README.TXT VietWar 2.1 Vietnam War Dead Database of U.S. Forces -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Legal: The not so fine print, it's a sad world... 2.0 Installation: Setup-v.exe self-extracting setup program 3.0 Operation: Just play with it 4.0 Data: Sources, qualifiers and caveats 5.0 Technical: A hack with a marvelous 'little' language 6.0 Author: "Lightning" -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Legal: ----------- This SOFTWARE PRODUCT is absolutely free for personal, academic, and any other not-for-profit uses and may be installed on multiple computers; however, it was not designed as a multi-user program. Even though this program is distributed freely, it is not in the public domain, and all rights are reserved. You may freely distribute copies as long as you do so in an unmodified form and include all files and documentation which are present in this archive. DISCLAIMERS: SINCE THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE, THE INFORMATION AND CODE PROVIDED IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY CHARACTER INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES, LOSS OF PROFITS OR GOODWILL, INTERRUPTION OR STOPPAGES, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES, OR FOR ANY CLAIM BY ANY OTHER PARTY, EVEN IF THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR'S TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES AND CAUSES OF ACTION EXCEED THE AMOUNT PAID BY YOU FOR THE SOFTWARE; LESS THE MAXIMUM HANDLING CHARGES AS ALLOWED BY LAW, OR THE PRICE OF A BEER, WHICHEVER IS LESS. Although maximum care has been taken in providing accurate information, listings and data provided herein are not official, and do not have any legal or binding status, and do not take precedence over any other documents or notices, past, present or future. The creators of this program and data compilers are acting in the capacity of providers of information already available in various forms and the creators of this program and the data compilers make no claims as to the completeness, currentness or accuracy of any listing or data contained herein. Any differences or discrepancies between the listings or data contained herein and listings or data available from other sources can only be reconciled by the user of this program by himself in contacting the appropriate United States Government agencies. Trademarks or copyrights are held by their respective owners. 2.0 Installation: ------------------ Congratulations, you have already installed this software as it comes in a self-extracting setup program. Please read the following information, especially if you are experiencing any problems. This program will run on a Windows 9x computer which has the Microsoft Foundation Class files: especially Mfc42.dll. This can be downloaded freely off the internet if you have an older system. The program is very RAM intensive because of its design and will likely experience slowdowns on Pentium 133 or lesser machines, especially with 32MB or less of RAM memory. Less than 10MB of disk space is required after installation. The setup program will install the files, create a group in your Start Folder, and put a shortcut/icon on your Desktop. If you do not desire a shortcut/icon on your Desktop, simply Right-Click on it and select Delete. An Uninstall program is included in the Start Menu program folder, defaulted as: VietWar. This will uninstall the program and icons from your computer, excluding any Remembrance Tags and comments, or data exceptions, that you have made about individual records. These would then be retained if you choose to reinstall the program. If you do not desire to retain this information you may delete the VietWar program folder. 3.0 Operation: --------------- Simply click the buttons and try it out. The ABOUT page also includes this file. You must close the About page to reactivate the main display screen. Three indexes (sorted listings) are available: NAME, Date Of Death (DOD), and city/state (HOME). These may be selected interactively in any viewing mode. Each time the program starts up, a random name from the entire listing is displayed, unless the TAG (record marking) function has been used. In this case, a random selection from the tagged records will be displayed. The TAG button is where you may Tag (mark) a name, such as that of a fallen comrade, including the capability to enter and display comments. Then the adjacent prior/next arrow buttons allow you to see the records so marked. The SCROLLBAR on the right side of the display allows continuous stepping, while keeping the left mouse button depressed, back and forth individual records by the end arrow buttons, page list stepping of multiple records by clicking between the buttons, and drag scrolling by clicking and holding the central slide indicator button. The small Nudge button just under the scroll bar down arrow allows a single step up for each mouse click. PAGE/LIST: The program starts in page view mode of a single personal record. Select LIST to see a multiple listing of names. Select PAGE to switch back to individual Page view. An alpha button bar just under the record display, and a text entry window below that, will Find NAME or HOME (City) data when those indexes are selected. DOD dates are found by a date selector, upon selecting the DOD index. FIRST and LAST buttons, with an indicator between them of the record number by sort order, go to the first or last record by the selected index sort sequence. The OUTPUT button provides for viewing/printing/saving an individual record by creating a text file (output.txt) and launching the Windows Notepad with the record data. If you have a non-standard Windows installation, this function may not work. Read i_except.txt in the program's folder for information on Exceptions. This is where you may add an exception/correction comment to the data displayed for an individual. The EXIT button in the upper right corner, as well as the window "X" button, exits the program. 