Australian casualties in the Vietnam War, 1962–72 These statistics were sourced from the appendix of On the offensive: the Australian Army in the Vietnam War 1967–1968. Coast Guard casualties are included in the Navy totals. Ninety-one percent of these Army officers were warrant officers, second lieutenants, first lieutenants or captains. Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded. The very young were considered by many to be preferred combat material. Less than 1 percent (0.8) were Jewish, Hindu, Thai, Buddhist or Muslim combined, and 5.7 listed no religion. Those who could have qualified for college probably did not have the funds or motivation. For blacks, however, only 7 percent placed in categories I and II and 93 percent placed in categories III and IV. The same profile holds true for the Marine Corps, where 87 percent of all officer casualties (821 of 938) were warrant officers, lieutenants or captains. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Vietnam Magazine today! …’In honor of the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States who served in the Vietnam War. They were at their peak physically. 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. There were 667; How many Andersons?, 178; Garcias?, 102; Murphys?, 82; Jenkins?, 66; One wants to know more about these Americans. All written content, illustrations, and photography are unique to this website (unless where indicated) and not for reuse/reproduction in any form. They also died quickly, many within a few weeks or months of arriving in Vietnam. Material presented throughout this website is for historical and entertainment value only and should not to be construed as usable for hardware restoration, maintenance, or general operation. For details of the total number of Australians who died during the Vietnam War, 1962- 1975, please refer to Deaths as a result of service with Australian units . There is some truth to this, but it is instructive to look at what the DOD database reveals in terms of race, ethnicity, national origin, religious preference and casualties by U.S. geographic areas. If the demographic is expanded to 17- to 21- years, then we find there were 83 percent of Marine enlisted casualties, and 65 percent of Army enlisted casualties. The civilian and military men who formed the policy did not see it necessarily as a disadvantage. Lower end category IVs consisting of those who scored below 20 on the AFQT were usually rejected for service. You can scroll down to see the names of casualties listed under their official city. The widely held notion that the poor served and died in Vietnam while the rich stayed home is way off the mark. John Kennedy, discussing military assignments, said that, life is unfair. 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). All were nurses, all were single and all but one were in their 20s. Congress and the Johnson administration, therefore, sought to protect our college-bound and educated young men. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. In an effort to further preserve the legacy of those who sacrificed all in Vietnam, VVMF is committed to finding a photo to go with each of the more than 58,000 names on The Wall. Vietnam Casualties by State and City or Town This gallery lists the complete Vietnam War casualty files by State. We've compiled the list of New Jersey soldiers who died in the Vietnam war and put them in a searchable database. See their faces. It is not surprising, for instance, that West Virginia, Montana, and Oklahoma had a casualty rate almost twice that of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. How many Smiths can there possibly be who died in Vietnam? Others, later in the war, were simply ineligible because of high lottery number. Black leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., protested, and President Johnson ordered black participation in combat units cut back. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by Historynet LLC, the world's largest publisher of history magazines. As of June 2018 total of US World War II casualties listed as MIA is 72,823 [92] e. ^ Korean War : Note: [20] gives Dead as 33,746 and Wounded as 103, 284 and MIA as 8,177. Officer casualties of all branches were overwhelmingly white. The makeup of U.S. combat forces in Vietnam has long been the subject of controversy among social scientists. (Surprisingly, as it turned out, the percentage of Vietnam veterans who applied for the GI Bill was higher than either World War II or Korea. The following tables were generated from the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files, which is current as of April 29, 2008.The Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File of the Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contains records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. 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. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a 2-acre national memorial in Washington, DC. This came at a time when blacks made up 11 percent of the male population nationwide. The faces shown on the next pages are the faces of American men killed, in the words of the official announcement of their deaths, “in connection with the conflict in Vietnam.” The names, 242 of them, were released on May 28 through June 3 [1969], a span of no special significance except that it … The Air Force lost the highest percentage of officers. During the V'nam war, the Navy and Air Force became substantially white enclaves. He accepted the tradition of military service passed on to him by the popular culture and by President John F. Kennedy’s ringing words, Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. 