Journey to bring comrades back to their homeland in Laos

On the last day of July, we arrived at the headquarters of the Martyrs' Remains Search and Collection Team (Nghe An Province Military Command), which was also the time when Mr. Nguyen Xuan Khoat (60 years old, from Hoa Binh) came here. Mr. Khoat is also a retired military officer, whose brother, martyr Nguyen Van Tuyen, died in Laos in 1972. "Everything now depends on you. The family has been wanting to bring him home for many years," Mr. Khoat told Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Nam - the leader of the Collection Team.

Take him back to the Motherland. Photo: Tien Hung

Mr. Khoat said that after many years of meeting each of his brother's comrades, he knew where his brother was buried, but when he got there, there was not a single trace. The area was too large, and there were 19 Vietnamese martyrs buried here while there was no grave map, so the family was "helpless". Mr. Khoat was just one of thousands of relatives of martyrs who died in Laos who came to this team to help find their remains. However, this job was not easy.

Meals in the forest of the Team searching for and collecting remains; Exhuming martyrs' remains; Searching for martyrs' remains in caves. Photo: Tien Hung

Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Nam said that it seemed like a “needle in a haystack” job, especially when most of the martyrs had died nearly half a century ago, so determining the exact burial location was not an easy task. The team was assigned to search in the three provinces of Xiangkhouang, Vientiane and Xaysomboun. Xiangkhouang is said to be the province with the most Vietnamese volunteer soldiers killed. Right after the rainy season in Laos ended, the team’s nearly 100 soldiers were usually divided into four groups. These groups were then divided into many directions. Each group sometimes had only a few people, but was in charge of two districts.

To find these remains, soldiers often rely on sources of information such as cemetery maps provided by units, information from veterans who directly buried the remains or relatives of the martyrs, and sources from local people. However, all of these sources of information are very vague. Due to the time that has passed, the maps are no longer effective, because the terrain has changed. In the past, when burying martyrs during the war, the drawing of maps and marking of locations often had many errors.

The process of the team excavating the remains of martyrs. Photo: Tien Hung

The dry season in Laos is very harsh; the days are scorching hot but there are nights that are bone-chillingly cold. Meanwhile, soldiers often have to set up tents and sleep in the forest for many days. Meals in the middle of the forest have become too familiar to them. Roads have not been invested much, so their journey often requires walking, crossing forests, wading streams. Soldiers have to go and clear the way at the same time. There are places that take 2 days to go through but the search still has no results. The old battlefield is now covered by dark forests, but many minefields and bombs still remain. Many soldiers have been injured because they stepped on mines or dug right into bullets while doing this work.

In many places deep in the forest, soldiers had to walk through the forest for hours to bring the remains of martyrs back. Photo: Tien Hung

“One thing that worries us the most is that it is very difficult to identify the remains, even though we know exactly that they are Vietnamese martyrs. Some people have names but not unit names, and some only have hometowns…”, said Lieutenant Colonel Nam.

Since 1984, the Nghe An Martyrs' Remains Search and Collection Team has excavated and collected more than 12,000 remains of Vietnamese volunteer soldiers and experts who died in Laos. Of these, more than 900 remains of martyrs whose identities and hometowns have been identified have been handed over to local authorities and families for burial in the martyrs' hometowns. In the 2018-2019 dry season alone, the unit collected 98 remains.