U.S., Vietnam trade personal war items
Marks first time two have swapped personal items recovered in war
A first as Defense chief Leon Panetta, Vietnamese official exchange artifacts from soldiers killed in action,
HANOI — The United States and Vietnam on Monday exchanged personal items recovered during the Vietnam War in the 1960s, marking the first time the two nations have swapped such artifacts.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vietnam’s defense minister, Gen. Phuong Quang Thanh, traded the items during a meeting at Vietnam’s military headquarters.
Quang Thanh presented four letters written by Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty of the 101st Airborne Division, who was killed in action in 1969.
Among the letters found on his body were two to his mother: “I definitely will take R&R, I don’t care where so long as I get a rest, which I need so badly, soon,” Flaherty wrote. “If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I’m O.K. I was real lucky. I’ll write again soon.”
During the war, Vietnamese forces took Flaherty’s letters and used excerpts for propaganda broadcasts.
The U.S. returned a diary recovered from Vu Dinh Doan, a Vietnamese soldier killed in the war. Robert Frazure, a Marine, took the diary in 1966 and held onto it for 46 years, the Pentagon said.
Frazure asked the sister of a fellow Marine to help return the diary to the family of the slain Vietnamese soldier. She brought it to the producers of the PBS television program History Detectives to research and find the family. The diary includes several entries and a photograph of two young women.
“The diary and photograph are small reminders that the combatants who were lost on both sides were not simply warriors but real people who will forever be re-
“If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I’m O.K. I was real lucky. I’ll write again soon.”
Army Sgt. Steve Flaherty, of the 101st Airborne Division, who was killed in action in 1969
membered by their loved ones,” said Wes Cowan, the show’s lead investigator, who helped translate the diary.
The show collaborated with the Defense Department to return the diary, and it will air the story on Sept. 25.
The Vietnamese government also granted the United States access to three locations to help find the remains of missing U.S. troops.
There are still 1,284 Americans unaccounted for from the Vietnam War. The majority of them went missing after their aircraft were shot down.
About 100 U.S. officials are serving on teams searching for remains in Vietnam. More than 500 Vietnamese officials are also part of the recovery teams.
“All of these efforts, hopefully, will result in us sending Americans home,” Ron Ward, a casualty resolution specialist, said about the newly opened sites.
In all, 34 sites have been restricted. The Vietnamese government has said the locations were in sensitive border areas or in military restricted zones, Ward said.
The U.S. lobbied for access to these sites for several reasons: The acidic soil in Vietnam erodes bones quickly. Many witnesses to potential sites are more than 70 years old with fading memories. And the families of the missing troops are also aging.
Opening the three additional locations means only eight restricted sites remain, Ward said.
The majority of the missing remains are likely to be near the former demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam.
Two of the three new locations opened to U.S. recovery teams are believed to be the sites of aircraft crashes. The other site is likely the location where an Army private first class was killed in combat.
“We have . . . witnesses that we believe can take us to the site,” Ward said of the Army private’s location.
The private’s unit was on a search-and-destroy mission in January 1968 around the time of the Tet Offensive.