You know, as I was writing this, the same question came to my mind. Since it was CIA-supported, I have to assume they had a good network of intelligence officers in the field collecting such information.
I seem to recall a circular dog tag, similar to the French 1930's style in a museum, but my memory is very unclear on this. I have heard stories of North Vietnamese bodies being left at certain locations along the river. Neutral men would be hired to come in long boats to claim the bodies and take them for a proper funerial so the spirits can rest.
I found myself obsessed with this question last night. I found out there were no dog tags, I probably just saw an old French tag.
This is a problem with some families who lost someone during the war. There are currently 300,000 North Vietnamese soldiers whose bodies were buried in mass graves. In Vietnam, these bodies decompose quickly, with even most of the bones decomposing by now. Family members are concerned because they cannot put their loved ones to rest and they are cursed to wandering the spirit world.
Hi Brian, thank you for this link. What a story! And I'm glad to know about the Pulitzer journalism site in general. It's really hard to comprehend that so many Vietnamese people are still so directly impacted by a war that ended almost 50 years ago. I felt quite emotional when I read this "happy ending" in the article. "Now he can rest in the cemetery, people can come bring offerings and light incense, make sure he doesn't get cold. That's how we think about it. This happens a lot in this country.""
One question: how did "Mother Vietnam" get the names of the North Vietnamese soldiers who died?
You know, as I was writing this, the same question came to my mind. Since it was CIA-supported, I have to assume they had a good network of intelligence officers in the field collecting such information.
I seem to recall a circular dog tag, similar to the French 1930's style in a museum, but my memory is very unclear on this. I have heard stories of North Vietnamese bodies being left at certain locations along the river. Neutral men would be hired to come in long boats to claim the bodies and take them for a proper funerial so the spirits can rest.
I found myself obsessed with this question last night. I found out there were no dog tags, I probably just saw an old French tag.
This is a problem with some families who lost someone during the war. There are currently 300,000 North Vietnamese soldiers whose bodies were buried in mass graves. In Vietnam, these bodies decompose quickly, with even most of the bones decomposing by now. Family members are concerned because they cannot put their loved ones to rest and they are cursed to wandering the spirit world.
This article helped answer some questions.
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/lost-souls-search-vietnams-300000-or-more-mias
Have you heard this podcast on the Wandering Soul by Radiolab?
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/wandering-soul?tab=transcript
Hi Brian, thank you for this link. What a story! And I'm glad to know about the Pulitzer journalism site in general. It's really hard to comprehend that so many Vietnamese people are still so directly impacted by a war that ended almost 50 years ago. I felt quite emotional when I read this "happy ending" in the article. "Now he can rest in the cemetery, people can come bring offerings and light incense, make sure he doesn't get cold. That's how we think about it. This happens a lot in this country.""