May 1968 Boston newspaper Viet Nam headline

[69LM1]

For my wife's cousin, Joe, we just went to Vietnam to "recover".

His dad was shot down in a C130 transport plane on the way to cycle out over Khe Sahn in 1968. He and around 50 other marines, army and airman (and a single reporter) were KIA over enemy territory so no recovery was completed (they started and then were overrun and had to evac).

Now, many years later the need to go "find" his dad never went away. So this past march, we hired a local Vietnamese guide and went to Vietnam. Prior, we contacted the DoD and the State department for details. It took some digging, begging and finding the right people but we would up with 2 sets of coordinates (hills) of the crash site.

Remember that journalist I mentioned above? On the short excursion to attempt to recover the bodies, another journalist went along with the team. He took a picture prior to overrun and evac which was the only surviving photo of the crash site. This picture was pivotal. We were able to bring it to a local university geologist, and using topo maps from back then and now, against the hilltops in the picture, he was able to give us which of the two lat/long's were the best bet of being correct. We planned to go to both if we had to.

Here is a pic of us getting to Vietnam, and our guide Mr. Tra


There is a long story there as well, as he was shot by American troops as a young boy and placed in an orphanage. He and my friend (Joe) were pretty standoffish at first.

This is the picture of the crash site in 1968


It was not easy to get to, but as luck would have it one stream had a bridge built in the years since nam. We still had to cross another stream.

Mr. Tra spoke with the locals asking if there were any plane wreckage or stories about a crashed plane.



On we went! Quite the trek and took almost 3 hours to get to the site.



Once there, and after a careful comparison with the photo and GPS coordinates, we found old, overgrown bomb craters (the USA bombed it multiple time to keep the enemy from recovering anything) and heavy metal fragments with a small metal detector.
This was the site!

Joe had his grandkids, kids and himself write letters and placed them in a time capsule that we buried at the site (Mr. Tra previously got permission from the government for this, he was a member of the communist party and "offical" guide). As an aside, we were required to watch a propaganda film to get this permission. Long story and Joe almost walked out at one point.

Joe was also able to gather some dirt, with the thinking that his dad's DNA was somewhere in there.



On the way back down, Joe and Tra had a long discussion and "made peace". While they (and I) may never agree on politics, they at least could see the loss that the other had and respect that.

In fact, on top of the hill, Mr. Tra honored Joe's dad.



It was a crazy trip with many more experiences and interesting items.

One last note, upon returning, the cemetery where Joe's grandparents are buried put the dirt he recovered in an urn, and buried that urn next to his grandparents (his dads parents). Full funeral with VFW hall military funeral.

Joe finally has some closure.

On top of that, the cemetery refused any payment and did this at no charge in thanks for the sacrifice. You do not see that much anymore.

So, reading this post, I thought to share this recent story.

/R