Dear Blot,
This is the text of a message that I got from the Vietnam Archive that
I mentioned before. Hope it helps.
Sincerely, Carla
Thank you for your message to the Vietnam Archive. You can look for
materials related to marriages in Vietnam by searching the Virtual
Vietnam
Archive:
www.vietnam.ttu.edu/virtualarchive
Click on "I Agree" and let the next page load completely.
Click on "Advanced Search" at the top/center of the page and let that
page
fully load
Click on the "+" sign above the subject/keyword fields to add one more
keyword field.
Type in the words "marriage", "American", and "personnel", one word in
each
of the three separate keyword fields.
Below the "Media Type" and "Language" boxes is a small check box next
to
"Limit Documents to Only Those That are Available Online." Check that
box
so that only items online will be retrieved.
Click the "display" button and the following page will list the first
25
documents of more than 100 that contains these words. You can view
the
documents online so long as you already have Adobe Acrobat Reader on
your
computer. You can add additional keyword fields on the advanced
search page
(up to five) and can limit by media type and dates on that same page.
I do not know if any of these documents provides the actual
regulations that
covered US service personnel marriages. I know that they happened and
the
personnel involved had to seek permission from their chains-of-command
and
individual unit commanders. I believe that this was more of a
formality
than anything else since it is US law that two consenting adults can
get
married if they so choose. Of course, even though two people might be
married, they may not have been able to live together depending on the
circumstances of their assignments and they may have been required to
sign
something indicating that they were no using the marriage as a way to
get
one of them back to the US. It is most likely that the US military
did have
a regulation to ensure personnel availability and readiness and the
security
of US forces would not be compromised by such marriages. The problem
is, I
do not know which regulation covers such issues - but there are ways
you can
find this information.
I doubt there was a separate regulation that covers personnel
marriages in a
combat zone versus peace time so if you can find the regulation that
covers
marriages between personnel generally, it should cover those who
served in
Vietnam. At the very least, the general personnel regulations of the
period
should tell you where you can find the regulation that did cover
marriages
between personnel in a combat zone.
Here is a link to AR 600-8 Military Personnel Management dated 1989.
You
might be able to use this to trace back to the Vietnam era regulation.
http://www.usapa.army.mil/pdffiles/r600_8.pdf
Otherwise, you may want to contact US Army personnel command to see if
they
can help track down this information:
https://www.perscom.army.mil/
You can contact the US Army Center of Military History to see if they
can
help:
http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/
And you can contact the US Army Military History Institute:
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/
I wish I could be of more specific help. Good luck with your project
and
feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Steve Maxner
Assistant Archivist
The Vietnam Archive |
