Colonel Dang Vuong Hung, founder of the "Heart of Vietnamese Soldiers" organization, signs a memorandum of understanding with the Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archives in 2023. Photos provided by the Organizing Committee.

The project, led by the Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archives (VNCA) and the Institute for Peace and Conflict (IPAC) at Texas Tech University, is expected to make a significant contribution to the search for missing persons.

Although the war is long over, nearly 200,000 martyrs' remains are unaccounted for; approximately 300,000 remains have been collected and brought to cemeteries but their identities have not yet been determined.

US Ambassador to Vietnam Marc Knapper returns war records and memorabilia to the relatives of Vietnamese martyrs in October 2025. Photos provided by the Organizing Committee.

From 2023 to 2025, the parties collaborated to introduce summaries of hundreds of "Combined Document Exploitation Center" (CDEC) files on social media and the online magazine "Culture and Development". They searched for historical witnesses and returned digitized images, manuscripts, and artifacts to more than 40 representatives of the families of fallen soldiers and veterans.

The CDEC is considered a "war evidence archive," recording documents seized by the US and South Vietnamese armies during the Vietnam War, including letters and diaries. Although they are not original artifacts, the files hold sacred significance. The Vietnam Center and Sam Johnson Vietnam Archives is now preserving more than 261,000 CDEC files.