A little history most people will never know. >> >> There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, >> including those added in 2010. >> >> The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us >> by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to >> believe it is 36 years since the last casualties. >> >> 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. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, >> Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on >> Sept. 7, 1965. >> >> 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. >> >> >> 12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old. >> >> 5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old. >> >> One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old. >> >> 997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .. >> >> 1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam .. >> >> 31 sets of brothers are on the Wall. >> >> Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons. >> >> 54 soldiers attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia. I >> wonder why so many from one school. >> >> 8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded. >> >> 244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; >> 153 of them are on the Wall. >> >> Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons. >> >> West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. >> There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall. >> >> The Marines of Morenci - They led some of the scrappiest high school >> football an d 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 Morencis mining families, the nine >> graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. >> Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home. >> >> 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. Kennedys 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. >> >> The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ >> 245 deaths. >> >> The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 - 2,415 >> casualties were incurred. >> >> For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that >> the Vietnam War created. To those of us who 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. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors. >>
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 14:34:14 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015