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Information about the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, USA, "The Wall" now has carved into it the names of the 58,260 American military personnel (eight were women) who were direct casualties of the war, including about 1300 who are still considered Missing In Action (MIA).

When The Wall was built, there were 57,159 names. A few names have been added each year: those where lost records of wartime death were found later or those names of men who died after the war from physical injuries as a result of the war. Each of the branches of the Department of Defense made and continues to make the determinations of eligibility.

 The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) raised the money from donations of more than 275,000 private citizens and organizations.


 

Jan Scruggs, Maya Lin, and Robert Doubek show a model of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

 


 
Jan Scruggs was president of the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Fund (VVMF). Robert Doubek was Executive Director of VVMF and project director to build the Memorial. Doubek also spent hundreds of hours personally creating the one list of names from many different sources from the Department of Defense.

There was a contest for the design of the Memorial. A jury of eight prominent artists and architects considered 1,421 design entries. The design submitted by Maya Ying Lin, a 21 year-old architecture student at Yale University won the design competition. Maya Lin was born in Ohio; her parents had fled the communist takeover of China in 1949. A formal ground breaking ceremony was held on March 26, 1982.

In November 1984 The Wall became the property of the people of the USA. Since that time, The Wall has been maintained by U.S. National Park Service  employees and is staffed by National Park Service Park Rangers, National Park Service Park Security, and National Park Service "Yellow hat" volunteers. The National Park Service funds ceremonies at The Wall several times each year, in coordination with several different veteran organizations.


The Vietnam Veterans Memorial belongs to the people of the United States of America.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall has frequently been described as "the most visited memorial in the country." Many report their first encounter with The Wall as an emotional experience. Various aspects of the design contribute to the emotion, whether visitors are consciously aware of the connection or not.


The Wall is both partly into the ground, signifying death and mourning, and above ground. The center of The Wall rises above the surrounding terrain as a symbol of life, hope, and resurrection. Although completely open on one side, visitors feel they are walking down, into The Wall.


The Wall was made from black granite from Bangalore, India. The granite is extremely hard and has a very fine grain, so the names carved into The Wall should remain for hundreds of years. The black surface gives a feeling of death and sadness, but is polished to a high finish, so The Wall becomes a "living" memorial by reflecting the sky, the environment, and visitors. The Wall absorbs sunlight during the day and radiates that energy as heat during the evening and night. Additional slabs of the same granite are in storage in the United States in case any of the panels of the Wall need to be replaced.


Like the war, itself, The Wall begins small, rises to a peak, and then tapers off small again.


The Wall consists of the East Wall and West Wall, two triangles each 246.75 feet long and 10.1 feet tall where they meet at the central apex. As seen from above, they meet at a 125 degree angle, with the West Wall pointing towards the Lincoln Memorial and the East Wall pointing to the Washington Monument. Each Wall consists of 72 panels: 70 with names and 2 very small, blank panels at each end.


The names are arranged by date of casualty, as a continuous flow of names with no demarcation of dates. The earliest casualties are named just to the right of where the two Walls meet, under the large date 1959, on line 1 of panel 1E (east). The names continue to line 2 of panel 1E, down to the bottom of panel 1E, then to the top of panel 2E. That pattern continues to the east end of the East Wall, where panel 70E has names of 4 men who died on May 24, 1968 and 1 man who died on May 25, 1968. May 25 continues at the far end of the West Wall, at panel 70W. The names continue from there back to the center, where the last casualties are listed at the bottom of panel 1W. The names of the last and first casualties are thereby near each other to form a closed circle, described as "a wound that is closed and healing." Within any given day, the names are arranged alphabetically.


The year "1975" is carved on the bottom of panel 1W because that was the year of the last American casualties. The US military left Vietnam in March, 1973 in agreement with the Paris Peace Accords. The US was no longer involved in the war, although a few US Marines were left to guard the embassy. In April, 1975, North Vietnam forces swept through the south. A US Navy ship involved with rescuing American military and civilians came under heavy fire, killing and wounding several Marines and sailors. Those killed are listed above the "1975."


