Starting from repatriation of remains

The wall is so well-known that the American mega rock star Bruce Springsteen after visiting it had composed a song named “The wall.” However, the song is not about the memorial but about the sorrowful feeling of voice of an American citizen about the Vietnam War and its consequences.

According to the released documents, the total number of American soldiers died in the Vietnam War reached 58,256. Among them, 1,971 are now listed as missing and unidentified. Till date, with tireless efforts from both Vietnam and the US, only 697 sets of remains of US servicemen who had died during the Vietnam War were repatriated. This is really a sad story.

The PAN’s reporters came to see Lieutenant Colonel Julian Tran, Commander of the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s US MIA Office, known as Detachment Two, in Vietnam, who has been for years joining the two sides’ efforts in finding US service members missing in action in the Vietnam War.

A repatriation ceremony held at Da Nang International Airport, Da Nang city, on April 16th

It is interesting to note that Julian Tran, a Vietnamese American who is undertaking a task relating to the Vietnam-US relationship, has witnessed day-to-day changes in the bilateral ties.

When the reporters came, Julian Tran had left for a meeting with Vietnamese partners to prepare for a joint field operation in the Central region of Vietnam. Each year, they carry out three or four operations and it takes both sides a month to prepare for the each operation.

The officer was back to his office very soon and the PAN reporters were surprised to see that Julian Tran, a tiny man with tanned complexion, could speak Vietnamese fluently with the northern accent in spite of living away from Vietnam for dozens of years.

Knowing the PAN’s reporters wanted to learn about the Vietnam-US cooperation on MIA, Julian Tran told that the bilateral cooperation in this field was set up before the formal normalization of Vietnam-US diplomatic relations.

At the beginning of 1992, Vietnam allowed the US to establish the Defence POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s Detachment Two in Hanoi, before the establishment of the US Embassy. The Vietnam-US cooperation in MIA missions is not purely a humanitarian work but also contributes to the development of the two countries’ relations, he added.

Facts show that, in history of international relations in the world, Vietnam and the US has been a rare case, where the two sides could build up their relationship from the repatriation of remains of US servicemen. Few people know that the search for the remains of US servicemen missing during the war in Vietnam had even been started in 1973, over 20 years before they normalized their diplomatic relationship in 1995.

After the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong inked a Decision No.34/TTg on February 9th 1973 to form the Vietnam’s Agency on finding servicemen missing in action in the Vietnam War, including representatives from the Ministries of National Defence, Foreign Affairs and Public Security.

Vietnam’s humanitarian efforts

From 1974 to 1988, Vietnam actively organized a team to unilaterally locate and collect US servicemen missing in action in the war, and then handed over to the US Government though the country was under the US embargo and the two countries had no official relations yet.

As a result, Vietnam’s humanitarian efforts gradually changed the views and mindsets of US political organizations, society, people and government and the MIA issue became a bridge between Vietnam and the US.

In September 1988, the two governments started holding official talks on MIA cooperation and then kicked off joint field operations.

There are five periods in a joint field operation, according to Julian Tran, including negotiation, archival analysis, field research and witness interviews, excavation, and remains locating. Each operation usually takes them from two weeks to a month. If they could not find any satisfactory results, they would retreat and continue waiting for further information about MIA cases.

Apart from difficulties beyond any verbal explanation, the two sides have experienced human losses even during conducting the MIA joint field operations. For example, a helicopter transporting a joint working delegation of Vietnam and the US smashed into the side of the Am Mount in Bo Trach district, Quang Binh province on April 7th 2001, killing 16 people on board, including nine Vietnamese and seven American servicemen, while they were on the way to Hue city, Thua Thien-Hue district, for searching on an exploratory mission for the Vietnam War MIAs.

Those who create source of peace

At the headquarters of the US MIA Office in Vietnam, Julian Tran told the PAN’s reporters stories about their joint field operations.

It was a trip to the Central province of Quang Tri to locate remains of US troops missing in action in Khe Sanh battle in the Vietnam War by a delegation led by Julian Tran, together with two American war veterans.

At a gathering with some Vietnamese war veterans, after raising toast, an American veteran, who had been a commander of a US marine unit participating in Khe Sanh battle, shared that he was very glad to present there because Vietnamese soldiers in this combat were bad shooters.

After that, the whole delegates from the two sides burst out laughing and then drank to his funny statement.

Of course, he was only joking. However, it showed that there is no feud among the people-to-people relations by nature, Julian Tran added.

The officer also reminisced about another story also taking place in Quang Tri in early June 2014. One day, Senior Colonel Dao Xuan Kinh, the then Chief of the MIA Agency under the Vietnamese Ministry of National Defence and Vice Director of the Vietnamese Office for Seeking Missing Persons, asked Julian Tran to offer incense to his comrades who had sacrificed during a fierce combat in the Quang Tri ancient citadel. Kinh said that it might be his last assignment in the post of a Chief of the MIA Agency of Vietnam.

Julian Tran told Kinh that he is also an officer, adding that every soldier should implement tasks assigned by higher levels. But, there is no personal hostile between people from both sides. It is fine time to do something in order to reduce pain and suffering left by the war.

The Detachment Two has actively not only found US servicemen missing in action but also shared information to Vietnam to collect remains of Vietnamese martyrs. They urged American veterans to return Vietnamese soldiers’ belongings, which they were keeping, to their relatives and vice versa. Sometimes, it is a good method to heal the wounds of the war, said Julian Tran.

Julian Tran shared that he had experienced all the grief and sufferings caused by war on the statuses of a soldier and also a citizen. Thus, when the PAN’s reporters mentioned the war, he was deep in thought in several minutes and said war is only the story of the past. In a war, belligerent parties could not avoid losses and everybody has his own pain. Hence, young generations like him, though could do nothing to change the reality, should contribute to making a “road of development” for the two countries and to easing the post-war pain.

At present, Senior Colonel Kinh already retired and his successor is Senior Colonel Nguyen Huu Luong, who also takes interest in and gives prominence to this humanitarian work. Julian Tran will fulfill his term of office in the coming time. However, the Vietnamese American officer underlined that the source of peace, cultivated by many people of both sides, would run forever on the humanitarian road.

Reported by Ngoc Ha - Lam Toan

Translated by Van Hieu

Part III: Towards future