Speaking with Dantri/Dtinews on Wednesday morning, vice chairman of Ha Tinh Provincial People's Committee, Le Ngoc Chau, said that Peter Mathews would arrive in Vietnam on March 4 to return the diary of a dead Vietnamese soldier, Cao Van Tuat, to his family in Ky Anh District.

"We're going to hold a ceremony to receive the diary on March 5," the official said. "We've carefully arranged relevant agencies to ensure security and good reception when receiving the US veteran and media at the handover ceremony. Mathews will leave Vietnam the day after the ceremony.

Earlier, the US war veteran had emailed Vietnamese authorities expressing his desire to return a diary of the dead Vietnamese soldier he found decades ago.

In his email, Mathews said has kept the diary for more than five decades, and he wanted to return it to the dead soldier’s family.

In an interview with North Jersey published on January 27, Mathews said he found the diary in an abandoned backpack after a battle in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum during the American War in November 1967. He had kept the notebook for 56 years.

Recently the 77-year-old veteran asked a friend to help translate the diary and published some pages on social media in the hope of gathering information about the owner of the diary. Through some translations, he found out that it was probably written by a soldier named Cao Van Tuat from Ky Anh District in Ha Tinh Province.

In an interview with Dantri/Dtinews on February 9, Mathews shared that he was conscripted by the US army in 1966 and was sent to Vietnam where he was trained as a machine gunner. He completed his military service and left Vietnam in December 1967 and had never returned to the country since.

Sharing the reason for not talking about the diary for such a long time, Mathews said that he just tried to put things relating to the war behind him so as to forget about it.

"I put the diary and everything else about the war in a box and I'd never looked at them again for over 50 years," he said. "Recently I was meeting a person who had adopted two children from Vietnam, I mentioned the book and he said I should put it on the internet and see what happens."

Mathews said that when he opened the box to take out the book again after so many years, he was still amazed by the beauty of the drawings and handwriting. And he decided that he should try to find out if anyone knew about it and wanted to help return it to Vietnam.

Hearing about the news, authorities in Ha Tinh Province searched for the information and confirmed that the owner of the diary was Cao Van Tuat in Ky Anh District.

The dead soldier’s nephew, Ha Huy My, 62, told Dantri/Dtinews on February 8 that he was very happy to hear about the memento being returned.

"I'm very much looking forward to receiving the diary of my late uncle," My said. "I also hope that with the information in the diary, we'll be able to find his grave."

Source: Dtinews