'Unclaimed' Vietnam Vet in film is not American
Source: AFP |
May 3, 2013, Friday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A MAN who claimed in a widely publicized documentary to be an American soldier, missing since his helicopter was shot down during the Vietnam War, is actually Vietnamese, the United States said yesterday.
"Unclaimed," directed by Michael Jorgensen, which has generated an explosion of interest since its premiere this week, purports to have discovered US serviceman John H. Robertson - alive, well and living in the communist nation.
But a US Defense Department statement said the man - who appeared on film in an emotional "reunion" with Robertson's sister - has been DNA tested and found to be a citizen of the Southeast Asian country.
"All claims and alleged live sighting reports related to Robertson have been investigated and found to be false," according to a release from the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office yesterday.
A tightly edited trailer for the movie, posted on production company Myth Merchant Films' website, does not show any clear full-face images of the Vietnamese man, known by the name Dang Ngoc Than.
Nearly 60,000 US soldiers died in the bloody Cold War-era conflict, which also claimed the lives of up to three million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers before ending in 1975 with Vietnam's reunification.
Robertson was on board a Vietnamese Air Force H-34 helicopter that came under heavy enemy ground fire in May 1968 and crashed, leaving no survivors. He was declared dead in 1976.
The film-makers in a post on their Facebook page said the movie was not "produced to help perpetrate fraud of any kind or misrepresent anyone's identity."
"Unclaimed," directed by Michael Jorgensen, which has generated an explosion of interest since its premiere this week, purports to have discovered US serviceman John H. Robertson - alive, well and living in the communist nation.
But a US Defense Department statement said the man - who appeared on film in an emotional "reunion" with Robertson's sister - has been DNA tested and found to be a citizen of the Southeast Asian country.
"All claims and alleged live sighting reports related to Robertson have been investigated and found to be false," according to a release from the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office yesterday.
A tightly edited trailer for the movie, posted on production company Myth Merchant Films' website, does not show any clear full-face images of the Vietnamese man, known by the name Dang Ngoc Than.
Nearly 60,000 US soldiers died in the bloody Cold War-era conflict, which also claimed the lives of up to three million Vietnamese civilians and soldiers before ending in 1975 with Vietnam's reunification.
Robertson was on board a Vietnamese Air Force H-34 helicopter that came under heavy enemy ground fire in May 1968 and crashed, leaving no survivors. He was declared dead in 1976.
The film-makers in a post on their Facebook page said the movie was not "produced to help perpetrate fraud of any kind or misrepresent anyone's identity."
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