U.S. Vets Turn Over Items to Help Identify Vietnamese MIAs

U.S. veterans gave a former North Vietnamese general a briefcase full of battlefield relics Monday, saying it could help Vietnam identify up to 3,800 of its MIAs.

The president of Vietnam Veterans of America handed over maps, photographs, letters and uniform insignia donated by U.S. veterans who had taken the items from dead and captured Vietnamese.

In turn, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Trong Vinh vowed to press his comrades to speak with Americans they fought against in specific battles in order to provide more clues to the fate of U.S. servicemen missing since the Vietnam War.

The events were part of painfully slow reconciliation after the war, which remains an open wound, especially for Americans whose Vietnamese allies in Saigon were defeated by Communist forces in April, 1975.

The general’s commitment marked a significant step forward for the U.S. effort, said Vernon Valenzuela of the Vietnam Veterans of America.

Earlier Monday, 21 members of the group collected the newly recovered remains of what are believed to be at least six U.S. servicemen. The remains are to be flown to the Army’s Central Identification Laboratory in Honolulu for possible identification.

Veterans wept with emotion and embraced after the ceremony, the first U.S. military repatriation of remains this year and the first in which a U.S. veterans’ mission has participated.

James Brazee, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, gave Vinh the briefcase “in hopes that it will bring peace to the families of those who lost loved ones.”

Thanking him, Vinh said Vietnamese and American families share the same sense of loss.

“As a result of the processing of this information . . . we think we can reduce the pain in the hearts of many, many Vietnamese mothers and sisters,” he said.

American veterans made two similar contributions last year, leading to the discovery of remains of 101 Vietnamese soldiers buried in mass graves, Vinh said.

Brazee said his group’s initiative--collecting war relics--has so far produced information about 6,800 Vietnamese MIAs and improved Hanoi’s cooperation in the search for American MIAs.

More than 300,000 Vietnamese are unaccounted for from the war. The United States lists 2,211 MIAs, 1,621 of them in Vietnam.

President Clinton has said Vietnam must do more to settle the MIA issue before the United States will establish full diplomatic relations. The two sides established liaison offices last month.