4.0 Data: ---------- This database was obtained through the gracious assistance and kind courtesy of Constance Lee Menefee (Web Page: http://users.choice.net/~cmenefee/Vntoc.htm) as an extract of that maintained by the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) by Gary Roush (email: ). Data was originally compiled from the U.S. Department of Defense's Combat Area Casualty File (CACF) database and merged with specific data from The [Army] Adjutant General's Center, the Casualty Information System (TAGCEN) database as held in custody by the Center for Electronic Records, National Archives and Records Administration. Additional information and clarifications were obtained through the courtesy of the office of Statistical Information Analysis Division (OSD) at the Pentagon, who maintains the official DOD Southeast Asia Casualty Database (CACCF). This office should be contacted with any questions or requests in regards to official data. And, lastly, some thanks must be given to http://www.no-quarter.org for their website, and passive contribution. Data was subsequently merged with a five year old database, that had circulated on the internet, with Washington D.C. Vietnam War Memorial wall panel locations. Air incident information included as a courtesy to the VHPA. Other specific information excluded as not germane to the intent of this publication. The program uses the Event Date as the Date Of Death rather than the official death date in order to capture the date when the original event/action took place. Over 1300 individual records are affected in this manner but with all but a few people having suffered war related deaths some years after the fact. Age is the age at the official death date and will give an indication of such differences, and even some errors in official figures. There were 17 cases without birth dates and age that were subsequently identified resulting in an age having to be calculated, and still leaving 2 cases with unknown birth dates. The total number of persons only reflects the final tally of this particular database. With the practice of adding to the lists for war related injuries after the fact, such listings can only grow. Names are indicated in military fashion, last name then first name. Further to that, the last name has been capitalized for easy recognition. This may appear to violate proper usage, such as the cases of Mac and Mc and others, but there was some ambiguity in the original data even for those forms and also, O', De, Di, Du, D and others. The original spacing has been maintained and capitalization does insure a consistent sort order. Contradictory data represents either bad data or conflicts on original reports. Related items affected by this problem include the casualty type, air action information, reason for death, and even country and province information. Some of this data is potentially disturbing, such as indications of suicide, but it was felt best to include all information and allow people to see what is supposedly on the official record; even to challenge as an error or other need for correction. Other known errors include cases of missing or incorrect entries in the data, misspellings and truncations. Unknown errors can include anything and everything else. This database is not an official listing of Vietnam War Dead. It has been processed and manipulated by different groups leading up to the extractions and processing for this particular program. It must therefore be regarded as a unique edition with inevitable differences between other similar listings. For this reason, requests for corrections may only be considered, if at all, when accompanied by official confirmation and then only upon any subsequent release, if at all, of the program. One thing is guaranteed, the data is guaranteed to contain at least some errors, both from original official sources and those introduced during subsequent processing. 5.0 Technical: --------------- VietWar 4July2000 Version 2.1 Build XXXX Version history: 1995 version 1.0, 2000 version 2.0 - with new data. Version 2.1: Tightened database, added pay grade, 'hooks' for statistics Data collated and processed using programs written in Foxpro for Windows version 2.6. Program coded in Aristar Dialect Standard v1.13 Build Aug 2 2000 21:52:53 Copyright (C) 1998-2000 Aristar Inc. Web: http://www.aristar.com. With special thanks to George Harth. Setup package generated with Inno Setup Compiler version 1.3.16 Copyright (C) 1998-2000 Jordan Russell. Home page: http://www.innosetup.com/. Chief Exalted Beta Test QA/QC Curmudgeon - "Zootramp" 6.0 Author: ------------- "Lightning", MACVSOG Vietnam, in younger days... Jomtien Beach, Thailand Lightning10@bigfoot.com .f.