Ambassador to Vietnam David Shear. [2] The United States had provided funding, armaments, and training to South Vietnams government and military since Vietnams partition into the communist North and the democratic South in 1954. Her areas of interest include the Vietnam War and World Wars I and II, with a focus on Great Britain, Germany and Eastern Europe. On the west wall, the symbol precedes the name; on the east wall, the symbol follows the name. The gun had been randomly lobbing in rounds for over a week and was hidden in an abandoned FSB nearby.Two of our six 105mm howitzer crews took direct hits during a night mortar attack. January 2-3 January. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. Unit histories and supporting documents of Air Force units are in the custody of the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL. Washington, DC 20374-5060, For records relating to U.S. national war policy, information may be found in, Vietnam War Casualty and POW/MIA Records Descriptions, Vietnam War Fatal Casualty Statistics (U. S. Armed Forces Personnel), State Lists of U. S. Fatal Casualties of the Vietnam War, Electronic Data Records Relating to Military Objectives and Activities During the Vietnam War, Search Selected Vietnam War Electronic Records, RG 472 United States Forces in Southeast Asia, 1950-1975, Office of Civil Operations and Rural Support (CORDS), Marine Corps Command Chronologies for the Vietnam War, Records Relating to American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from the Vietnam War Era, 1960-1994, RG 335 Office of the Secretary of the Army, RG 341, Records of the U.S. Air Force Staff, RG 342, Records of U.S. Air Force Commands, Activities, and Organizations, RG 340, Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, RG 27 Records of the Marine Corps - Command Chronologies (Entry UD-07D 1), RG 24 Records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, RG 218 Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, RG 330 Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Wall in Washington, D.C., had 58.281 names of Vietnam War casualties on it. Doubek contacted the National Personnel Records Center, Archives and Records Service, in St. Louis, Mo. Hine, for example, was able to reconnect a son with his father. The first two names listed on Panel 1, East Wall, at the apex are from July 8, 1959. [72], The Phoenix Program, a counterinsurgency program executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus, killed 26,369 suspected of being VC operatives and informants. Their names, however, have been removed from the printed Directory of Names. [49] The Second Marine Brigade perpetrated the Phong Nh and Phong Nht massacre on 12 February 1968. By Age: Age at Time of Death Casualties 17 12 18 3,103 19 8,283 20 14,095 21 9,705 22 4,798 [55] Widespread reports of deliberate mass killings by Korean forces alleged that they were the result of systemic, deliberate policies to massacre civilians, with murders running into the hundreds. [95][96], The number of US military personnel in Vietnam jumped from 23,300 in 1965 to 465,600 by the end of 1967. 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. My most memorable story came from contacting a daughter-in-law of a fallen service member only to find out that her husband had never seen a photo of his father, Hine said. [4] While at a The Wall That Heals stop, a local veteran asked me to find his friends name on The Wall. According to statistics from the South Vietnamese Ministry of Health, 44.5% of civilians admitted to hospitals between 1967 and 1970 were wounded by mines or mortars, 21.2% by guns or grenades, and 34.3% by artillery or bombing. [19], Other casualties for the ARVN included up to 1,170,000 military wounded,[59] and 1,000,000 surrendered or captured. The question of who won the Vietnam War has been a subject of debate, and the answer depends on the definition of victory. During and after the Vietnam War, the Department of Defense (DoD) compiled a list of combat zone casualties according to criteria in a 1965 Presidential Executive Order. He tried to make the best call he could when adding names to the list. They also assert that the U.S. overall suffered fewer casualties than its opponents. U.S. Army Personnel and Dependent Casualties, 1961-1981 85% of the records in this database are related to the Vietnam Conflict. Search and destroy was a term to describe operations aimed at flushing the Viet Cong out of hiding, while body count was the measuring stick for operation success and this resulted in exaggeration and listing civilian deaths as enemy KIA. For this figure, Guenter Lewy assumes that one-third of the reported enemy killed may have been civilians, concluding that the actual number of deaths of the VC and PAVN military forces was probably closer to 444,000. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Naval History and Heritage Command They seem honored to be putting the names on the Wall.. The Battle of Signal Hill was a company size engagement between members of Company E, 52nd Infantry (LRP) long-range reconnaissance patrol of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) from 19 to 21 April 1968 during Operation Delaware.Signal Hill was the name given to the peak of Dong Re Lao Mountain, a densely forested 4,878-foot (1,487 m) mountain in the A . Two other cleanup sites being reviewed by the United States and Vietnam are Bin Ha Air Base, in the southern province of ng Naia 'hotspot' for dioxinand Ph Ct Air Base in Bnh nh Province, according to U.S. American soldiers of the 173th airborne are evacuated by helicopter from a Vietcong position 11 December 1965. In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. [57], The ARVN suffered 254,256 recorded combat deaths between 1960 and 1974, with the highest number of recorded deaths being in 1972, with 39,587 combat deaths. In reality, it is a collection of ideas, images, and information that enough people have chosen to preserve and disseminate. Lt. Hedwig Orlowski, 2nd Lt. Carol Drazba, 1st. Encounter Books, December 2022. I asked if he wanted to see his picture, Reckinger said. Count down from the top of the panel. harvnb error: no target: CITEREFTurse2013 (. [99][100] In 2012 alone, unexploded ordnance and claimed 500 casualties in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to activists and Vietnamese government databases. [93][94] With the draft increasing due to the troop buildup in South Vietnam, the military significantly lowered its admission standards. [6], A 2008 study by the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) came up with a higher toll of 3,812,000 dead in Vietnam between 19552002. In January 1968, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) had launched its largest offensive of the conflict against American forces, beginning their attack on Jan. 30, the start of the Vietnamese holiday. The total number of officer casualties, commissioned and warrant, are 7,877. 