Another challenge was ensuring the accuracy of the names. The U.S. military reported 58,220 American casualties. If a name was particularly long, it would be swapped with a shorter name. Necessarily, more is lost to time than is remembered. Legacy of Hamburger . The boat people's first destinations were the Southeast Asian locations of Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Deaths in Cambodia and Laos were estimated at 273,000 and 62,000 respectively. With the glitch discovered, Doubek and his team located and hand-corrected each error. Although North Vietnamese and Viet Cong casualty counts vary wildly, it is generally understood that they suffered several times the number of American casualties. The overwhelming majority of the MIA are from northern Vietnam. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial stands as a symbol of America's honor and recognition of the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War. Colleen Pontes, whose father Kevin Joyce was added in 2003, remembered the rush of emotions she felt as she and her brother watched their dads name being inscribed in the granite. Two further massacres were reported by soldiers who had taken part in them, one north of c Pho in, 426 killed in action, 74 died of other causes, 6 missing in action (all accounted for and repatriated), This page was last edited on 17 April 2023, at 15:30. Moyar, Mark. The killed in action figure comes from "Special Subject 4: The Work of Locating and Recovering the Remains of Martyrs From Now Until 2020 And Later Years," downloaded from the Vietnamese government website datafile on 1 December 2017. In addition, at least 36,000 Southern civilians were executed for various reasons in the period 19671972. 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). Nick Turse, in his 2013 book, Kill Anything that Moves, argues that a relentless drive toward higher body counts, a widespread use of free-fire zones, rules of engagement where civilians who ran from soldiers or helicopters could be viewed as VC, and a widespread disdain for Vietnamese civilians led to massive civilian casualties and endemic war crimes inflicted by U.S. This group was made up almost entirely of either working-class or rural youth. [45], Air force captain, Brian Wilson, who carried out bomb-damage assessments in free-fire zones throughout the delta, saw the results firsthand. [105], Two major war memorials commemorating the dead of the, Deaths caused by the South Korean military, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong military casualties, Disproportion of African American casualties. Civil War Battles. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. The records of the Vietnam-Era Military Personnel Records are held by the U.S. Department of Defense. 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. "UCDP/Prio Armed Conflict Database", Uppsala University, sfn error: no target: CITEREFRummel1997 (. Here's What to Know About Them 1st. The result: no comprehensive master list of Vietnam War casualties existed. Political turbulence there and two alleged North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. naval vessels spurred Johnson to demand the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. [46], The ROK Capital Division reportedly perpetrated the Bnh An/Ty Vinh massacre in February/March 1966. Ho Khang, ed, Marilyn Young. The U.S. Military estimated that approximately 200,000 to 250,000 South Vietnamese perished in the Vietnam War. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. The National Archives has custody of U.S. Navy deck logs and U.S. Navy muster rolls/personnel diaries for the Vietnam conflict. Those totals include only Vietnamese deaths, and do not include American and other allied military deaths which amounted to about 64,000. Since body counts were a direct measure of operational success, US "operations reports" often listed civilian deaths as enemy KIA or exaggerated the number. We are hoping for better photos of many of them.. Millions more come to experience this Memorial each year. The names of those who gave their lives and of those who remain missing are inscribed in the order they were taken from us. Proving a direct correlation to the injuries is a challenge, Pontes explained. The panel numbers are inscribed at the bottom of each panel. This approach would allow veterans, friends and family members to find a loved one by his or her date of casualty. CASUALTIES BY AGE-ENLISTED The National Archives and Records Administration prepared these Vietnam War casualty lists by creating extracts from the military casualty data files in the Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Record Group 330). 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. Inscribed dots in the margins of every other panel mark every 10 lines to aid in counting. The decades-long Wall of Faces project, meant to humanize the names on the iconic Vietnam War memorial, is now complete. [19] Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants killed by PAVN/VC. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. [53][54] A separate study was carried out by RAND Corporation employee Terry Rambo, who conducted interviews in 1970 on reported Korean atrocities in ARVN/civilian areas. A number of incidents occurred during the war in which civilians were deliberately targeted or killed the most prominent being the Hu Massacre and the M Lai Massacre. [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. In . Vietnam War Casualties, MIA and POWs. According to the Vietnamese government, unexploded ordnance has killed some 42,000 people since the end of the war. Updated on: April 16, 2023 / 7:27 PM / CBS News. [28][4] Higher estimates place the number of civilian deaths caused by American bombing of North Vietnam in Operation Rolling Thunder at 182,000. Another potential limitation is the relatively small sample size of the study. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial of Greater Rochester, which has found its home in Highland Park South, has been a place of great pride since its dedication on September 8, 1996. During this operational commitment, 521 Australians lost their lives and the majority of these were repatriated to Australia for burial and . During that period, they stated, they lost 849,018 killed plus approximately 232,000 missing and 463,000 wounded. State-Level Lists of Fatal Casualties of the Korean War (6/28/1950 - 3/10/1954) and the Vietnam War (6/8/1956 - 5/28/2006) Korean War State-Level Fatal Casualty Lists sorted Alphabetically by Last Name Vietnam War State-Level Fatal Casualty Lists sorted Alphabetically by Last Name No single persons service or sacrifice would be any greater than anyone elses. Quantico, VA 22134. [93][94] With the draft increasing due to the troop buildup in South Vietnam, the military significantly lowered its admission standards. Compounding these difficulties was the issue that many casualties, particularly from the Air Force, were not always straightforward in terms of locale. