It took two more days for Rod and Harold to complete the excavation of the old punji pit and the area around it. It was New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day, and no one cared very much about that. It was a big job with only the limited tools they’d brought with them, but they were as thorough as they could be. The body was completely decomposed, right down to skeletal remains, but some small scraps of clothing and small metal and plastic bits remained; they recovered many small metal fragments from the mine that had ultimately been the cause of Henry’s death. They dug into undisturbed soil well beyond the limits of the original excavation, and finally, toward the end of the third day of excavation, Rod called a halt, figuring they’d found about what they were going to find.

As the sun began to get low on the western horizon on the afternoon of the third day, Rod carefully packed all the remains and other items recovered from the excavation into an airtight stainless steel artifact box he’d brought with him. Somewhat larger than a briefcase, it was just big enough for the longest bones recovered, and the bones and the other items just about filled the box. With that done, they sloppily dragged the well-sifted dirt back into the hole they’d dug, got back into the vehicles, and drove back down to the base camp outside of Duc Vinh.

The members of the group had recovered their composure a little after the solemnity of the excavation, but they were still a somber group. Bud and Cai Cung put together a good dinner, and they sat around eating. Finally, as they finished, Gil raised the question: “Does anybody see any need to hang around here any longer?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Steve replied. “We got what we came for.” No one else said anything.

“Me either,” Gil said finally. “That means the next job is to get Henry’s remains to Hawaii. If we can get on a flight earlier, well, that means we can get back earlier, and with Big George getting likely to kick off in the Gulf in two weeks, I’d just as soon not be in Vietnam any longer than we have to be.”

“The problem is probably going to be getting the remains out of Vietnam,” Rod said. “I’ve never really thought about that issue much, and I don’t know if you guys have.”

“No,” Gil admitted. “It was just such a hopeless thing that we never thought about it much either. I don’t know how the government is going to react if we show up with Henry’s remains. In fact, I don’t even know where we’d have to go, or who we’d have to talk to, but I’ll bet it could take months. I’d say that most of the rest of you could take off, and maybe I could stay back with Steve or Bud, or maybe just Cai Cung to get all the paperwork stamped.”

“I could stay for a couple months if I had to,” Bud said, “But, I don’t want to. What do you say that we just hand-carry the artifact case onto the plane? I don’t know that they inspect outgoing stuff that much, and maybe we can just dumb-American it if we get caught.”

“If we get caught, it could take months,” Gil said. “What do you say that we pull up stakes here in the morning, drive back to town, get rooms at the Caravelle or something, and maybe one or more of us could sort of recon the airport and see how much they do look at outgoing luggage? That way, we could get most everybody out of the country before I try to smuggle Henry through.”

“That might work,” Steve said. “You say you’re volunteering?”

“Don’t want you to do it, if we’re going to try the dumb American thing,” Gil smiled.

They talked about it for some time without really reaching a decision, other than to head back to what had been Saigon and check out the situation at the airport.

The next morning, they tore the camp down and packed the gear up differently. There was a lot less to go back; they decided to leave the food and some of the gear for Nhu Lap, Kien Thanh and Cai Cung. Finally, about the middle of the morning, they loaded up the vehicles and drove away from Duc Vinh and Target One, the place they’d tried for ten and twenty years to get to. Behind the Renault taxi, the Toyota Land Cruiser and the battered old three-quarter ton truck were familiar names that they’d lived with for years, names like Pham Dong and Puk Me and villages they still called by phonetic alphabet names, places that they’d likely never see again but would never forget.

The streets were busy as they rode into town, but at least this time Binky was able to look out the window of the Renault as they drove through the neighborhood she’d once known so well. The Americans got rooms at the Caravelle, and Steve, Gil and Nhu Lap went back out to the airport to check on tickets and the outgoing baggage inspection. It turned out that one of Nhu Lap’s seemingly innumerable relatives worked at the airport, and it gave him a chance to find out what they could about the outgoing baggage inspection.

His report was encouraging; outgoing baggage was rarely if ever checked, so Gil and Steve arranged for tickets on the Air Philippines flight in the morning. They had a final dinner that evening at the little Vietnamese restaurant around the corner from the Caravelle that Gil, Harold and Steve had visited in the spring. This time the crowd was bigger, added to by Nhu Lap’s and Kien Thanh’s wives, who no one but Steve had ever met. Cai Cung didn’t have a wife, it turned out, but he was there with them, too. It was an interesting evening, with much English and Vietnamese filling the air, but they wound it up early.

