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Vietnam casualty narratives

The main file here is a computerized manipulation of the Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File, turned into a quasi-narrative by The Palm Beach Post, a Cox Media Group business.

The source data is the 2008 version: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/2240992

This compilation likely does not contain a single perfect row. There are important disclaimers. You take this on at your own risk. No warranty is implied or offered.

Many, many cautions

The data itself initially excluded a number, less than 100, of names that appear on the Wall that do not appear in the database, which has 58,220 casualties.

The export here excludes a number, less than 200, of people whose home country was listed as other than the United States.

The data itself has problems not conducive to narratives. For example, names appeared as SMITH, ROBERT JAMES. These names were shifted to proper/title cases, which means names like McCarrick will not be properly capitalized. The order of the names was also shifted to the more logical one. Care was taken to account for many of the problems with middle initial and suffixes, but problems may remain.

Unit names especially are a complicated hodgepodge of abbreviations and all-capital acronyms, which were also shifted to proper/title case. An editor suggested looking at militaryacronyms.net for help. These are extremely dirty.

Ranks and ratings were compiled by The Telegraph of Macon, Ga. That table, and several that supported this narrative, were open-sourced by The McClatchy Co., via Gary Nielson.

Occupations are almost always missing an article, such as "a" or "an."

Nearly every field was converted to proper/title casing from full uppers, so check everything -- including county names.

Modern AP style was guessed at some ranks that no longer exist, such as Spec. 5 and Airman 2nd Class.

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Vietnam casualty narratives, generated from U.S. extract

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