PANO – The Military Broadcasting Center at 165 Xa Dan Street in Hanoi, where the team under the “Finding Comrades” program receive relatives of fallen soldiers, has become a gathering place for information, documents, memorabilia, and memories provided by family members, veterans, and witnesses.

Each contribution adds another clue to the “500-Day Campaign to Intensify the Search for, Recovery, and Identification of Fallen Soldiers’ Remains.”

Some people bring old battlefield maps or lists of 43 comrades. Others have only a photograph, a death notification, or a few notes about the unit and the place where their loved ones laid down their live. Every piece of information, no matter how limited, is carefully received, recorded, and cross-checked.

In addition to in-person submissions, the 500-Day Campaign Hotline has opened another channel for information from across the country. Through phone calls, messages, photographs, and documents submitted via online platforms, stories about fallen soldiers are received, categorized, and forwarded for further verification. After decades of searching, a place name, a battle, a fellow soldier, or a remembered burial site can become an important link when connected with records, historical data, and scientific and technological methods.

Behind every piece of information is a name waiting to be called again, a family longing for answers, and a comrade who has never forgotten. The information center is therefore more than a place for receiving documents. It is also where memories of war are preserved, connected, and transformed into new clues. From these seemingly small details, the search for, recovery, and identification of fallen soldiers’ remains continues, helping bring them back to their names, hometowns, and comrades.

Translated by Tran Hoai