Vietnam  Wall - War Memorial

To find a specific name on the wall - do the following:

First click on a state. 
When it opens, scroll down to
the city and the names will appear. 
Then click on their names. 
It should show you a picture of the person, or at least their bio and medals.

This really is an amazing web site. 
Someone spent a lot
of time and effort to create it.

I hope that everyone who views the link appreciates what those
who served in Vietnam sacrificed for our country.

The link below is a virtual wall of all those lost during the
Vietnam war with the names, bio's and other information on our lost
heroes.  Those who remember that time frame, or perhaps lost friends or
family can look them up on this site. 

Pass the link on to others, as many knew
wonderful people whose names are listed.

http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall,
including those added in 2010.

47,413 deaths were combat related.

10,785 deaths in Vietnam were not combat related
but from other causes.

246 were awarded the Medal of Honor
155 have their names on The Memorial Wall.

The Tet Offensive was a U. S. victory
and a disaster for the Viet Cong
and North Vietnamese.

54 former students of Thomas Alva Edison High School in
Philadelphia, PA. were killed-in-action in Viet Nam. More
than any other school in the nation.  

The names are arranged in the order in which they were
taken from us by date and within each date the names
are alphabetized.  It is hard to believe it is 36 years
since the last casualties.

America did not loose the war in Vietnam, the South Vietnamese did.
The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety
29 March 1973.
  How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an
agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January
1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces,
limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment
to peaceful reunification. The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the
fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military,
NOT American military running for their lives.
 
The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American
military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint,
it was almost an unprecedented performance. General Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike (a professor at the University of California, Berkeley), a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.
 
As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media misreported and
misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was reported as an overwhelming
success for the Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. forces.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite initial victories by the
Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those
forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet Offensive, is
considered by some as ranking with Wellington, Grant, Lee and MacArthur
as a great commander. Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat
of the Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death of some
45,000 NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet Cong elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in
the South never recovered. The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front
and that was the News front and the political arena. This was another
example in the Vietnam War of an inaccuracy becoming the perceived
truth. However, inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet
Offensive famous.
 
Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running naked
from the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June 1972 (shown a
million times on American television) was not burned by Americans bombing
Trang Bang. She appeared on Oprah a few years back however, the
truth of actually who was bombing that day was never mentioned. No
American had involvement in this incident near Trang Bang that burned
Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The planes doing the bombing near the village were
VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in
support of South Vietnamese troops on the ground. The Vietnamese pilot
who dropped the napalm in error is currently living in the United States.

Even the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese.
The incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three day battle between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the village of
Trang Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) who were
trying to force the NVA out of the village. Recent reports in the news media
that an American commander ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc
are incorrect. There were no Americans involved in any capacity.
"We (Americans) had nothing to do with controlling VNAF," according to Lieutenant General (Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding
General of TRAC at that time. Also, it has been incorrectly reported that
two of Kim Phuc's brothers were killed in this incident. They were Kim's
cousins not her brothers.
 
 The first death of an American serviceman in Vietnam occurred September 26, 1945. OSS (Office of Special Operations) Major (Lieutenant Colonel) A. Peter Dewey was killed in action by the Communist Vietminh near Hanoi.
He is not officially recognized because we were not at war with Vietnam at that time
and we also weren't supposed to have anyone in country then.
 
The first guy listed on the list was killed by another air serviceman and not in combat. The first combat related deaths occured in 1959. Those two individuals
are actually listed first and second on the Wall were ambushed while
watching a movie.
 
Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated
risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better.   Average age of 58,148
killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years (Although 58,169 names are in the
Nov. 93 database, only 58,148 have both event date and birth date. Event
date is used instead of declared dead date for some of those who were
listed as missing in action).

The average soldier/Marine in WW II saw an average of 40 days of combat during a 12 month period. In Vietnam, the average was
240 days during a 12 month tour.  

Deaths Average Age

• Total: 58,148, 23.11 years
• Enlisted: 50,274, 22.37 years
• Officers: 6,598, 28.43 years
• Warrants: 1,276, 24.73 years
• E1 525, 20.34 years
• 11B MOS: 18,465, 22.55 years

  Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in Vietnam,
the average age of an infantryman (MOS 11B) serving in Vietnam to be
19 years old is a myth, it is actually 22. None of the enlisted grades have
an average age of less than 20. The average man who fought in World War II
was 26 years of age.
 
2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. 2/3 of the men who
served in World War II were drafted. Approximately 70% of those killed
in Vietnam were volunteers.
 
Black American soldiers did not die in disproportionate numbers compared to other ethnic groups
as so many believe. 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black, 1.2% were other races. Sociologists Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler, in their recently
published book "All That We Can Be," said they analyzed the claim that
blacks were used like cannon fodder during Vietnam "and can report definitely
that this charge is untrue. Black fatalities amounted to 12 percent of all
Americans killed in Southeast Asia, a figure proportional to the number of
blacks in the U.S. population at the time and slightly lower than the proportion
of blacks in the Army at the close of the war." 
 
Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation had ever
sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better.
 
1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August,
1995 (census figures).

• During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming
  to have served in-country was: 9,492,958.
• As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S. Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe, losing nearly 711,000 between '95 and '00. That's 390 per day. During
  this Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have
  served in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census,
  FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE VIETNAM VETS ARE NOT.  

  Here are some facts:
 
9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official Vietnam era from August 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975.

2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam.

Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.

240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War.

The first man to die in Vietnam was James Davis, in 1961. He was with the 509th Radio Research Station. Davis Station in Saigon was named for him.

58,148 were killed in Vietnam.

75,000 were severely disabled.

23,214 were 100% disabled.

5,283 lost limbs.

1,081 sustained multiple amputations.

Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21.

11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old.

Of those killed, 17,539 were married.

Average age of men killed: 23.1 years.

Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.

The oldest man killed was 62 years old.

As of January 15, 2004, there are 1,875 Americans still unaccounted
for from the Vietnam War.

97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.

91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served.

74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome.

Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same
non-vet age groups.

Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age
group by more than 18 percent.

87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.

There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and
non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group (Source: Veterans
Administration Study).

Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison - only one-half of one
percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.