The next morning, the three vehicles pulled up to the front of the Caravelle as they stood there waiting. They had redistributed the contents of Steve’s carry-on, so he could carry Gil’s; Gil carried the stainless steel case containing Henry’s remains. As Nhu Lap’s relative had told them, they were able to get on board without incident, and, a few minutes later, the Air Philippines 727 was taxiing out onto the tarmac. Soon, it turned onto the runway; there was a roar behind them, and they were in the air, leaving Vietnam behind them.

“Freedom bird again,” Ryan mused. “Probably the last time for me.”

“Me, too,” Gil agreed, carrying the silver case on his knees. “We ain’t left anything behind, this time.”

A row behind them, Binky had a window seat, and she spent much of the time staring down at the South China Sea, which she’d dared to cross in that leaky boat thirteen years before, where her mother had died in her arms, where she’d barely survived. It was a lot easier this time.

“You think you could go back again?” Steve asked at one point.

“I think I could if I had to,” she said. “Maybe when Hunter and Tabitha are older, we should visit for a few days, so they’ll have some idea of how good it is to be born American.”

“Not a bad idea,” Steve agreed. “It’s something I learned a long time ago, and I think we owe it to them to teach them.”

It was midday when they reached Manila. The connection with the flight to Hawaii wasn’t particularly good. They had to wait around the terminal for several hours, but there was one piece of business to attend to: Gil found a phone, and called the Military Attache at the American Embassy. It took a while to get the Attache on the line, but Gil used facts liberally to arrange it.

“We have the remains of an American soldier recovered from Vietnam with us,” he said. “We’re on our way to Hawaii and the Army Central Identification Lab. Could you get in contact with them and give them the heads up that we’re coming?”

Before long, a sharply uniformed Army Lieutenant Colonel showed up at the airport waiting area, and got a brief thumbnail description of what had happened. “This is something new,” he said. “We’ve never had anything quite like this happen before. The remains that have been returned from the Vietnamese so far have always been flown by the Air Force directly from Vietnam, but as I’m sure you’re aware, things are a little busy for them right now.”

“We understand,” Gil said.

“We have no objection to your flying commercial,” the officer said, “But I’ll see that the costs are picked up, and you’re escorted properly.”

So it was that the party was increased from nine to twelve – the colonel flew with them, along with two Marines in sharp dress blues from the embassy staff. The colonel pulled some strings hard. Soon the twelve of them were seated in the front rows of the United flight, this time with a separate seat for the shiny stainless steel artifact case, as they flew through a brief night above the Pacific, across the International Date Line into yesterday.

As they descended into the airport in Honolulu, they were a little surprised to hear the speakers in the cabin come alive: “This is the captain speaking. We’re going to be arriving in Honolulu shortly. I want to announce that we have had the distinct honor on this flight to be carrying the remains of an American serviceman that his friends recently recovered from Vietnam. I’m asking you all to remain seated once we arrive at the terminal while honors are carried out.”

That didn’t stop a couple of Japanese businessmen from trying to rush the door as soon as the plane arrived at the terminal, but their way was blocked by two large Marines standing at attention. The door opened, and an honor guard from the Army came onto the plane. With little fuss, the artifact case was laid on a backboard, and an American flag was spread over it. Henry’s remains were carried out into the accessway, where the party formed up. The group from Spearfish Lake, and the colonel and marines from Manila followed the honor guard down the accessway, and once they entered the terminal, found an honor guard of twelve soldiers dressed in greens, standing with rifles at present arms. The officer in charge of the honor guard saluted the colonel, who had been the escort officer from Manila, and there were brief goodbyes.

They were not at the airport long. To say the customs check was minimal would be to exaggerate; their passports were stamped without discussion, just with words of congratulations from the customs officers, while their baggage was quite quickly picked up. Within minutes, they were in a small tour bus, following a hearse and a lighted police car out to the laboratory.

In a few minutes more, they were in a meeting room at the laboratory, where a man in a white lab coat greeted them. “I’m Colonel LaGrotta,” he said. “We don’t have something like this happen very often. First, we need to know something about the excavation, and what you know about the identity of the remains.”

“I better take this,” Rod said. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Dr. Rodney Matson, professor of archaeology at Colorado State University. I supervised the excavation, and documented it thoroughly. Both the circumstances of the discovery and the existence of dog tags give us a high degree of probability in the identification.”

