Fourteen Americans can visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and find their names carved in black granite among the names of those killed in the war.

"It was kind of scary," said Eugene J. Toni, who lost part of both legs in Vietnam. "It's like seeing your name on a gravestone."

Mr. Toni's name is there because he was mistakenly listed as dead when a Government clerk typed a wrong number into a computer. All 14 computer records have been corrected, but the names in the continual chronological list on the memorial cannot easily be erased from the polished granite. 14 Among 58,175 Names

There are 58,175 names of dead and missing carved on the wall. That 14 living Army veterans were listed as dead was in the recesses of computerized Defense Department records at the National Archives. While errors that resulted in the omission of names have been acknowledged and names added to the memorial, only three of the errors involving living veterans had been publicly acknowledged. That occurred four years ago in response to direct questions that resulted from readers' letters to an advice columnist.