Genealogy 101

Research at the National Archives

Records on Military Personnel Who Died, Were Missing in Action or Prisoners of War as a Result of the Vietnam Conflict, created, 1/20/1967 – 12/1998, documenting the period 6/8/1956 – 1/21/1998

This series contains records of U.S. military officers and soldiers who died as a result of either a hostile or nonhostile occurrence or who were missing in action or prisoners of war in the Southeast Asian combat area during the Vietnamese Conflict, including casualties that occurred in Cambodia, China, Laos, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Thailand. The records derive from information submitted by each of the military services on Department of Defense Form 1300, Individual Report of Casualty. The database has both final and nonfinal records; a data field in each record distinguishes between them. Final records, also referred to as the “last” records, represent the most current official information about a deceased casualty or about repatriated personnel; nonfinal records, also referred to as “previous” records, are those that precede the final records. Each record includes: the casualty’s name, service number, file reference number, date of birth, date of death or repatriation, date Southeast Asian tour began, record processing date, city and state of home of record, the casualty’s military service branch, country of casualty, type of casualty, military grade and pay grade, military occupation, service component, race, religion, length of service, marital status, sex, citizenship, the reason or cause of casualty, whether the casualty involved an aircraft, the status of the casualty’s body (whether recovered or not), whether the casualty was posthumously promoted, and the South Vietnam province where the casualty occurred, when applicable.

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