How do you find information on soldiers killed in Vietnam and circumstances of their death?

Answer 1

The best way is to use the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall website. Punch in the name, and the information will say (as an example): Small Arms or Non-Hostile or Aircraft Accident; Body Recovered; etc.

Any time a GI was killed by a machinegun, grenade, rifle, pistol, RPG, maybe even a mortar or rocket attack...the field reports usually said "small arms" fire. Incoming artillery/rocket fire might be indicated by "hostile artillery", etc.

AAR (declassified After Action Reports from Maryland (Archives) might also help. But in those cases, they'll want to know WHAT DATE and WHAT UNIT that you're requesting; and they charge by the page (so it can become expensive, if theres alot of pages).

When requesting military info from the archives in Maryland, they'll expect YOU to know what YOU'RE asking for.

If YOU don't know the date and unit, then select a "general" time & date; example: (using the final US Army offensive in Vietnam as an example): Request AAR's for the 1st Brigade 5th Mechanized Infantry Division during Operation Lam Son 719 in 1971.

Since that was a massive 60 day plus campaign, it might be too expensive to receive that many copies of the report, so request "the last 14 days of the op." Or the "first 15 days..." Whatever the historian can afford.

Answer 2

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, website, will list name, rank, home state, branch of service, and age.