 7:29 pm
I cannot believe I can’t find a complete list of all the soldiers names on the Vietnam Wall Memorial. I know the list exists somewhere with all the names in alphabetical order; surely that list is somewhere on the web. I am looking for two specific names of high school graduates who are supposed to have died in Vietnam. These two young men graduated in l965 from Pine Tree High School in Greggton, Texas, a school which is now considered to be in Longview, Texas. I graduated in l965 with these two men, and I would like to know what happened to them. I was told that they died fighting in Vietnam: I want to know if that is true.
PLEASE, where does such a list exist without having to pay for it. This information should be free to the public in America!!!!!!!
By Deborah Zidermanis on May 22, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Deborah,
Try this web site:
The Wall on the Web
By Linda Smith on May 27, 2009 at 9:36 pm
I am trying to find out some information about my uncle who served as a marine during the viet nam war, I was still young. Is there a list that shows all the men who served, but not who died during the war Thank you
By Cindy De Lotto on Jun 4, 2009 at 4:32 pm
To Deborah Zidermanis:
I found an alpha list at:
http://grunt.space.swri.edu/thewall/thewallm.html
Hope this helps.
By Bob Hanks on Jun 7, 2009 at 3:45 am
im try’n 2 find my father who served in the vietnam war please help his real name is Omega Stephens last known where abouts was fortlaurderdale.fla. or Orlando fla. his mothers name was Ophelia please help
By ivan harris on Oct 21, 2009 at 3:10 am