Portrait and leather wallet found in fallen soldier’s grave in Quang Ngai

A faded portrait of a woman and a leather wallet bearing the name “Dinh Xuan Me” have emerged as possible clues in the effort to identify remains at a martyrs’ cemetery in Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province.

The items were found during an excavation and DNA-sampling operation at Ba To Martyrs’ Cemetery on September 1 and 2. Team 5, working under the Quang Ngai provincial military command, discovered a small album containing photographs, handwritten words reading either “Nguyen Van Thuan” or “Nguyen Van Tuan,” the number “748903 TA 90,” and the woman’s portrait in grave 32, row 10, section A.

A leather wallet with the name “Dinh Xuan Me” was found on the morning of September 2 in grave 12, row 1, section B. The artifacts and photographs had faded and suffered peeling after spending a long period in the graves. Officials believe the woman may have been a relative of the fallen soldier, while the name on the wallet may belong to the soldier himself.

Authorities carefully recorded and marked each item according to its grave location for preservation and verification. They also restored the portrait to help determine the soldier’s identity. The items could provide relatives, former comrades and acquaintances with information to help identify the remains.

The Quang Ngai provincial military command has ordered 12 sampling teams to work through the holiday, aiming to complete the operation before September 15. By September 1, the province had conducted 25 searches and verification operations in 15 areas, recovered 21 sets of remains, collected samples from 7,382 graves and submitted 3,348 biological samples for DNA testing.