The Battle Against Oblivion: Finding the Vietnam War’s Missing Soldiers

Some say the Vietnam War ended with the signing of a treaty, while others say it concluded when the victorious side planted its flag on the roof of the presidential palace. Still, others believe that the war did not truly end and continued for decades after the last shot, simply because there are those who have never returned home.

Half a century after 1975, Việt Nam still has altars without remains, and many families still do not know where their loved ones are buried. Today, diaries soaked with wartime rainwater in archives in Texas, or crumpled canteens hastily engraved with a name, have become the last clues to identifying a person who once lived.

In this prolonged void, the Vietnam Wartime Accounting Initiative (VWAI) emerged as a humanitarian and political effort. It uses the very documents created by the conflict to not only help bring soldiers “back home” but also to combat the legacy of forgetfulness that the war created. [1]

Even today, this forgetfulness still mainly affects the missing soldiers and civilians of the Republic of Vietnam, as they are often overlooked by post-war search programs.

The War Never Ended

In official discourses concerning the post-war period in Việt Nam, people frequently frame peace as a story of economic reconstruction, diplomatic normalization, and accelerated development. However, for the hundreds of thousands of families with relatives missing in action, the conflict never truly ended.

Approximately 200,000 soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front remain unaccounted for or unburied, while another 300,000 remains have been recovered but remain unidentified. 

Additionally, more than 1,500 United States soldiers remain on the missing persons list. [2] Meanwhile, the Republic of Vietnam has almost never fully or transparently accounted for its casualties.

These numbers illustrate how a nation’s political priorities heavily influence its recollection of war. For decades, the search for fallen soldiers in Việt Nam focused primarily on those belonging to the “victorious side.” [3] 

Because South Vietnamese soldiers and missing civilians were largely excluded from the official memorial system, the memory of the war became more than just a humanitarian issue; it became a question of who is deemed a legitimate part of national history.

This is precisely where VWAI takes on special significance.

Although funded by the U.S. Government, the project consistently emphasizes the principle of searching for missing persons “without distinction between sides.” 

Given the selective nature of war memory in Việt Nam, this phrase introduces the possibility that the Vietnamese people could begin to view those who died in the war primarily as human beings, rather than as members of the winning or losing side.

An Archive Created from Death

The VWAI project utilizes a system of records housed at the Combined Document Exploitation Center (CDEC). This war archive contains items that the U.S. and South Vietnamese armies seize from the personal belongings of North Vietnamese soldiers and liberation forces. It contains diaries, letters, workbooks, military lists, and personal papers. The end result is an archive created from war and, arguably, from death itself.

When a soldier falls, his backpack is discovered, and a notebook is taken for military intelligence. Half a century later, that exact notebook becomes the final clue to identifying him. 

This journey reveals a peculiar paradox. While war created these records to hunt down and eliminate enemies, it now uses them to bring the dead back home.

Through the posts of the VWAI, the war does not show famous heroic symbols but instead reveals small, intimate details. 

A soldier takes a brief opportunity amidst a hail of bullets to write a letter to his mother. A notebook carefully lists a New Year’s Eve menu featuring coffee, tea, and cake. A father writes to his daughter before leaving for battle: “If I die, this is my last word to you.” [4]

These words weaken the rigid language of official history. They return the conflict to its true nature, proving that war is not a game of ideology but a devastating machine of violence where ordinary people are caught beyond their control.

Reconciliation Does Not Begin with Speeches

One of the most striking images of the project is a scene where American and Vietnamese scholars sit together, reading old pages to identify the deceased. 

They are not in the midst of a grand conference, nor are they discussing grand agreements; the researchers simply sit side by side, bowing their heads before a notebook stained with the mud of the battlefield.

For many years, the Việt Nam-United States reconciliation process has frequently been described in geopolitical terms, such as the normalization of relations, defense cooperation, and the establishment of a comprehensive strategic partnership. [6]

However, VWAI reveals another slower, more difficult, and less visible layer of reconciliation: making peace with a people’s memory of the war.

U.S. support for the search for missing Vietnamese is particularly significant because, for many decades after 1975, Washington D.C.’s greatest priority was finding missing American servicemen (POW/MIA). To move towards normalizing relations with Việt Nam, resolving this issue was once an almost mandatory condition from the U.S. side. [7]

Today, by funding the search for the remains of Vietnamese people, the United States government demonstrates that the history of the war has shifted somewhat away from narrow national logic. It has moved closer to a universal principle: every family has the right to know where their loved ones are buried.

However, this project also raises an unsettling question: why do so many Vietnamese families have to rely on international resources and archives in the United States for a chance to find their relatives? 

This question reflects a broader problem regarding how Việt Nam manages its war history. While the state possesses a vast amount of historical memory, not all of it is equally accessible.

A Gap that Should be Filled by the State

When reviewing the activities of the VWAI, what stands out is not just the touching personal stories but also the enormous scope of work this academic project is undertaking. It connects families, returns mementos, assists with identity verification, builds databases, coordinates with local authorities, and conducts community outreach.

In principle, a state with sufficient resources and institutions should perform these exact functions. Việt Nam certainly does not lack relevant agencies, possessing entities ranging from the National Steering Committee 515 and the Department of War Invalids and Martyrs to local internal affairs departments and specialized military units like K72. Nevertheless, these bodies still coordinate poorly, and they have not yet truly synchronized their data storage and sharing.

As a result, a project with foreign involvement is now filling this gap. This raises an important question regarding long-term policy: what kind of institutional framework must Việt Nam adopt to ensure the search for missing persons from all sides of the war becomes a sustainable national obligation?

The National Steering Committee 515’s “500-Day Campaign” may be a positive sign. However, it remains merely a temporary campaign rather than a permanent mechanism. 

Meanwhile, time is rapidly running out for the families who are still waiting.

The Right to Be Called

In an article about a fallen soldier from the North, Trần Minh Tuyển, Professor Alex-Thai Dinh Vo observed that the most important result is not “success,” but rather that “a person, after many years of being forgotten in war, is finally called by his name.” [8]

This sentiment is perhaps the most accurate description of the entire project. War turns human beings into statistics, military records, and anonymous graves. However, VWAI’s work fundamentally aims to reverse that process. It turns a distorted canteen into a person’s name, a discarded diary into family memories, and anonymous remains into a son finally returning to his homeland.

In a society where collective victories often frame history, the most humane impact of this initiative is to return history to individuals. The focus shifts away from battalions belonging to “our side” or “the enemy side” and rests on the people who died far too young. Somewhere in Việt Nam, there are still loved ones waiting for them to return.

Delivering Letters to the Right Place

Among the documents preserved by the VWAI is a letter from soldier Võ Thành Dũng, addressed to his parents from the midst of the battlefield: “I am sitting under enemy bullets; I am taking advantage of the time to write this letter to send my thoughts to you and Mom.” [9]

Because someone confiscated that letter, his family never had the chance to read it while he was alive. This story is perhaps the ultimate tragedy of war, condensed entirely within a single piece of paper. Currently, the VWAI is attempting to bring those pieces of paper back to their rightful homes. 

While this endeavor is incredibly valuable work and more should be done, such efforts cannot permanently depend on the goodwill of a foreign government that may withdraw its support at any time. Ultimately, Việt Nam must confront a much more difficult question.

Is the state truly ready to fully acknowledge all the losses of the war, including those that previously remained outside the official system of memory?

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Thiên Di wrote this op-ed in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 25, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights to the English translation.