FACTS:

Most People Will Never Know
A little History on the Vietnam Wall
50th Service Valor Sacrifice Badge

Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall:

  • 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 their 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 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 3 returned home.
  • The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoye, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on the 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, November 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 December 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.

Flowers wrapped in a ribbon again the Vietnam Memorial Wall

List of the fall men of the Vietnam War in Arcadia

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 pas away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, Just noble warriors.

Source: Garfield’s Memorial Team House Association

Compliments of Gene Glasco, Vietnam Veteran (2015)