The Suffering of the MIA Family : U.S. and Vietnam must end all mystery surrounding missing Americans

Against the backdrop of improving relations between Vietnam and the United States, some old wounds within the families of missing American servicemen refuse to heal.

Coming to terms with even the certain knowledge of a loved one’s death is difficult enough. How much more trying it must be for the families of three servicemen who, having been told their men are dead, now believe that a photograph given last year to the U.S. State Department shows them alive.

Barbara Robertson of Santa Ana, for one, says flatly that her husband, Air Force Lt. Col. John L. Robertson--presumed dead since his jet fighter was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966--is one of the three men. In the face of such certitude, the Vietnamese government says that all missing servicemen have been accounted for. The Pentagon also believes Robertson died when his F-4C crashed.

But what is Robertson’s family to think when its own government says he died but acknowledges that his purported remains, shipped to the United States by the Vietnamese, are merely animal bones? Despite the deplorable industry that has grown up around the MIA issue in Southeast Asia--replete with unsubstantiated “live sightings” of missing Americans--it’s not hard to understand why some families question whether the U.S. and Vietnamese governments have in fact left no stone unturned.

It’s sad that in the painful aftermath of a war now 16 years gone, the MIA story is one of a recurring cycle of euphoria and dashed hopes. For its part, the State Department is right to pursue the matter further; it has the POW-MIA issue on its agenda for the current travels through Southeast Asia of Kenneth Quinn, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

The two governments must put their fledgling cordiality to work on this important human task. The Vietnamese, especially, should make a good-faith effort to get to the bottom of mysteries like those created by the photograph.

In the absence of identifiable remains, Washington and Hanoi must spare no effort to write a credible concluding chapter for the long anguish of these families.