For Immediate Release
August 7, 2007

Contact: Lisa Gough
(202) 393-0090 , ext.109

 

VVMF TAKES EDUCATORS AND VETERANS TO VIETNAM ON AUG. 19-26
Scruggs to Accept Medal from Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations Aug. 20;
Will Return to South Vietnam Locale Where He Was Wounded

Washington, D.C.—The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) will be bringing 12 delegates, both educators and veterans, to Vietnam from Aug. 19 to Aug. 26, announced Jan C. Scruggs, VVMF founder and president, who is serving as host of the delegation.

Throughout the journey, delegates will tour historic areas of Vietnam, visit sites important during the war in Southeast Asia and inspect VVMF’s Project RENEW™ humanitarian operations in the country. Additionally, Scruggs and his platoon sergeant Jimmy Mosconis of Apalachicola, Fla., will return to Xuan Loc, Vietnam, where they were both wounded in the line of duty when they served with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade nearly 40 years ago. It is the first time either has returned to that region.

Also, Scruggs will accept the Medal for Peace and Friendship Among Nations from the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations on behalf of VVMF during a ceremony on Aug. 20 in Hanoi. The Medal honors individuals and organizations that are making great contributions to the promotion and enhancement of mutual understanding, peace and friendship between the Vietnamese people and the people of the world. Initiated in 2000, it is awarded by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organizations, the umbrella organization for more than 50 bilateral friendship organizations of Vietnamese people with people of other countries.

“This medal means a great deal to VVMF,” said Scruggs. “It shows that our work in Vietnam has been recognized and appreciated,” he said. “It is through continued contact, with programs such as Project RENEW™, that we can forge the bonds of friendship between our two countries.”

The delegation, he added, brings benefit to the visitors as well as to Vietnam. “Because we have educators joining us on this trip, we can be assured that American schoolchildren will benefit from the knowledge and new perspective their teachers will bring back with them,” he added.

During the trip, delegates will have the opportunity to meet with Vietnamese officials and organizations. And, they will learn about the United States and Vietnam’s collaborative efforts to identify Americans still unaccounted for as a result of the war in Southeast Asia during a briefing at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) in Hanoi.

One of the main purposes of the delegation is to make visitors aware of VVMF’s humanitarian efforts in Vietnam, namely its nearly seven-year-old mine-action program, Project RENEW™.

Launched in 2000, it is a cooperative effort between VVMF and the Quang Tri Province People’s Committee, designed for Restoring the Environment and Neutralizing the Effects of War. Project RENEW™ is the first comprehensive management approach undertaken in Vietnam to address the problem of landmines and unexploded ordnance. (UXO). Additionally, it provides medical and economic assistance to land mine victims and helps raise awareness of the dangers of UXO among children and adults.

A full-day excursion on Aug. 22 will take visitors to various sites throughout Quang Tri Province, where they will be briefed on the VVMF-sponsored mine action program and see first-hand the deadly effects of UXO left over from the war. Since Project RENEW™’s inception, casualties resulting from landmines and UXO in Quang Tri and the surrounding provinces have been reduced dramatically.

Delegates will learn, however, that Project RENEW™ is not limited to disposing of UXO. The program also provides safety and injury public awareness programs, emergency medical services, prosthetic limbs for amputees, job training for survivors and overall coordination and management of mine-action projects in Quang Tri Province.

In 2006, VVMF brought baseball to Vietnam, hosting clinics throughout the country and unveiling Vietnam’s first-ever baseball field, in Quang Tri. During this year’s delegation, visitors will participate in a baseball clinic conducted by Major League Baseball on the new field.

Later, delegates will visit the Community Library built by VVMF and meet with officials from the Quang Tri Province People’s Committee.

The Quang Tri visit will end with delegates directly making a difference in the lives of one family when they assist in painting the home of Mr. Le Dai, a 36-year-old survivor of a UXO accident.

The 2007 trip will be VVMF’s sixth delegation. The first was in April 2000, when VVMF led a historic delegation back to Vietnam to mark the 25th anniversary of the conclusion of the Vietnam War. During that trip, it became apparent that the Vietnamese people needed help, especially with the removal of the more than 300,000 tons of UXO and roughly 3.5 million land mines that remained in the country.

Since then, VVMF has hosted delegations to bring more visitors to Vietnam and highlight the growing activities of Project RENEW™, which was begun in late 2000 as a response to that first delegation. Since that time, the humanitarian project has grown, providing medical, economic and awareness assistance to the people of Quang Tri Province.

Established in 1979, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is the nonprofit organization authorized by Congress to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Today, through a series of outreach programs, it is dedicated to preserving the legacy of The Wall, promoting healing, educating about the impact of the Vietnam War and is building the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center, an underground educational facility, near The Wall.
 

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