Suspected remains
of MIAs begin journey
from Vietnam
HANOI, Vietnam >> Remains believed to be from four soldiers killed in the Vietnam War were draped in U.S. flags yesterday and saluted before a plane carried them home.
Dozens of Americans and other onlookers stood in silence in blazing heat, hands over their chests, as aluminum transfer cases were loaded onto a U.S. Air Force C-130 at Hanoi's airport.
The repatriation ceremony came just after Washington announced that the remains of four other servicemen recovered from a crash site in Laos had been positively identified.
"The war is not going to end until all of the missing are accounted for, or at least as many as possible," said Jim Doyle of Vietnam Veterans of America, who served in the Army in 1969 in Binh Duong province. "The families deserve to know what happened to their loved ones and put them in a final resting place at home."
The latest remains were found in central and southern Vietnam by a recovery team that searches for soldiers listed as missing in action.
The remains were being flown to the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii for efforts at positive identification.
Vietnam Veterans of America President Thomas Corey, in Hanoi to present documents to government officials about missing Vietnamese soldiers, presided over the ceremony with Lt. Col. Thomas T. Smith, new commander of the U.S. MIA office in Hanoi.
"I thought I would come here and I would maintain kind of a professional attitude toward it, but I've got a son who's a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry and, to be honest, the parent part kind of took over in a way," Smith said after his first repatriation. "I know if something happens to him, that his government will do whatever it takes to find him."
About 1,800 American servicemen remain unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.
