For Immediate Release
July 13, 2004

Contact: Judy Keyserling
(202) 393-0090

VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL FUND REPRESENTATIVE IN HANOI
AWARDED FRIENDSHIP MEDAL BY VIETNAM GOVERNMENT

Washington, DC – Chuck Searcy, responsible for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund’s Project RENEW™ in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam, was recently honored with the Friendship Medal by the Government of Vietnam, announced Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Memorial Fund.

Recognized for his humanitarian efforts on behalf of American and Vietnamese veterans as well as Vietnamese children and adults still suffering the consequences of the war, the 58-year-old Vietnam veteran was presented the award by Vietnam’s Vice President, Madam Huong My Hoa, at a ceremony in Hanoi in early June.

“Chuck has been doing a great job managing Project RENEW™, our three-year-old mine action partnership with the Quang Tri Province People’s Committee,” said Scruggs. “We launched the program to protect innocent people from the dangers of landmines and unexploded ordnance left from the war.  In the past two years, Chuck’s stewardship has helped lower mine-related casualties in Quang Tri Province’s Trieu Phong District significantly with measurable benefits to thousands of local people, according to a survey conducted in the Province.”

Searcy has lived in Vietnam for nearly 10 years, first working on rehabilitation projects for people with disabilities at the National Children’s Hospital and Bach Mai Hospital in Hanoi, then launching VVMF’s Project RENEW™ in central Vietnam, near the former demilitarized zone (DMZ) which divided the country during the war and was the site of some of its heaviest fighting.

Established as a pilot program, Project RENEW™ is the first comprehensive management approach undertaken in Vietnam to address the problem of landmines and unexploded ordnance.  Its 12-member emergency ordnance disposal team is cleaning up more than 2,000 landmine/UXO contamination sites; and the overall program also provides safety and injury public awareness programs, emergency medical services, prosthetic limbs for amputees, job training for survivors, database management of survey information, and overall coordination and management of mine-action projects in the region.  Project RENEW™ is a replicable program, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is working on expanding it to other areas of Vietnam.

“I’m honored to be recognized for my small contributions during the past few years,” said Searcy.  “I couldn’t have engaged in this activity without the generous sponsorship of the Memorial Fund and its many supporters, especially Vietnam veteran Christos Cotsakos; former Ambassador Pete Peterson and his wife Vi Le; UNICEF; the U.S. Department of State; the United Nations Adopt-A-Minefield Program; and Greg Jewell.

An enlisted man in the U.S. Army, Searcy served in Vietnam with the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion from June 1967 to June 1968.  He was assigned to the Combined Intelligence Center, Vietnam, based in Saigon.

Established in 1979, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund is the non-profit organization authorized by Congress to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC.  Today, through a series of outreach programs, the organization works to preserve the legacy of The Wall, to promote healing and to educate about the impact of the Vietnam War.

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