News-Info-Alerts

Re: Better Relationships Makes Better Searches

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: November 10, 2003

"Better U.S.-Vietnamese relationship aids searches

By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot

HANOI, VIETNAM — An improved relationship between the U.S. and Vietnamese militaries has led to greater cooperation in the search for U.S. servicemen lost during the Vietnam War, according to the top U.S. military commander here.

More than 1,800 servicemen remain missing and unaccounted for in Vietnam. Four times a year, the U.S. military spends about a month — and an average of $250,000 — at each site to set up, comb through the brush and swamps and remove any evidence of remains.

The labor-intensive field recovery involves everyone from a few archeologists to hundreds of Vietnamese laborers.

“It’s a very deliberate process, said Lt. Col. Thomas T. Smith, commanding officer of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command’s Detachment 2, based in Hanoi.

The most recent discovery yielded four sets of remains, which were sent at the beginning of this month to a military laboratory in Hawaii for final identification.

Vietnamese officials have been more lenient, Smith said, in the amount of time they give military teams to scout and dig at often-remote sites throughout the mountains and deltas of Vietnam.

“I’m seeing it on the ground,” Smith said. “There has been a fairly steady level of improvement.’’

In particular, Smith said, he can bring parts of his search teams into Vietnam before the official start of a dig site, which normally can last only 30 days. “Before, we wouldn’t be ready to start digging on the site until Day 10; now we’re able to start on Day 3,” he said.

But Smith said he was even more impressed with the decision by some local provinces to extend operations at a recovery site until U.S. commanders felt the work was complete.

The greater flexibility in searches is a benefit of the improving the overall relationship between the two countries.

For the first time since the end of the war almost 30 years ago, the United States has established a formal military relationship with Vietnam.

As a sign of good faith, Vietnam also issued a landmark invitation for a U.S. Navy ship to visit the port of Saigon, scheduled for later this month.

In return, the deputy chief of staff of the Vietnamese army attended a U.S.-sponsored forum on Asian security issues last month. Vietnam’s minister of defense will make an inaugural trip to Washington on Monday.

This new relationship is a natural outgrowth of a vibrant period in recent U.S.-Vietnam relations, said U.S. Ambassador Raymond F. Burghardt.

Earlier this month, for example, Vietnam and the United States agreed to allow direct passenger and cargo flights between the two countries for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War.

Burghardt, only the second American ambassador dispatched to post-war Vietnam, said he has focused on the military relations between the countries because previous gains had already been made to establish formal diplomatic and trade agreements.

Details are still being worked out to decide which U.S. ship will travel into the port of Saigon in Ho Chi Minh City, Burghardt said. He added that the ship, likely a frigate, must be relatively small because the waters leading into the southern port are shallow.

In other areas, the Vietnamese have worked with the U.S. Army hospital in Hawaii to learn more about American advancements in military medicine.

Reach Matthew Dolan at 446-2322 or at matthew.dolan@pilotonline.com.

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