Letters From Vietnam Finally Arrive Home

Telling his story: Steve Flaherty, who was with the 101st Airborne, was killed in the northern section of South Vietnam in March 1969

Letters written by American soldiers chronicling the carnage and exhaustion of the Vietnam War were given to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in exchange for a Vietnamese soldier's diary that was taken from his body by an American GI.

‘If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I'm O.K. I was real lucky. I'll write again soon,’ one letter read.

That poignant message never reached the mother of Army Sargent Steve Flaherty. He was killed in Vietnam in 1969 before he could mail the letters he was carrying, including one he might have been writing when he died.

The letters were taken by the Vietnamese after his death, U.S. officials said in releasing excerpts on Monday, and are now due to be returned to the fallen soldier’s family in South Carolina.

Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh and Mr Panetta made the exchange in a ceremony in which the Vietnamese also agreed to open three new sites in the country for excavation by the United States to search for troop remains from the war.  Acidic soil in Vietnam erodes bones quickly, leaving in many cases only teeth for military teams to use to try and identify service members. There are nearly 1,300 cases of troops still unaccounted for, and officers briefing Mr Panetta said about 600 of those remains could be recoverable.

Ron Ward, U.S. casualty resolution specialist at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hanoi, said there are at least four U.S. troops believed to be lost in the three areas that are being opened. That leaves eight sites still restricted by the Vietnamese, he said.

Memories of the Vietnam War are fading for many Americans, and the war is the stuff of textbooks for others, but it is brought vividly alive in Sargent Flaherty's letters.

Returned at last: As part of an exchange between U.S. and Vietnamese officials, the letters are due to be returned to Mr Flaherty's family. The Vietnamese used them as propaganda during the war

The exchange: Leon Panetta is handed Mr Flaherty's letters from Vietnam's defense minister General Phung Quang Thanh during a ceremony on Saturday

The mail from the Columbia, South Carolina native to his mother, Lois, and two women identified only as Mrs. Wyatt and Betty, offer emotional accounts of his fear - and also his determination.

‘I felt bullets going past me,’ Mr Flaherty wrote to Betty. ‘I have never been so scared in my life.’

‘We took in lots of casualties and death,’ he writes. ‘We dragged more bodies of dead and wounded than I can ever want to forget.’

‘Thank you for your sweet card. It made my miserable day a much better one but I don't think I will ever forget the bloody fight we are having. ... RPG rockets and machine guns really tore my rucksack.’

By 1969, the war was sharply dividing Americans back home, but Mr Flaherty told Mrs. Wyatt he still believed in the mission.

‘This is a dirty and cruel war but I'm sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree,’ he writes.

Turning over a new leaf: Mr Panetta presented Mr Thanh with a diary that belonged to Vietnamese soldier Vu Dinh Doan which was taken by a US Marine during the War

 Memories: The contents of the diary, including a picture, were stored by Marine Robert Frazure who took it during the War but now wants it to be returned to the family of the man whose corpse he found

In another section of the letter to his mother, Mr Flaherty reassures her that he was trying to get some rest.

‘I definitely will take R&R,’ he wrote. ‘I don't care where so long as I get a rest, which I need so badly, soon. I'll let you know exact date.’
Mr Flaherty, who was with the 101st Airborne, was killed in the northern section of South Vietnam in March 1969. It's clear he saw some heavy combat.
‘Our platoon started off with 35 men but winded up with 19 men when it was over,’ he tells his mother. ‘We lost platoon leader and whole squad.’

Officials said parts of Mr Flaherty's letters were read in propaganda broadcasts by the Vietnamese during the war. This is the first time such a joint exchange of war artifacts has occurred, they said. Vietnamese Colonel Nguyen Phu Dat had kept Sargeant Flaherty's letters, and last August he mentioned them in an online publication.

Early this year, Robert Destatte, a retired Defense Department employee who had worked for the POW/MIA office, noticed the publication, and the Pentagon began to work to get the letters back to Mr Flaherty's family.  Mr Flaherty's sister-in-law, Martha Gibbons, 73, of Irmo, South Carolina, said she learned of the letters' existence about six weeks ago.

Mrs Gibbons said her husband met Mr Flaherty when the boy was a 6-year-old living in a Japanese orphanage and her husband persuaded his mother, with whom they lived, to adopt the child. He grew up to be a well-liked, athletic boy, who dropped out of college to join the Army despite a baseball scholarship.

‘He decided to enlist in the Army and go fight for his country in Vietnam and he didn't make it back,’ said Kenneth L. Cannon, 80, of Prosperity, South Carolina, Mr Flaherty's uncle.
‘It was very hard to take. It was hard.’

Mr Cannon said the family was told that he was in a field, taking a break to eat lunch or write letters.
‘He never let us know how afraid and scared he was,’ Gibbons said. ‘He was in danger. We knew it was bad. We just didn't know how bad, I guess.’She's thrilled the information has been released.
‘I had a very emotional morning all over again. But it was a wonderful emotion this time. It's good for both countries. It's good for all the soldiers who were killed for both countries,’ Mrs Gibbons said the family would store the letters with Mr Flaherty's medals, scrapbook and flag.

Defense officials reviewing the packet of papers given to Mr Panetta said it appears there are three sets of letters, including the four written by Mr Flaherty. It was not clear how many other service members' letters were there, but officials were going through them Monday. The small diary belonged to Vu Dinh Doan, a Vietnamese soldier who was killed in a machine gun fight, according to defense officials.
They said a Marine, Robert ‘Ira’ Frazure of Walla Walla, Washington, saw the diary - with a photo and some money inside - on the chest of the dead soldier and took it back to the U.S.

The diary came to light earlier this year when the sister of a friend of Frazure's was doing research for a book and Mr Frazure asked her help in returning the diary.
The sister, Marge Scooter, brought the diary to the PBS television program ‘History Detectives.’ The show then asked the Defense and State departments to help return the diary.

STRAIGHT FROM THE FRONT LINES: EXCERPTS FROM THE LETTERSLetter to 'Betty'

I'm sorry for not writing so long but we have been in a fierce fight with N.V.A. We took in lots of casualties and death. It has been trying days for me and my men. We dragged more bodies of dead and wounded than I can ever want to forget.'

'Thank you for your sweet card. It made my miserable day a much better one but I don't think I will ever forget the bloody fight we are having.'

'RPG rockets and machine guns really tore my rucksack.'
'I felt bullets going past me. I have never been so scared in my life. Well I better close for now before we go in again to take that hill.'

Letter to 'Mother'

'I definitely will take R&R, I don't care where so long as I get a rest, which I need so badly, soon. I'll let you know exact date.'
'If Dad calls, tell him I got too close to being dead but I'm O.K. I was real lucky. I'll write again soon.'
'Our platoon started off with 35 men but winded up with 19 men when it was over. We lost platoon leader and whole squad.'
'The NVA soldiers fought until they died and one even booby trapped himself and when we approached him, he blew himself up and took two of our men with him.'

Letter to 'Mrs. Wyatt'

'Our platoon leader was killed and I was the temporary platoon leader until we got the replacement. Nothing seems to go well for us but we'll take that ridge line.'
'This is a dirty and cruel war but I'm sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree.'