One is a woman who continues to work to recover the remains of her father. Another is an anti-war stalwart who shares the lessons of the 1970 shootings at Kent State University. The third is a Vietnam veteran who helps fellow veterans in rural Alaska.

The Vietnam War greatly impacted U.S. society from the passage of the War Powers Resolution that restricts the president’s ability to send troops into extended combat without congressional approval to the cementing of college campuses as centers of student activism.

Of the 58,220 U.S. military service members who died in Vietnam, more than 1,300 were from Massachusetts. These are the stories of the men who were among the first and last to die on Vietnam soil.