Nearly half a century after the disappearance of his corpse, Vietnam War veteran Staff Sergeant James L. Van Bendegom’s remains have been found and returned to his family.
The U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh announced on Friday that the remains of Van Bendegom’s had been identified by using a DNA analysis.
Scientists from the US Defense Department compared the DNA analysis results with Van Bendegom’s family and got a match.
His remains were returned to the U.S. and were buried with full military honors at a ceremony on Nov. 11 in Van Bendegom’s hometown of Kenosha, Wis.
Family and friends of the soldier said they felt like they were finally at peace.
“Closure,” said family friend Rich Bowker in an interview with WISN. “Closure for us, too.”
Van Bendegom went missing on July 12, 1967, at the age of 19 when his unit came under attack during the Vietnam War.
He was a member of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division.
The remains were then discovered in 1986 when a Vietnamese national handed over the remains because he believed they belonged to a former soldier.
“At the time, the information provided by the Vietnamese national did not correlate with any unaccounted-for American service members,” state a press release by the embassy.
Van Bendegom is just one of the 1,639 American service personnel from the Vietnam War that are still unaccounted for. According to the U.S. embassy, 52 of them disappeared in Cambodia.
According to officials in Hanoi, there are about 300,000 North Vietnamese soldiers that also went missing from the war and are unaccounted for.
aalba@nydailynews.com
