After an anthropologist determines that remains are native Vietnamese, the bones are returned to their owners to do with as they choose. In Vietnam, remains are the property of the finder, not the government. If a dealer is really gutsy, he or she may try to sell the rejected remains to someone else or put a different identification tag–dog tag–with them and turn them in to the police or VNOSMP in another city or province.

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Bone dealers seem to have an extensive underground network in which they have set a standard for bringing in remains for examination. They usually put a bone fragment and dog tag rubbing–made by placing a piece of paper against it and rubbing it with a pencil or pen–in a small piece of clear plastic, sometimes even heat-sealing the bag with a piece of hot steel. We estimate that more than 90 percent of the remains we have examined that were turned in by villagers (not remains that joint American/Vietnamese teams have excavated from a crash site or grave) consist of a tiny fragment of bone or tooth and a dog tag or dog-tag rubbing, or other form of identification. They are almost always bogus. According to the Department of Defense’s 1992 POW/MIA Fact Book, more than 7,400 such remains have been reported since 1982.

In most cases the dealer brings in a small sample of what he allegedly has at home and says that if the United States is interested in obtaining the rest of the skeleton, it can be brought in–usually for a price. But many of the bone samples have been recently snapped or sawed from a larger bone. And often the samples purported to have come from two or more people are actually bones from the same individual. The dealer takes bones from one skeleton and parcels them out with different dog tags. In this way, literally thousands of MIAs can be assembled from a single skeleton.

All over Vietnam, bone dealers have the same modus operandi–a fragment of bone or tooth, a dog-tag rubbing wrapped in plastic, and an elusive story about their origin. Most dealers say they collected the remains over a long period of time because, for example, friends gave them to me. Another common statement made by the dealers is that they’re doing it for humanitarian reasons to help the U.S. government. But it is usually painfully obvious that these individuals are going about it in a systematic way, anticipating monetary reimbursement or some other reward for their finds. Although dealers strike out close to 100 percent of the time, they hope for that one time when they present a valid MIA dog tag and some remains that fit the biological profile of a missing American soldier, sailor, airman, Marine or civilian. It’s a shot in the dark, but they still keep trying.

In 1995, when Robert Bob Mann was working in Da Nang, he met with Sergeant Ron Ward of the Joint Task Force-Full Accounting (JTF-FA) Oral History Program (OHP). The job of the OHP was to collect information on POW/MIA cases from witnesses and museum archives and then run down the leads. Ron had been told there were two witnesses with remains, a dog tag, aircraft wreckage and a plausible story. The witnesses had previously told the OHP team that in 1988 they were digging at a crash site and found human remains–a skull, mandible, and teeth, among other things. One witness had reportedly removed the remains and buried them next to his father’s grave in a civilian cemetery in Da Nang. Since nobody else knew or suspected that an American was buried in the cemetery, the witness was able to leave the remains there over the years. In 1995, he exhumed the remains and brought them to the VNOSMP.

Ron picked up Bob Mann and another OHP man and took them to the Tu Bon Hotel, where the two witnesses were eating breakfast. After the Vietnamese finished eating, the OHP team members interviewed them. Both witnesses were dark-skinned and showed signs of hard lives working outdoors–they were probably farmers. As is customary in Vietnam, the witnesses opened a new pack of Vinataba cigarettes, lit one for the deceased and placed it in an ashtray on the table. They also said a short prayer before allowing the team members to handle the remains.

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