Things you should know.

Facts about Vietnam Veterans wall in DC.

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

September 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.

12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.

Five soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.

One soldier, Pfc. 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.

Thirty-one 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.

Eight 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 six

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. 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.

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. 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.

Most Americans who read this will see only the

numbers the Vietnam War created. To those 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.