Remembering Vietnam Veterans from Arkansas
Arkansas sent approximately 56,000 men and women to serve in Vietnam. 479 of them did not come home.
Their names are on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Some of them are in the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery in North Little Rock. Many are buried in small county cemeteries across the state, under headstones that are slowly becoming harder to read.
This is what it looks like to remember them, and how to find the records of those who served.
Finding Arkansas Vietnam Veteran Records
The National Archives holds military service records for veterans who served after 1912. The process is free and can be initiated at archives.gov/veterans. Many Vietnam-era records were damaged in the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire, but partial records often exist.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund database at vvmf.org lists all 58,281 names on The Wall. You can search by name, home state, hometown, branch, and casualty date.
The Arkansas Secretary of State maintains a Veterans Cemetery database. North Little Rock's Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery is searchable online.
Find A Grave has indexed thousands of Arkansas Vietnam veterans' graves. Many include photographs of headstones.
Ancestry.com and FamilySearch both have access to Vietnam-era draft registration records and some service records.
The Ones Who Came Home
The 55,000+ Arkansas veterans who returned from Vietnam came home to a country that treated them, in many cases, with hostility. They built families, started businesses, coached Little League, taught school. They are still in our communities today — and many of their stories have never been told.
If you know a Vietnam veteran from Arkansas — or knew one who has passed — their story belongs in the permanent record. Not just their service record, but who they were.
Searching the Eternaflame Record
The Eternaflame record already contains memorial profiles for veterans across Arkansas. You can search by name or browse Vietnam War veterans from Arkansas to find records of those already in the index.
If someone you're looking for isn't there yet, adding them takes about ten minutes and is completely free. Their service can be recorded — branch, unit, conflict, years served, medals — alongside their full life story.
A Note on the Living
Vietnam veterans are in their 70s now. The window for capturing their stories in their own words is narrowing.
If you have a Vietnam veteran in your family or community, ask them. Not about the war, if they don't want to talk about it — but about their life. What they did before. What they did after. What they're proud of. What they want people to remember.
Their answers belong somewhere permanent.
Add someone to the permanent record — free forever.