How Vietnamese and Americans are Working Together to Account for Missing Personnel from the Vietnam War
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| Colonel Doan Quang Hoa, deputy chief of Office, National Steering Committee 515. Photo: chinhsachquandoi.gov.vn |
The U.S. and Vietnam have cooperated since 1985 in seeking the fullest possible accounting of the 1,973 Americans listed as missing in action (MIA) at the end of the war — the first major step towards normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations. In 2021, after years of information-sharing, the U.S. Department of Defense and Vietnam’s Ministry of National Defense launched a joint program to expand Vietnamese efforts to account for the estimated 300,000 Vietnamese personnel who remain missing.
Accounting for missing personnel is an essential component of postwar reconciliation and building a secure peace. With support from Congress, USIP launched the Vietnam War Legacies and Reconciliation Initiative in August 2021. The initiative supports reconciliation between the U.S. and Vietnamese governments and peoples, as well as among Vietnamese inside and outside the country, and aims to document and promote the ongoing cooperation to address legacies of war as the basis for a comprehensive partnership build on trust and shared interests.
On December 2, USIP held a discussion that looked at U.S.-Vietnam cooperation in the search for, and identification of, wartime Vietnamese remains along with personal stories of Vietnamese families who lost relatives in the war.
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