Two US Veterans on Mission to Bring Vietnam’s Fallen Soldiers Home

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The US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) facility in Maryland has become a familiar destination for Richard Magner. Every month, the US veteran drives hundreds of kilometers to the archive to search through and review its vast collection of wartime footage.

He carefully reproduces individual film frames, compares them with military operational records and terrain features, and identifies locations that may have served as mass burial sites for Vietnamese soldiers.

According to the VTV report "The 500-day-and-night mission of those from the other side of the frontline," aired on the 7 p.m. news on July 11, Richard Magner has visited the archive dozens of times over the past 10 years, studying more than 200 sites in Vietnam believed to contain mass graves of fallen soldiers. He has focused primarily on areas surrounding former military encampments and fire support bases, where sufficient documentation exists for cross-referencing and identifying potential burial locations.

Richard Magner served as a helicopter pilot with Company D, Cobra Platoon, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division of the US Army. He arrived in Dau Tieng in December 1968 after completing training in An Khe. What he witnessed during the war has remained with him for decades.

US veteran Bob Connor (third from left) presents case files containing information on fallen soldiers' graves to Lieutenant General Hoang Khanh Hung, President of the Vietnam Association for Supporting Families of Martyrs. (Photo: Nhan Dan Newspaper)

Working alongside Richard Magner is Bob Connor, a former member of the US Air Force who was assigned to guard the military base at Bien Hoa Airport.

Speaking with Nhan Dan Newspaper, Bob Connor said his journey back to Vietnam began when he came across an aerial photograph of Bien Hoa Airport taken in 1968 on Google Earth. He marked a location he believed might contain a mass grave of Vietnamese soldiers and left his contact information in the hope that someone in Vietnam would see it.

About 10 days later, he received an email from veteran Che Trung Hieu, requesting assistance in verifying the location. Bob Connor subsequently contacted Martin E. Strones, an officer who had participated in counting the bodies of Vietnamese soldiers before they were buried in a mass grave following the battle at Bien Hoa Airport during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

According to VTV, the information provided by Bob Connor enabled Vietnamese authorities to successfully locate and recover the remains of 80 fallen soldiers at Bien Hoa Airport. This achievement motivated him to continue searching for information on other burial sites.

Bob Connor devotes much of his time to contacting US veterans who served in Vietnam. He seeks out those who directly witnessed or had knowledge of the burial of Vietnamese soldiers after battles, encouraging them to share their memories, photographs, maps, and any surviving documents.

This is a time-consuming task, as most witnesses are now elderly. Some had never spoken about what they witnessed during the war, even to their own families. The information collected must then be cross-checked against operational records, military maps, reconnaissance photographs, and current terrain conditions before being passed on to the Vietnamese authorities.

Bob Connor said that families in both Vietnam and the US have endured the pain of losing loved ones. In his view, searching for and bringing missing soldiers home is part of the process of addressing the consequences of war and promoting reconciliation between the two countries.

Over the past decade, Richard Magner and Bob Connor have been active members of a research group dedicated to locating mass graves of Vietnamese fallen soldiers. The information and materials they have provided have made significant contributions to the recovery of more than 200 sets of remains at Loc Ninh Airport in Dong Nai Province since 2021.

Based on the initial leads they uncovered, the two veterans and their colleagues have compiled 250 detailed case files on wartime battles. Each file may include the time and location of the engagement, the military units involved, maps, aerial photographs, reconnaissance imagery, operational reports, witness testimonies, and suspected mass grave locations.

These case files provide additional evidence for Vietnamese authorities to assess, conduct field surveys, and organize search operations. For Bob Connor, the discovery of the first burial site brought a sense of relief. At the same time, it also demonstrated that many more locations still require verification.

"I have to do more. I have to find them. I have to find the next grave," Bob Connor said in the VTV report.

Richard Magner also said that after many years of waiting, searching for Vietnamese soldiers who remain on former battlefields has become something he thinks about constantly. The two veterans continue to examine archival records, connect with witnesses, and transfer information to the Vietnamese side, with the aim of providing additional data to support the search for and recovery of Vietnam's fallen soldiers.

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