“We like to be very certain,” Colonel LaGrotta replied. “We’d like to at least do a dental check, and perhaps DNA samples, and it’ll probably take a few days to get that information.”

“No, not really,” Rod smiled, opening his carry-on and pulling out a small package. “When we knew we were heading to Vietnam last fall, I got copies of his dental records, and blood samples from his parents.”

“It certainly is nice to work with a professional,” Colonel LaGrotta smiled. “We’ll get started on this immediately. However, while you’re waiting, we’d appreciate a debrief, especially from you, Dr. Matson. We have reason to believe that sometime in the future the Vietnamese will be allowing teams in to look at places like crash sites for remains, but this case is a little unique and we’d appreciate your insights. For the rest of you, we appreciate your job well done. I only know about your search from the little bit that came from Manila, but it seems we have something to learn from you, too.”

“We’d be glad to,” Gil said. “But, before we get started, we haven’t had time for much of anything. Do you think some of us could maybe phone home first?”

“Sure,” the colonel said. “I know you don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary, so there’s no reason we can’t get the debrief out of the way today. Dr. Matson, if you’ll come with me, we’ll get started on your debrief and get the identification under way. We’ll get started with the rest of you in half an hour. Go ahead and use the phones in the offices outside, and I’ll tell the staff to clear the calls at no charge.”

Several of them got up to go to the phones. “I’ll call Heikki and Heidi,” Gil said to Mike. “You want to take care of Kirsten?”

“Sure,” Mike told him.

Kirsten wasn’t home, but Mike soon realized it was a Tuesday afternoon, and Kirsten’s mother was probably watching the younger kids as Kirsten helped to get the paper out. So, Mike called the Record-Herald, and, as it turned out, Kirsten answered the phone. “Mike! How are you? What happened?” she said as soon as she heard his voice.

“We found him,” Mike said flatly. “We’re at the Army Identification Lab in Hawaii to confirm the identity, but there’s no doubt.”

“Oh, Mike . . . I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s over, Kirsten,” he said. “That’s all there is to say. It’s finally over. You near a computer, to take a story?”

“I’m at my desk,” she said. “Give me a second to get a screen up.”

A few seconds later, Mike began to dictate the story. “Headline, ‘Toivo remains found in Vietnam,’ I guess,” he began.

They had to rip up the front page to lead with the story:

For twenty years, the largest remaining mystery in Spearfish Lake about the Vietnam War has been the July, 1970 disappearance of PFC Henry Toivo of Amboy Township, north of what was then Saigon. For ten years and more, members of the Spearfish Lake Henry Toivo Post 17 of the American Veterans of the Vietnam War have been seeking permission to revisit the area, in an attempt to solve the mystery.

For the past two weeks, this reporter has accompanied an expedition of six of the veterans, Gilbert Evachevski, Steven Augsberg, Ryan Clark, Mark Gravengood, Bud Ellsberg and Harold Hekkinan, accompanied by Binh Ky Augsberg, Dr. Rodney Matson, Professor of Archaeology at Colorado State University, and three Vietnamese interpreters and helpers as we searched the jungled hills of Vietnam for some trace or clue to solve the mystery.

By great good luck, a weak hunch that proved to be a correct one, and with the help of local villagers, we were able to excavate a largely filled-in punji pit several miles from the site of the disappearance, and remove a set of remains that are believed to be Toivo’s with a high degree of probability. Positive identification is currently under way at the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii.

It is not known at this time how long it will take for the remains to be released and returned to Spearfish Lake. The burial service will be in charge of the U.S. Army at a date to be announced later.

Retired Sergeant Major Gil Evachevski, President of the Veterans unit and leader of the expedition, said, “Not only did we feel that it was our duty to our comrade in arms, it was also our duty to do the best we could for one of our own from the Spearfish Lake area.”

Evachevski thanked the many people and organizations that had helped fund the expedition, including the Spearfish Lake State Savings Bank, Clark Plywood, and the Donna Clark Memorial Foundation, but noted that the expedition would not have been possible without the many contributions and fundraisers that the entire community helped with.

The whole story of the expedition has been fascinating, but it’s much too long to tell in one issue of the Record-Herald – so, over the next three weeks, we will be telling of the long battle to get permission to visit the site, the search through the jungles and the many interviews with villagers, the excavation of the suspected site, and the identification of the remains, as well as PFC Henry Toivo’s return home.