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The bodies of 300,000 Vietnamese fallen in combat remain lost or in unmarked graves half a century after the war. Australian veteran John Bryant dedicated the end of his life to finding 42 of these bodies, considered "lost souls" in Vietnamese culture.
John Bryant at the Fire Support Base Balmoral – May 26-28, 1968.
For Bryant, a Vietnam War veteran serving with Australian troops in 1968 as part of the US-led international coalition, the conflict was never fully buried when he returned to Australia.
For decades, the 42 enemy soldiers he and his comrades buried in mass graves—two bomb craters—after the bloody battle at Balmoral Base in the southern province of Binh Duong kept coming back to his mind.
The search for the missing remains an open wound in Vietnam half a century after communist troops from the North entered the South Vietnamese presidential palace on April 30, 1975, ending the war, fifty years ago.
Authorities estimate that some 300,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army combatants remain unaccounted for, while the United States searches for more than 1,200 of its soldiers whose bodies have never been found.
And finding the remains of its martyrs is considered a national priority in Vietnam.
After several decades in which that battle and the idea that those young men killed in combat would never have a proper burial haunted their minds, Bryant, who died during surgery last Oct 2024, and his friend and also veteran war Brian Cleaver decided to get down to business after their first trip to Vietnam in 2007. "At first, when Brian called me with his story, I told him I didn't care. We fought, we killed them, and we buried them. I didn't want to dwell on it. But after a while, I realized his intentions were good" he said at the time Bryant.
Return to Vietnam
Bryant recalled in a memoir sent to EFE the "anxiety" he felt the time he returned to the scene of his nightmares as part of an organized tour for veterans.
"But I realized no one was shooting at us, the people were kind, and my perspective began to change," he explained.
When they visited the battle site, he and Cleaver decided to contact the authorities, and in 2009 they began a search process that took Bryant to Vietnam twenty times, devoting much of his energy to that endeavor in the final years of his life.
The battle scene, now a rubber plantation, barely had any landmarks left, but they set to work, drawing on their memories, old photos, and testimonies.
“They may have been our enemies, but they were also soldiers,” Bryant said.
After exhaustive work in collaboration with the Vietnamese Army, Bryant (Cleaver was unable to continue traveling to Vietnam after 2019) finally managed to locate 20 of those bodies in April of last year.
The search was not without its difficulties, such as convincing the Vietnamese team to change a dig site he knew was incorrect, but the Australian veteran persevered, convinced that returning the bodies was a way to heal open wounds.
Following the discovery in April 2024, Bryant was invited to a ceremony at the Binh Duong Martyrs' Cemetery, where he was moved when two elderly women approached him, grabbed his arm, and began to thank him. “I put my arms around both of them and held their faces against my chest,” he recalled with emotion.
After the ceremony, Bryant continued to return to Vietnam regularly, determined to find the remaining 22 bodies in the surrounding area, but her unexpected death (Oct 12. 2024) prevented his ultimate goal.
John Bryant at the Fire Support Base Balmoral – May 26-28, 1968.
For Bryant, a Vietnam War veteran serving with Australian troops in 1968 as part of the US-led international coalition, the conflict was never fully buried when he returned to Australia.
For decades, the 42 enemy soldiers he and his comrades buried in mass graves—two bomb craters—after the bloody battle at Balmoral Base in the southern province of Binh Duong kept coming back to his mind.
The search for the missing remains an open wound in Vietnam half a century after communist troops from the North entered the South Vietnamese presidential palace on April 30, 1975, ending the war, fifty years ago.
Authorities estimate that some 300,000 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army combatants remain unaccounted for, while the United States searches for more than 1,200 of its soldiers whose bodies have never been found.
And finding the remains of its martyrs is considered a national priority in Vietnam.
After several decades in which that battle and the idea that those young men killed in combat would never have a proper burial haunted their minds, Bryant, who died during surgery last Oct 2024, and his friend and also veteran war Brian Cleaver decided to get down to business after their first trip to Vietnam in 2007. "At first, when Brian called me with his story, I told him I didn't care. We fought, we killed them, and we buried them. I didn't want to dwell on it. But after a while, I realized his intentions were good" he said at the time Bryant.
Return to Vietnam
Bryant recalled in a memoir sent to EFE the "anxiety" he felt the time he returned to the scene of his nightmares as part of an organized tour for veterans.
"But I realized no one was shooting at us, the people were kind, and my perspective began to change," he explained.
When they visited the battle site, he and Cleaver decided to contact the authorities, and in 2009 they began a search process that took Bryant to Vietnam twenty times, devoting much of his energy to that endeavor in the final years of his life.
The battle scene, now a rubber plantation, barely had any landmarks left, but they set to work, drawing on their memories, old photos, and testimonies.
“They may have been our enemies, but they were also soldiers,” Bryant said.
After exhaustive work in collaboration with the Vietnamese Army, Bryant (Cleaver was unable to continue traveling to Vietnam after 2019) finally managed to locate 20 of those bodies in April of last year.
The search was not without its difficulties, such as convincing the Vietnamese team to change a dig site he knew was incorrect, but the Australian veteran persevered, convinced that returning the bodies was a way to heal open wounds.
Following the discovery in April 2024, Bryant was invited to a ceremony at the Binh Duong Martyrs' Cemetery, where he was moved when two elderly women approached him, grabbed his arm, and began to thank him. “I put my arms around both of them and held their faces against my chest,” he recalled with emotion.
After the ceremony, Bryant continued to return to Vietnam regularly, determined to find the remaining 22 bodies in the surrounding area, but her unexpected death (Oct 12. 2024) prevented his ultimate goal.
Translated into English from an Argentine newspaper