When The Wall was built, it was thought the first American military casualties were occurred 1959. After The Wall was erected, two families brought forth proof that two American military advisors were killed by artillery fire in Vietnam in 1957. Their names were added to panel 1E but it was decided to not correct the carved date, which would deface The Wall.


A small symbol is carved next to each name. A diamond indicates "killed, body recovered". A small percentage of names have a plus sign, indicating "Missing In Action" which has been officially renamed "killed: body not recovered". The plus sign was chosen because it could be changed to a diamond if the person's remains were found, or a circle could be carved around it if that person returned alive. Since The Wall was built, several hundred remains of men have been found and identified, so the symbols next to their names were changed to diamonds. There have not yet been any symbols changed to circles. In most cases, the date the person became missing was used to place his name with those who died on that date. Detailed information about all the persons listed as POWs or MIAs from the Vietnam War can be found on http://www.pownetwork.org/.


The names of 14 men who came home alive are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. When the Wall was built, their military records were not clear whether they had died in the war or not. It was decided to add their names to err on the side of inclusion, rather than leaving their names off. Once it was confirmed they were alive, their names were removed from the directories and database used for looking up names. Their names were left on the Wall because any form of removing them would deface the Wall.


In 1984 a flagpole and a life-size sculpture named "The three fighting men" by Frederick Hart  were added near the west end of The Wall.

In 1993, the Vietnam Women's Memorial Project dedicated the Vietnam Women's Memorial, a sculpture by Glenna Goodacre. It honors the eight military and fifty-six civilian American women who died in the war and some ten thousand American women who served in the war.


In 1984, a transportable scale model of the Wall named The Moving Wall was first put on display. John Devitt was a helicopter door gunner in Vietnam. After he attended the 1982 dedication of the Wall in Washington, he vowed to make a smaller version of the Wall that could travel the country to take the Wall directly to the cities and towns of those named upon it. Friends and relatives of the fallen who could not make the trip to Washington could now experience the Wall. John and his friends built The Moving Wall. Since 1984, two additional structures of The Moving Wall were added and have made more than 1000 visits all over the USA and Canada.


Since the names on the Wall are listed in the order of death, first-time visitors to the Wall are frequently unable to find the name they came to see. Shortly after the Wall was built, some relatives and friends of the fallen decided to help visitors find names and began to spend their spare time at the Wall with their own copies of the Directory of Names. They formed the organization Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, "The Friends."
 
The Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial began several programs:

  • Father's Day Rose Ceremonies and project.
  • In Memory ceremonies honoring the deceased not named on the Wall.
  • In Memory Book kept in the NPS Kiosk honoring those same men and women.
  • Name Rubbings sent by mail for those who could not travel to the Wall.
  • The In-Touch Project to connect friends and relatives of the fallen.

"The Friends" noted to the US National Park Service (NPS) that some of their activities would fit within the duties of National Park Service Volunteers and the NPS agreed. Many members of "The Friends" became NPS volunteers. Many more people have since answered the call to become NPS volunteers at the Wall. The NPS provides the volunteers with uniforms and supplies.


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Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall Stories


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Birthdays
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Links to memorial pages organized by the casualties' last names.
The state index pages

Index to panels of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

Index of Vietnam War Casualties by Unit of Assignment
"Missing in Action" status
Click Here

Vietnam War casualties who earned
our country's highest military honors

Links to memorials to units and groups.
Click Here


Combat Tracker Team
In Memory of Our Lost Lancers

A Hero's Spirit

Heros Hide Their Fears

But Share Their Tears

But Cry From Their Heart

Before They Part With The Earth

And Yet Their Crys

Stay In Our Lives Forever

By John Gilliam

10 years old at time of writing 1998


WESTERN HIGH SCHOOL
ANAHEIM CALIFORNIA
VIETNAM MEMORIAL PAGE
Click Here

"Tim" Donovan
Major LeRoy Preston Bohrer
The Best We Had!
Crews of the EC-47
To all Visitors thanks for stopping by.