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress sole authority to issue declarations of war. 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. [102] The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or suffer health problems due to Agent Orange exposure. One escapee died of wounds sustained during his rescue 15 days later. John on March 28, 1966 and David on April 21, 1969 Brothers George and James Wright were both killed in Vietnam. While at a The Wall That Heals stop, a local veteran asked me to find his friends name on The Wall. Those who argue that the United States opponents won the war cite the United States overall objectives and outcomes. Naval History and Heritage Command The sum of those totals is 3,091,000 war deaths between 195575. In Qung Nam Province 4,700 civilians were killed in 1969. In October 1966, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara initiated Project 100,000 which further lowered military standards for 100,000 additional draftees per year. [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. The numbers of lives that have been touched by this memorial go . Doubek was tasked with identifying all of the names to be included on the Wall. [68] Per the official Vietnamese history, over 10,000 more PAVN soldiers were killed in the final offensive of early 1975. For families who have worked to have their loved ones name added, the journey can be long and exhausting. This change prompted the addition of 110 names in 1986. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. has the names listed in chronological order by date of loss. The above figures on missing and wounded were calculated using Hanoi's declared casualty ratios for the period of 1945 to 1979, during which time the Communists incurred 1.1 million killed, 300,000 missing, and 600,000 wounded. Salois was the first soldier from their unit to call the Klugs. Zita is the editor of both Military History Quarterly and Vietnam Magazine. The question of who won the Vietnam War has been a subject of debate, and the answer depends on the definition of victory. When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed. [50][51] South Korean Marines reportedly perpetrated the H My massacre on 25 February 1968. History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. [58] According to Guenter Lewy, the ARVN suffered between 171,331 and 220,357 deaths during the war. . "Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968." Congress authorized troop deployment in Vietnam, but, because it did not issue a declaration of war on North Vietnam or the Viet Cong, the Vietnam War is, technically speaking, not considered a war in the United States. Learn more about featured topics of the Vietnam War and Vietnam Era. The list of names goes down panel 1 East, then to the right to line 1 of panel 2 East. The National Park Service offers these steps for locating a name: National Park Service rangers and volunteers are available to assist in locating names at the Memorial. Some photos that have been submitted are obituary photos, high school yearbook photos or Polaroids from Vietnam.. Others think it is just another tourist stop until they feel the haunting power of this unique work of remembrance. 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. U.S. Navy action reports and war diaries for the Vietnam conflict are in the custody of the Naval History and Heritage Command. [92], African Americans suffered disproportionately high casualty rates in Vietnam. "[56] Investigations by Korean civic groups have alleged that at least 9,000 civilians were massacred by ROK forces. [49] The Second Marine Brigade perpetrated the Phong Nh and Phong Nht massacre on 12 February 1968. (The estimates for 195564 are much higher than other estimates). newsletter for the best of the past, delivered every Monday and Thursday. This was long before the advent of integrated computer databases. The Wall That Heals has a large-screen TV and slideshow, Hoehn said. A mass exodus in 1975 of people loyal to the South Vietnamese cause was followed by another wave in 1978 of boat people, refugees fleeing the economic restructuring imposed by the communist regime. [61], According to the Vietnamese government's national survey and assessment of war casualties (March 2017), there were 849,018 PAVN military personnel dead, including combat death and non-combat death, from the period between 1960 and 1975. Lt. Hedwig Orlowski, 2nd Lt. Carol Drazba, 1st. The National Archives has custody of a wide assortment of both textual documents and electronic records related to the Vietnam conflict. [45] One example cited by Turse is Operation Speedy Express, an operation by the 9th Infantry Division, which was described by John Paul Vann as, in effect, "many My Lais". The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History By Spencer C. Tucker ", Viet Cong and Peoples Army of Vietnam use of terror in the Vietnam War, Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Vietnamese Casualties During the American War: A New Estimate, "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme", "20 Years After Victory, Vietnamese Communists Ponder How to Celebrate", http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/datasets/ucdp_prio_armed_conflict_dataset/, http://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a032189.pdf, Countering Terrorism and Insurgency in the 21st Century, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. Vietnam's government claimed that 400,000 people were killed or maimed as a result of after effects, and that 500,000 children were born with birth defects. After looking at his friend on the Wall of Faces, he had one sentence for me: I forgot what he looked like.. Congress is now considering doing something it hasnt done since the Vietnam War repealing authorizations for the use of military force, De-escalation, negotiation, and Vietnamization, The United States negotiates a withdrawal, 9 Questions About the Vietnam War Answered, https://www.britannica.com/event/Vietnam-War, Vietnam War - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Vietnam War - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Why the debate over repealing Iraq War approval matters. Per war: 191,605 deaths in the First Indochina War, 849,018 deaths in the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War), and 105,627 deaths in the Third Indochina War. Through the years, the memorial has matured and developed into a unique place of tranquility and honor. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in what had been its longest and most controversial war. 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