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Names On The Wall: A Closer Look At Those Who Died In VietnamVietnam | 7 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post
PROJECT 100,000 Subscribe Today
Adding to the problem was Project 100,000. Lower end category IVs consisting of those who scored below 20 on the AFQT were usually rejected for service. 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. 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. 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. Nevertheless, 336,111 men were phased into the service under this plan (mostly the Army) and 2,072 were killed. This amounted to 4.1 percent of all enlisted casualties in Vietnam.
Thus we can see that the channeling philosophy continued within the armed forces. 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.
POOR VERSUS RICH AND THE M.I.T STUDY
The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. A more precise equation would be that the college bound stayed home while the non-college bound served and died. The idea that American enlisted dead were made up largely of society’s poverty stricken misfits is a terrible slander to their memory and to the solid working-class and middle-class families of this country who provided the vast majority of our casualties. 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. And more’s the pity, because many of them were trying to escape this background and didn’t make it.
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. 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. There is no question that all segments of American society were represented. The officer corps’ casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative.
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. Their sons, if not college material, made up a significant part of the volunteers and draftees.
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. Only 10 percent of enlisted men had even some college to their credit and only 1 percent were college graduates. 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.
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            Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, Vietnam War
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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