Looking for a list of people that got the Purple Heart during Vietnam?

Dear Mr. Pick,

Thank you for contacting the History Hub!

We are unaware of a comprehensive listing of those who received the Purple Heart during the Vietnam War.

If you know the name of the recipient, information regarding his/her award might be found in his/her personnel file. If you have not already done so, we suggest you request his/her Official Military Personnel File (OMPF) from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis. You may submit a request online on our Military Service Records website. Please specify in the request that you are searching for a Purple Heart award, and if an award card is located, they will include a copy.

If his/her personnel file lists the unit, the general order number and date for the award, please contact the Textual Reference Archives II Branch at archives2reference@nara.gov and request a search for the general order.

Without that information, locating a Purple Heart can be difficult to impossible. We do not have a name index to our Vietnam War unit records, and a Purple Heart may have been awarded by the soldier’s unit, a higher echelon unit, or even a medical unit that treated the soldier.

There is the National Purple Heart Hall of Honor (part of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation) that is building a database of Purple Heart recipients from all branches of service, all wars for which the Purple Heart was awarded, and from all across the nation. In order to be enrolled, they require documentation of receipt of the Purple Heart. The web site is https://www.thepurpleheart.com/.  

We hope this information is helpful. Best of luck with your research.