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. The article was originally published in the June 1993 issue of Vietnam Magazine and updated in November 2004. from the Library of Congress National Cemeteries and Beneficiaries 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. Edith Piaf, internationally famous French cabaret singer, best remembered for her songs "La Vie en rose" and "Non, je ne regrette rein.". The Coffelt Database of Vietnam War casualties has its roots in an effort begun by Richard Donham Coffelt. The Navy fatalities were 2,556 or 2 percent. 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. US Marine Corps four-star general James L. Jones Jr.; Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (2003–2006); Commandant of the Marine Corps (1999–2003); National Security Advisor (2009–2010). A more precise equation would be that the college bound stayed home while the non-college bound served and died. All classes were drafted or volunteered and all served and died equally, although it must be noted that most blacks died separately. The Selective Service System it said, has the responsibility to deliver manpower to the armed forces in such a manner as to reduce to a minimum any adverse effect upon the national health, safety, interest and progress. THE NAMES ON THE WALL: AN HISTORICAL JUDGMENT. Perhaps more important, many of them probably did not yet fully understand their own mortality and were therefore less likely to be hesitant in combat. ), EDUCATIONAL LEVELS OF ENLISTED CASUALTIES. Vietnam War casualties from Oklahoma Click or Tap on name to find a personal memorial page of a casualty from this state. In a massive sampling of the database, it was established that between 5 and 6 percent of Vietnam dead had identifiable Hispanic surnames. Almost 50 percent were majors, lieutenant-colonels, colonels and three were generals. 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 officer corps’ casualties alone would satisfy that judgment, but that is not the same as being representative. National Archives Reference Information Page 90 A Finding Aid to Records Relating to American Prisoners of War and Missing in Action from the Vietnam War Era, 1960-1994 These casualties came largely from the Northeast and North Central regions of the United States, many from the traditionally patriotic, Catholic working class neighborhoods. However, if officer casualties are added to the total, then this overrepresentation is reduced to 12.5 percent of all casualties. Select a state to navigate through our archive of Vietnam War casualties. This uneven impact was caused by a number of factors: (1) While the South was home to some 53 percent of all blacks in the 1970 census, almost 60 percent of black casualties came from the South; (2) Although we cannot be as precise, we do know that a considerable majority of Hispanic-American casualties came from the West, (California, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado) and the South (Texas); (3) Better employment opportunities in the Northeast reduced the number of volunteers; (4) Greater college matriculation in the Northeast increased the number of status deferments for the region’s 17- to 24- year olds; (5) More anti-war sentiment in the media and on college campuses in the Northeast. As one stands before the Wall one feels that no other judgment is acceptable to their living memory. The resulting aptitude scores were used to classify entrants into four categories and this would, for the most part, determine their subsequent assignments. — The names of 312 Vietnam War veterans who died from exposure to Agent Orange were added to the rolls at the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial on Saturday. They refer to older or younger siblings who are either in or on their way to college. The feeling is that the poor, the undereducated and the minorities made up the vast majority of the combat arms during that war. 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. VIETNAM CASUALTY LIST - ALL CASUALTIES: Surname: Christian Names: Date of: … In civilian life, poor aptitude testing can have a tremendous negative impact, whether for college placement or for simple job advancement. Take some time to learn their names. Family members of the deceased veterans were on hand to receive a recognition plaque and place photos of their loved ones at the base of the memorial wall of names. The young enlisted volunteer or draftee had not had much time to form any complicated theories about our Vietnam commitment. The DOD database shows that of the 2,100,000 men and women who served in Vietnam, 58,152 were killed. 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. Despite their inexperience, they were thought to accept discipline readily. Protestants were 64.4 percent (37,483), Catholics were 28.9 percent (16,806). Of the 8000 Coast guardsmen who served in Vietnam, 3 officers and 4 enlisted men were killed and 59 were wounded. 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. 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. The Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) was given to all entering enlisted men. All over the country, families and friends of the 58,315 service members who died in the Vietnam War have been working for years to put together … Of all enlisted men who died in Vietnam, blacks made up 14.1 percent of the total. Blacks were 85 percent Protestant. 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. 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