After decades of unanswered questions, a sister hopes Vietnam's DNA program will finally reveal where her two fallen brothers rest.
Inside the hall of Thanh Sen Ward Police Station in Ha Tinh Province, where hundreds of relatives of fallen soldiers waited patiently to provide DNA samples, Truong Thi Tu, 82, sat quietly in a corner, clutching a worn folder of documents that had faded with time.
Each time officials called another person's name, she looked up briefly before lowering her gaze again, waiting silently for her turn.
For more than half a century, Tu has lived without knowing where her two younger brothers, both sacrificed during the war while still in their early twenties, were laid to rest.
Now, Vietnam's nationwide DNA identification campaign has given her what she describes as perhaps her last chance to bring them home.
An altar without photographs
Hundreds of relatives of fallen soldiers gathered at Thanh Sen Ward Police Station to provide DNA samples.
Age has slowed her steps, but not her determination.
When local authorities announced the collection of DNA samples from relatives of unidentified fallen soldiers, Tu said she spent several sleepless nights, anxiously waiting for the day.
"I'm old now," she said, her voice trembling. "I don't know how much longer I'll live. I only hope we receive news soon so my brothers can finally come home."
Tu said there were six siblings in her family. Today, only she and her younger sister, Truong Thi Minh, born in 1953, are still alive.
Her two older sisters have passed away, while her two younger brothers - Truong Quang Vinh, born in 1948, and Truong Quang Thanh, born in 1950 - both sacrificed during the war.
Although more than five decades have passed, memories of them have never faded.
According to Tu, Vinh enlisted in the military in 1967 and sacrificed about a year later on the Quang Tri battlefield.
Four years later, her youngest brother, Thanh, also joined the military. He sacrificed in 1973 on the southern battlefield.
Neither brother had married before they died.
Waiting for answers
Over the years, both of Tu's parents passed away.
Repeated floods destroyed many of the family's documents and personal belongings, including the only photographs of her two brothers.
Today, their family altar holds only two name plaques in place of portraits.
Some elderly relatives have spent decades searching for the graves of fallen family members.Tu waits quietly for her turn to provide a DNA sample, holding on to the hope of finding her two brothers.
"Whenever we heard that someone might know something - even the smallest clue - my sister and I would go," Tu said, struggling to hold back tears. "We've been searching for more than 50 years, but we still don't know where they are."
Every family anniversary, holiday and memorial day, she lights incense and prays that her brothers will one day return home.
When she learned that the Government had launched a nationwide DNA collection program to help identify the remains of unidentified fallen soldiers, she saw it as a new source of hope.
A DNA sample carries decades of hope
Ha Tinh Provincial Police are collecting more than 16,300 DNA samples from relatives of fallen soldiers.
From July 3 to July 7, Ha Tinh Provincial Police, together with commune- and ward-level police, collected more than 16,300 DNA samples from relatives of fallen soldiers at five collection sites across the province.
The samples will be added to Vietnam's national DNA database to support efforts to identify the remains of unidentified fallen soldiers as part of the Government's 500-Day Campaign for the Search, Recovery and Identification of Fallen Soldiers' Remains.
At each collection site, officers carefully verified family relationships before collecting, sealing and preserving biological samples according to established procedures.
For those carrying out the work, it is a professional responsibility.
For Truong Thi Tu and thousands of other families, however, each DNA sample represents far more than scientific data.
It carries the hope that, after decades of uncertainty, their loved ones may finally be identified, called by their names once again and returned to the families who have never stopped waiting.
Vietnamnet.vn
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