       
This site has been developed not just to sale Antiques and Collectibles (of course it does some of that) rather it is to provide information about Antiques, Collectibles, artwork, art pottery, furniture types, furniture styles, jewelry, militaria from the Revolutionary War to the Vietnam War yes this site is all about information and history that is not readily available elsewhere on the Internet. 
        We think 
West St Paul Antiques is one of the best Antique Mall in the State of Minnesota. We have been working hard to create that for the last 12 years. You can say we our an expert on Antiques & Collectibles and yes you can also call me or my dealers historian.  As we read and study, about history and antiques. We will share that with you and all the visitors to our site. Our Antique Mall is in West St Paul, Minnesota stop by and visit some time. You are all way welcome to visit us on the web. This is a new website for us at West St Paul Antiques. As you browse this site enjoy the site. Please feel free to email me direct at floydruggles@weststpaulantiques.com if you have any questions or feedback about this site. Please sign our guest book and check out our Poetry Coffee Cup Cafe, or the Out and About Gallery.  The Reference Library an all 5 Museums are open 24/7 to you on this website. Stop by one of the 1st Recon Battalion pages. You can read about my experiences in the Vietnam. Oh, by the way also check out all our Antiques, Collectibles, artwork, art pottery, clocks, mall specials,  furniture types and styles,  jewelry and militaria item for sale on this site and in our Antique Mall as you can see by going to Antique Mall Tour. This site will be totally commercial free and no fees to pay this site is totally free. I'll be working on this site over time bear with me it should be finished by the end of 2010. With over 300 pages at that time and 500 pages by the end of this year. Click here to go to our web Site Map and Categories .


1st Recon Bn.com

The War

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No Man Left Behind part 2
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Unit Awards and Decorations - Recon 17
The Memory Remains Not All Wounds Are Visible - Recon 18
Purple Heart - Recon 19
Vietnam Footage & Memorials - Recon 20
Vietnam Memorials & Monuments part 2
Battles of the Vietnam War Hamburger Hill
My Message Board
Minnesota Casualties Vietnam War
American Casualties by Groups
1st Recon Bn.com Index page
1st Recon Bn.com Home page (Top of this page)

Categories within this 1st Reconnaissance Battalion website.

1st Recon Bn.com Home page
,  My Missions in Nam (Coming soon), Photos of 1st Recon Battalion in Nam, Recon Missions the units Patrol Reports 1968-1969 (coming soon),   A Summer Day in Nam - My Story (Coming soon),   Recon 1  The War,  Recon 2 Tet Offensive in Nam 1968, Tet Offensive in Nam 1969 (Coming soon),  Recon 3 Vietnam War Timeline,  Recon 4 President Richard M. Nixon's Report on Vietnam, Recon 5 1950's US send troops to Vietnam,   Recon 6 The French Foreign Legion in Vietnam,  Recon 7 Hill 200 my story with photos (Coming soon), Recon 8 - Maps & Artifacts - The Time Capsule (Coming soon), Recon 9 1st Recon Battalion Units photos, Recon 10 Sounds from Nam (Coming soon),  Recon 11 Reunion Photos, Recon 12  Helicopters in Nam, Recon 13 1st Recon Bn. Awards & Decorations, Recon 14 Navy & Marine Corps Awards and Decorations, Recon 15 Marine Corps Awards & Decorations, Recon 16 Personal Awards & Decorations, Recon 17 Information on Unit Awards, Recon 18 The Memory Remains Not All Wounds Are Visible, Recon 19 Purple Heart (Coming soon) & Recon 20 Vietnam Footage & Memorials, Vietnam Memorials & Monuments part 2  No Man Left Behind part 1, No Man Left Behind part 2, No Man Left Behind part 3 (Coming soon) ,1st Recon Bn.com Photo Gallery , 1st Recon Bn. Association Messages, 1st Marine Division Association Messages, Battles of the Vietnam War, Hamburger Hill, Vietnam 1968, Vietnam 1969, Vietnam Today, The Day The Eagle Cried, My Message Board. 

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Index
Categories within 1st Recon Bn
Click the index for the Index page.

POW - MIA
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Or you can email us at: floydruggles@1streconbn.com  thanks for stopping by.
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