The WallVietnam Veterans Memorial · The Lake Norman Brief
The trench line of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh, 1968.
The trench line of the 1st Battalion, 26th Marines at Khe Sanh, 1968. Photo: Michael Braukus Collection, USMC Archives, CC BY 2.0. Shown for the time and place, not a photograph of Joseph Salvatore Perysian.

The Wall › Panel 44E › Illinois › Joseph Salvatore Perysian

JOSEPH SALVATORE PERYSIAN

Seaman · U.S. Navy

October 1, 1947 – March 14, 1968

Service record

Joseph Salvatore Perysian, of Oak Lawn, Illinois, served as a Seaman in the U.S. Navy. He died on March 14, 1968, in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, at age 20. His name is inscribed on Panel 44E, Line 52 of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

On the Wall

Panel 44E · Line 52

Position of Panel 44E on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Names are inscribed in the order of loss, starting at Panel 1E at the apex and ending at Panel 1W. At the Memorial, find the panel number at the base and count down from the top line.

Remember

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Service

Branch
U.S. Navy
Rank
Seaman (SN)
Service
Regular
Occupation
Seaman (SN)
Unit (as recorded)
MOBILE RIVERINE FORCE TF 117 SQ 11 ASLT DIV 11
Born
October 1, 1947
Home of record
Oak Lawn, Illinois (Cook County)

Casualty

Date of death
March 14, 1968
Age
20
Province
Quang Tri
Country
South Vietnam
Casualty type
Hostile
Category
Killed in Action
Circumstance
Explosive Device

Context · from the records

What was happening

63 names on the Wall carry the date March 14, 1968; 17 of them were lost in Quảng Trị Province. In March 1968, 1,767 Americans whose names are on the Wall died in the war.

The unit recorded as “MOBILE RIVERINE FORCE TF 117 SQ 11 ASLT DIV 11”, his unit in the record, lost 7 of its members that month.

He died in Quảng Trị Province while the siege of Khe Sanh was under way. From 21 January 1968, North Vietnamese divisions besieged the Marine combat base at Khe Sanh and its hill outposts near the Laotian border for 77 days, while U.S. aircraft dropped some 100,000 tons of bombs around it. Operation Pegasus reached the base on 8 April. The casualty record gives the province and date, not the exact place, so it does not say whether he fell in the battle itself.

Also on Panel 44E, Line 52

Same unit, same day

From Oak Lawn

All 15 names from Oak Lawn →

Source. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Casualty Analysis System, Vietnam Conflict Extract Data File (as of April 29, 2008), Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Record Group 330, National Archives (NAID 2240992). Panel and line as recorded in that file. This page presents the official record and its historical context; no biography has been written for him yet. See something wrong? Report a correction.