Combat Area Casualties Dataset – Vietnam War

Compiled by the National Archives and Records Administration and digitized by The Duke Digital Repository at Duke University, the Combat Area Casualties Dataset from the Vietnam War contains the records of 58,193 U.S. military officers and soldiers who died in the Southeast Asian combat area during the Vietnam War. These include both hostile and non-hostile deaths.

A large amount of information has been gathered for each serviceman and woman. * Indicates category purpose unknown.

• Branch of military
• Country of casualty
• Casualty type
• Reference number *
• Name
• Processed *
• Rank
• Pay grade
• Date of death
• Home of record – City
• Home of record – State
• Occupation
• Date of Birth
• Casualty reason
• Air
• Race
• Religion
• Service length
• Marital status
• Sex
• Citizen status
• Posthumously promoted
• Sea tour
• Record status
• Body recovered
• Age
• Component
• Comments
• Type *
• Province location
• CORPCD *
• PROCD *
• Flag *

According to Repository’s website, a date is also listed for when their tour began. Within the actual data set, this does not seem to be true. Service length in years is included, however. Many dates of birth are incorrect with some dates many decades ahead of 2019.

Country and province death location is included which helps facilitate the mapping of troops in southeast Asia. Unfortunately, the exact location is not provided which makes it difficult to discern if someone died in a major battle or on patrol. Because of the guerilla style fighting in thick jungles and the threat of booby traps, casualties were a daily occurrence which created a record keeping nightmare.

Data Cleaning – OpenRefine

The military is notorious for using acronyms and abbreviations in their record keeping. The first major hurdle that I noticed was the sheer amount of deciphering that would be required to present this to an audience with zero military knowledge. Fortunately, the National Archives and Records Administration has included files that help with some of the translation. Rank abbreviations are the largest hurdle and the NARA files do not contain a comprehensive list of all ranks. The National Cemetery Administration does have files for Army and Navy ranks. These files range from six pages in length to nearly seventy.

With this information, I will be able to translate each column to allow for readers with no military knowledge to easily understand what is being presented. Dates and names, as well, are arranged in a manner not conducive to easy readability. A person’s first, last, and middle names are included. However, they are ordered LAST, FIRST, MIDDLE and contain no commas. I want to reorder these FIRST, MIDDLE, LAST separated by commas. I would like to convert these from a MM/DD/YY format to Month D, Yr.

Preliminary bibliography

Bowden, Mark. Hue 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam. First. New York, New York: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2017.

Holm, Jeanne. Women in the Military: An Unfinished Revolution. Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1982.

Norman, Elizabeth M. Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

“The Vietnam War Pictures That Moved Them Most.” TIME.com. Accessed March 25, 2019. http://time.com/vietnam-photos/.

“Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund – Founders of The Wall.” Accessed March 20, 2019. http://www.vvmf.org/.

“Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall – The Virtual Wall (TM).” Accessed March 20, 2019. https://www.virtualwall.org/index.html.

Research questions

• Did being of higher rank protect you from combat?
• What role did women play in the combat zone?
• The Battle of Hue is viewed as the turning point in the war and the beginning of America’s loss, does the data support this?
• What was America’s involvement in countries outside of Vietnam?
• Veteran suicide is a major concern in 2019. How prevalent was it during the war?

Goals for data visualization

• Map of the United States showing where these soldiers were coming from.This can be in the form of a heat map as well.
• Map of southeast Asia showing death locations and circumstances. This can be in the form of a heat map as well.
• Timeline which includes spikes in deaths which would include the dates of major battles and operations. Can this be on a slider?
• One or two focus stories on veterans from my hometown.

Timeline milestones

• March 26: Continue cleaning the data. Begin working with Gephi and Tableau
• March 28: Have data cleaning complete. Preliminary maps started.
• March 31-April 1: Infographic assignment.
• April 3: Twine assignment. Work on timeline.
• April 4: Finish Twine assignment, if needed. Gather information on two hometown veterans.
• April 5-9: Complete wireframe
• April 11: Peer feedback.
• April 12-15: Continue tinkering with maps. This includes outside research on Hue and female soldiers in Vietnam.
• April 16: Begin writing the two focus stories.
• April 18: Continue focus stories.
• April 23: Figure out how to incorporate their stories into the map or timeline.
• April 25: Rough draft of maps and timeline complete. Begin coloring and detailing.
• April 30: Highlight veteran suicide problem.
• May 2: Place finishing touches on maps, timeline, and focus stories.
• May 7: Place finishing touches on maps, timeline, and focus stories.
• May 16: Submit final project online.