Sunday, April 11, 2010

113th repatriation ceremony in Danang, Vietnam

Rendering honors at the 113th Repatriation Ceremony in Danang, Vietnam

10 April 2010 was the last day of the 98th Joint Field Activity.  Anyone who is a friend on my facebook has seen the pictures go up over the past 6 weeks from the advance work period through the main operations.  10 April was also the day that we sent seven sets of remains back to the U.S. for further identification.  This was the largest number of transfer cases I have seen on a Vietnamese tarmac since the early 90's.  The ceremony went well, and the U.S. Ambassador and Defense Attache were present for the ceremony.

As proud as I was to be present for the ceremony and participate in the operation over the past six weeks, I was very happy to come back to Hanoi yesterday.  Diep has been getting mad at me for staying away from home for so long and my early flight back on Sunday left us the rest of the day to go see a movie and have all three of our meals together.  It sounds simple, but it was a happy time.

Over the past six weeks I traveled extensively throughout Vietnam.  I worked in Quang Tri, Danang, Quang Nam, Kon Tum, Quang Ngai, Binh Dinh, Khanh Hoa, Binh Phuoc, Binh Duong, and HCMC.  That is a lot of provinces and municipalities for me and I don't necessarily hope to cover so much ground in future field activities.

We now have less than a month before the next field activity kicks off, with lots to do in between.  I will try to find some down time where I can before this whole things starts all over again.

No comments: