US soldier's remains return home



BANGKOK: -- In 1967, US Staff Sergeant James Lee Van Bendegom went missing after his patrol was ambushed along the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Last month, 47 years after he had been taken captive, the teenage soldier’s remains were finally returned to his family, the US Embassy said on Friday, The Phnom Penh Post reported.

Van Bendegom, a Wisconsin native, was just 18 when he dropped out of high school to enlist, according to his former hometown’s newspaper, the Kenosha News.

In mid-July 1967, Van Bendegom’s infantry division was conducting a search party along the Cambodian border. They were overrun, dozens died, and Van Bendegom and another soldier, both wounded, were taken prisoner, according to the POW Network, a historical archive of missing US soldiers and prisoners of war. Other Americans also taken prisoners were told Van Bendegom and the other soldier died of their wounds in a Cambodian field hospital.

The surviving members of Van Bendegom’s unit were released in 1973 after 2,064 days of being beaten, starved and tortured, a veteran who had fought in the same patrol told the Kenosha News.

The Van Bendegom family searched, and an army case manager sent out 30 search missions, but no remains or any evidence of the missing soldier were found.

Then, in 1986, a Vietnamese woman smuggled human remains of various nationalities to US authorities in Thailand. Presumably exhumed from a mass grave, the jumble of body parts didn’t initially lead anywhere. However, the remains were recently reanalysed, and, with improved technology using two different kinds of DNA analysis, a left radius was matched to Van Bendegom’s brothers.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/us-soldiers-remains-return-home

-- Thai PBS 2014-12-02

Wonderful result and some peace at last for the NOK and family members. I sincerely hope the US compensated the Vietnamese woman who had the foresight to give the remains to US officials.

Yes, good that he is home after so long.

JTF-FA....Good work men...good work.

I hope this helps to bring the family some peace of mind and some closure.

I worked with Vietnamese refugees and it was not unheard of for asylum seekers to show up with human remains in the hope that this would help them to get screened in and resettle. In the vast majority of the cases, these were not soldiers but bodies of local Asians.

It's nice to know that the search continues. I have a cousin who has remained missing in action since 1967. His mother died without ever knowing what happened, but she never forgot. A few hours before she died, she said that she hoped to see her son soon.

Wonderful result and some peace at last for the NOK and family members. I sincerely hope the US compensated the Vietnamese woman who had the foresight to give the remains to US officials.

Good to see someone cares after all these years. I served 26 years in USAF and always believed they would come for me.

Jerry C-141 Flt Engineer 315th MAW

Wonderful result and some peace at last for the NOK and family members. I sincerely hope the US compensated the Vietnamese woman who had the foresight to give the remains to US officials.

Good to see someone cares after all these years. I served 26 years in USAF and always believed they would come for me.

Jerry C-141 Flt Engineer 315th MAW

Well said Jerry.

David, C-7A Flt Engineer 483rd TAW

Indeed. Welcome home, brother.