Little-known Facts About The Vietnam War Memorial Wall

During the past several weeks, the traveling Vietnam War Memorial Wall has made its way around parts of our state here in Tennessee.?I have visited the traveling wall before when it has visited a couple of nearby states as well as when it was in Tennessee previously.?A couple of decades ago, I visited the permanent Vietnam Wall in Washington D.C.?I gave up a small chunk of my life in a WESPAC tour and the whole Vietnam era has had a special meaning for me … and hundreds of thousands of other service members who made the 12,000 mile trek to that part of the world.

Over the decades, I’ve collected some things in a folder about Vietnam.?Why??I’m not sure.?Maybe because it was a pivotal point in my life.?Maybe it was because many of us were treated like criminals when we came back home.?Talk about PTSD … no wonder there was drug abuse and PTSD with the way we were treated when we arrived back home.?Nonetheless, the following pieces of information are some things that were in that folder.?Other pieces came to me courtesy of the literature that traveled with the traveling wall.?Yet other stuff came from coffee table books and various emails.?Nevertheless, most of this stuff will absolutely flabbergast you when you take a look.?It’s not heavy reading … but it’s somber reading.?

Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall (I collected this when I was in Washington D. C. at the Wall):??There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added as recently as 2010.?The names are arranged in the order in which they were killed … by date and within each date the names are alphabetized.?It is hard to believe it is 45 years since the last casualties in that jungle hell hole which is now a touristy vacation spot for world travelers.?Here we go.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass.?Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. Unbelievable as it is, his name is listed on the Wall along with his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.

Moreover, there are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.

39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.

8,283 were just 19 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.?Twelve soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.?Five soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.?One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old (I wonder how he got in at such a young age).

Can you believe it … 997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam.

Can you believe it … 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam.

There are 31 sets of brothers are on the Wall which means 31 sets of parents lost two of their sons.?Strangely enough, and why, I don’t know, but 54 of these soldiers attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia.

Eight women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.?That’s right, nurses died in that jungle.

Of the 244 soldiers who were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War, 153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville, Ohio with a population of just 475 lost six of her favorite sons.

You’re wondering, which U S state had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation.?There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall, higher than any other state.

Have you ever heard of The Marines of Morenci??- They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest. And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps.?Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only three returned home.

Talk about unreal.?Get a load of this story.?The Buddies of Midvale - LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field.?And they all went to Vietnam. In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

We all know (or should know) that D-Day (June 6, 1944) was the highest casualty day in World War II.?We know that The Battle of Antietam (Maryland) was the highest casualty day during The Civil War.?Well folks, the most casualty deaths for a single day our country was in Vietnam was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.?The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 - 2,415 casualties were incurred.?1968 was the year of the infamous TET Offensive.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who served over there and?survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. Through this silver hair on my head and crow’s feet in my face over these decades, I have unequivocally learned that there are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

About the Author: Tom Tucker is an honorably-discharged Vietnam veteran who retired as Director of Development Services for the City of Goodlettsville. Prior to that, his career consisted of being a senior executive for two Fortune 200 corporations. He has earned B.S., M.B.A. and Ph.D. degrees. He is a three-decade aviator whose hobbies are late 60s muscle cars and golf.?He has been married to Janet for 49 years.