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Irish American soldier’s letters from Vietnam war finally make it home

Sad memories revived as symbolic act between US and Vietnam takes place

KERRY O’SHEA,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, June 7, 2012, 8:00 AM

Updated Thursday, June 7, 2012, 8:00 AM

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Sergeant Steve Flaherty

Photo by � Family handout

More than 40 years after dying while serving his country in the Vietnam war, Sergeant Steve Flaherty’s letters to his loved ones have been returned to his family in South Carolina. His letters, which had been used as propaganda in Vietnam during the war, were returned in exchange for a Vietnamese soldier’s diary.

The Daily Mail and the Associated Press report on Sgt. Flaherty’s letters long journey back home to his remaining family in South Carolina.

In what serves as a hugely symbolic act between the US and Vietnam, once sworn enemies, Vietnamese Defense Minister Phung Quang Thanh and the US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta received Sgt. Flaherty’s letters in exchange for a Vietnamese soldier’s diary.

The Vietnamese have also agreed to open three new sites in the country for excavation by the United States to search for troop remains from the war. While 980 US troops have been identified in Vietnam since 1973, another 1600 are still unaccounted for.

Sgt. Flaherty perished in March 1969 while fighting with the 101st Airborne. His letters, addressed to his mother, a girl named Betty and another woman named Mrs. Wyatt, detail the dangers and terrors he and his fellow troops faced while fighting.

“I felt bullets going past me,” Sgt. Flaherty wrote to Betty. “I have never been so scared in my life.”

“We took in lots of casualties and death,” wrote Sgt. Flaherty. “We dragged more bodies of dead and wounded than I can ever want to forget.”

Indeed, Sgt. Flaherty had grown familiar with death. He wrote how his “platoon started off with 35 men but winded up with 19 men when it was over.” Sgt. Flaherty would serve as a temporary platoon leader replacement before he died.

“This is a dirty and cruel war but I'm sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree.” Sgt. Flaherty’s words were written when back home in the US, the American population was becoming hotly divided on the issue of war in Vietnam.

Officials said parts of Mr Flaherty's letters were read in propaganda broadcasts by the Vietnamese during the war. His letters was discovered when Vietnamese Colonel Nguyen Phu Dat, who had Sgt. Flaherty’s letters in his possession, mentioned them in an online publication.

Robert Destatte, a retired Defense Department employee who had worked for the POW/MIA office, noticed the publication. The Pentagon then began to work to get the letters back to Sgt. Flaherty’s family in Columbus, South Carolina.

“I had a very emotional morning all over again,” said Sgt. Flaherty’s sister-in-law Martha Gibbons, 73, “But it was a wonderful emotion this time. It's good for both countries. It's good for all the soldiers who were killed for both countries.”

View the MSNBC video of the story here:

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robbo | Jun 08, 2012, 07:54 AM EDT

Irish yanks are quick to criticise the UK, yet they butchered more people (2 million ) in Vietnam. 9/11 evened things up.No us soldier went to jail for the thousands of war crimes that happened in Vietnam.Only burger flippers joined the military.

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Bythebay | Jun 07, 2012, 02:26 PM EDT

Flaherty was an American, there is nothing in this article that explains any connection he had to Ireland either.

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Bythebay | Jun 07, 2012, 02:24 PM EDT

Seanmor, Ireland did not start the Troubles neither did anyone in Ireland. The billions in cost of the IRA Provos Terrorist campaign, which they arbitrarily started themselves without any referendum from the people of Northern Ireland was to Northern Ireland UK and England, not Ireland except for the Dublin Monaghan bombings in 1974 and increased Irish Defense Forces barracks in the border counties to protect Ireland from the IRA Provo Terrorists. The huge expense of the IRA Provo Terrorism in Northern Ireland and England was money that could have been spent on hospitals, schools and jobs which were deprived because of the Provos who lost. The partition of Ireland was orchestrated by Michael Collins, not the Irish people.

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Bythebay | Jun 07, 2012, 02:18 PM EDT

I have to laugh at the sources you in the US use to form your opinions -- one sided ones of course which all support whatever Catholics do. The US pillaged and murdered the innovent Viet Namese people for years, the longest war before the Iraq War. Kennedy had Diem assassinated solely on religious reasons and what goes around came around in his own assassination 3 weeks later. Kennedy was a puppet of the Catholic Church and it was the Catholic Church that forced the Viet Nam War which the US lost.

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Seanmor | Jun 07, 2012, 02:00 PM EDT

777: In all probability U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War would never have occured if that country hadn't been partitioned in 1854. Partition didn't work in Vietnam, nor is is working in Korea, another country in which about 50,000 Americans were lost. Getting nearer to home, Partition has caused the small Irish nation much grief, untold loss of life, and the 'Troubles' had cost G.B. and the Irish state a total of $14 billion by the end of 1983 -and billions more during the next 10 years. The American Civil War resulting from the secession of 11 Southern states, cost this nation 600,000 casualtis, more that all of the nation's wars combined. Partitions simply DOESN'T work.

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pilib04 | Jun 07, 2012, 01:30 PM EDT

Although Portia777 uses hurtful and insensitive vocabulary and questionable history, Portia is not too far from the truth when Portia brands the Vietnam War a Catholic creation. I was an early supporter of the Vietnam War for that very reason. I had read many books on the subject from a Catholic perspective. Cardinal Spellman did use his position as Archbishop of New York to promote the Diem (Catholic) regiume in a majority Buddhist country. There were even accusations during the Vietnam War that Spellman used Bishops Relief monies to pay for pro-Diem lobbyists in Congress. Hence the reason the war was called "Spelly's War." I read in Tom Dooley's book, "Deliver us from evil", about how he stole (his words)the Statue of Our Lady of Fatima from a Haiphong Church and announced that she was leaving North Vietnam in 1955.

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Seanmor | Jun 07, 2012, 09:38 AM EDT

Speaking of letters written by a soldier in a war zone, I'm reminded of a message I hears on Raidio ÉIreann one morning as a child in the early 50s. The message was from a young Irishman in the U.S. to his mother in Bawnard, Abbeyfeale, Co. Limerick. He had emigrated to the states a few years before and his message was his way of telling his mother that he was now safely back in the States, haveng spent a year as a U.S. soldier in the battlefields of Korea. While serving in the war zone he had written regularly to his mother and pretended that he was in the U.S. all this time, so that she wouldn't have worry obout the danger he was in.

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Portia777 | Jun 07, 2012, 09:35 AM EDT

“This is a dirty and cruel war" yes indeed and I do not see a mention here of the real truth on this war. Poor idiot did not die for "his" country. The truth is known in Ireland in Dublin diocese."With an immense collection of facts, photos, names and dates, Manhattan proves that the Vietnam War began as a religious conflict. He shows how America was manipulated into supporting Catholic oppression in Vietnam supposedly to fight communism."

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