Time running out on US soldiers missing in Vietnam

The Straits Times (Singapore): Time running out on US soldiers missing in Vietnam

HANOI - WITH increasingly few of their families left alive and acidic soil eating into their buried remains, time is running out to find the last Americans listed as missing in action from the Vietnam War.

But for the head of a relatives' group, giving up is not an option. 'We need to act now,' said Ann Mills-Griffiths, executive director of the National League of POW/MIA Families, whose brother has been missing since September 1966 when his navy aircraft disappeared over North Vietnam.

Almost four decades after the end of US combat involvement in the South-east Asian nation, few parents of about 1,700 missing soldiers and airmen are still alive and siblings are often in their 60s.

Witnesses are also ageing, their fading physical and mental abilities limiting their ability to assist in investigations. Mrs Mills-Griffiths, 69, was in Hanoi for talks that ended at the weekend with Vietnamese officials about a 'renewed effort' to open up archival records which could provide vital clues as to what happened in some of the cases.

She was optimistic that the records would be made available, with 'very good commitment' from the Vietnamese during the talks. 'But we're running out of time,' warned Mrs Mills-Griffiths, who has made about 30 trips to Vietnam as head of the families' group.

The US and Vietnam have cooperated on investigations into missing American servicemen since 1985 - 'the bridge', she says, which led to a normalisation of diplomatic relations 10 years later