2040 Broadway Street The decades-long Wall of Faces project, meant to humanize the names on the iconic Vietnam War memorial, is now complete. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., lists more than 58,300 names of members of the U.S. armed forces who were killed or went missing in action. To learn about us and how you can help maintain this site. He further suggests that 222,000 civilians may have been counted as enemy military deaths by the U.S. in compiling its "body count" raising the total to 627,000 killed. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. [7], R. J. Rummel, a libertarian anti-communist political scientist, had a mid-range estimate in 1997 that the total deaths due to the Vietnam War totaled 2,450,000 from 195475. In the event a service members remains are returned or accounted for, then a diamond symbol is engraved over the plus sign. Updated on: April 16, 2023 / 7:27 PM / CBS News. [2], Guenter Lewy in 1978 estimated 1,353,000 total deaths in North and South Vietnam during the period 19651974 in which the U.S. was most engaged in the war. He estimates that between 30 and 46% of the total war deaths were civilians. Vietnam emerged from the war as a potent military power within Southeast Asia, but its agriculture, business, and industry were disrupted, large parts of its countryside were scarred by bombs and defoliation and laced with land mines, and its cities and towns were heavily damaged. For the period of the Vietnam War the totals are 1,310,000 between 1955 and 1964, 1,700,000 between 196574 and 810,000 between 1975 and 1984. And there would be nothing to denote service or rank. among the more than 58,000 names on the Vietnam . By nearly every metric, the Vietnam War was, in the common sense of the word, a war. The Vietnamese newspaper Nhn Dn reported in 2012 that the U.S. government was providing $41 million to the project, which aimed to reduce the contamination level in 73,000 m of soil by late 2016. The names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, better known as the Wall, will no longer stand alone. Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. A 1975 US Senate subcommittee estimated around 1.4 million civilian casualties in South Vietnam because of the war, including 415,000 deaths. In . VVMF receives numerous requests each year from individuals who wish to have particular names added to the Memorial. [58] According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. It granted him broad latitude in handling the struggle against communism in Southeast Asia. The officially-reported numbers and categories below cover American Vietnam War deaths by age group, branch of service, service component, type of death, reason for death, race, religion, sex, state/protectorate and deaths by war year (including post-war). When the Wall was dedicated in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed. One study estimated that American commanders exaggerated body counts by 100 percent. [65], According to the Vietnamese government's official history, the PAVN suffered over 100,000 casualties during the 1972 Easter Offensive, including 40,000 killed. CASUALTIES BY AGE-ENLISTED [103], On 9 August 2012, the United States and Vietnam began a cooperative cleaning up of the toxic chemical from part of Da Nang International Airport, marking the first time Washington has been involved in cleaning up Agent Orange in Vietnam. Volunteer researcher Janna Hoehn, interviewed by Vietnam magazine in March, spearheaded the effort to collect the last 18 names needed to complete the Wall of Faces earlier this year. Reports of casualties vary, but during the 10 days of intense fighting, an estimated 630 North Vietnamese were killed. [95][98] As a result, by the war's completion, total black casualties averaged 12.5% of US combat deaths, approximately equal to percentage of draft-eligible black men, though still slightly higher than the 10% who served in the military. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010: see the "National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries" section below. This totals, from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam during the (Dim-era), and 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam in the post Dim-era), excluding PAVN forces killed by the ARVN in combat. The chronological order allows veterans who were in a battle to see their friends forever united on the Wall, he explained. 20% of black males were combat soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Although the records may not be complete, the U.S. National Archives shows that 58,220 U.S. soldiers perished, and categorized the deaths as follows. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. [79], The total number of American personnel who were KIA or died non-hostile deaths, were enlisted personnel with a casualty number of 50,441. There was strong pressure to produce body counts as a measure of operational success and enemy body counts were directly tied to promotions and commendation. from Johns Hopkins and his MA and Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Lt.Sharon Lane, Capt. This group was made up almost entirely of either working-class or rural youth. Vietnam War, Awards and Decorations of Honor, 1965-1972. Whether or not there is any family whatsoever, each mans life was important and we want to honor him., I am thrilled beyond words that the project is completed, Hoehn said. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. Not far away in another grove of eight trees is a sculpture of three servicewomen caring for a wounded soldier - the Vietnam Women's Memorial. The United States has spent over $65 million since 1998 as part of unexploded ordnance clearing operations. 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. Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam on a smaller scale, South Korea suffered more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen. In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. Even if a veterans family is gone, we still need to honor him, Hoehn had said in her interview. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. 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