LOST SOLDIERS FOUNDATION TO HOLD CEREMONY FOR 81 SOUTH VIETNAMESE SOLDIERS WHO PERISHED IN VIETNAM AND SPENT 54 YEARS AS "MEN WITHOUT A COUNTRY"

GRAYSONVILLE, Md., Oct. 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Former United States Senator Jim Webb, President of the non-profit Lost Soldiers Foundation, announced today that on October 26^th it will hold a ceremony in Westminster, California, marking the 5^th anniversary of the Foundation's "nearly impossible" feat of bringing the remains of 81 South Vietnamese soldiers who were killed during the war to be honorably buried and remembered in America.

"They were men without a country, without a government sponsor on any side to assist their cause," said Webb, who fought as a Marine rifle platoon and company commander in Vietnam. 

"The American C-123 aircraft in which they were flying in December, 1965 crashed in the mountains and could not be reached until 1974, just before North Vietnam's final offensive.  Their intermingled bones were sent to Thailand and then to Hawaii, where they were kept on a shelf in a government building for 33 years.  Hanoi refused to accept their remains since they had fought against the communist takeover.  The American government was paralyzed by policies that did not allow the burial of foreign soldiers unless they had family members in the United States.  But our view was different.  They were our fellow soldiers fighting on the same battlefield. It took two years of intense negotiations with the State Department and the Department of Defense, but finally we brought them to America, where they could be remembered in a well-deserved place of rest." 

The hour-long ceremony will take place at 10 O'clock in Westminster's Freedom Park, preceded by an hour-long musical as guests take their seats.  It will be followed by a visit and further ceremonies at the gravesite of the 81 ARVN soldiers in the Westminster Cemetery, the largest resting place of Vietnamese-Americans in the country.  The Lost Soldiers Foundation will be joined by numerous war veterans of the South Vietnamese military, some of whom will participate in ceremonial activities.  A contingent of active duty United States Marines will provide a color guard, a traditional firing squad to honor the fallen soldiers, and a bugler to play "Taps" after a wreath-laying at the end of the ceremony. 

The main speakers at the ceremony will include former Senator and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb, Mr. Nguyen Van Hung, Chairman of Coalition of The Republic of Vietnam Veterans Associations in Southern California, and keynote speaker Lieutenant General George W. Smith, Jr., who served for 38 years as a Marine infantry and reconnaissance officer and recently retired as commanding general of the 1^st Marine Expeditionary Force in Camp Pendleton. His late father, Major General George W. Smith, served with distinction as a Marine infantry battalion commander in Vietnam.

All visitors and members of the press are invited to attend.

Contact with the Lost Soldiers Foundation can be made to Jeff McFadden at [email protected]

Phone:  410-490-1163

SOURCE Lost Soldiers Foundation