Family wants ‘definitive proof’ man in Vietnam isn’t Army sergeant

Family wants ‘definitive proof’ man in Vietnam isn’t Army sergeant
Stars and Stripes
Matthew M. Burke
Published: November 26, 2013

For years, a man living in Vietnam as Dang Tan Ngoc has been claiming that he is Army Sgt. 1st Class John Hartley Robertson, a Special Forces soldier who went missing in 1968 and was declared dead by the U.S. government.

Ngoc’s story was the subject of a controversial documentary, “Unclaimed,” which premiered in the U.S. in May as part of the annual GI Film Festival. The film professed to have found the Green Beret living in a remote Vietnamese village, spurring an impassioned backlash from veterans.

The U.S. government has condemned Ngoc as a fraud, but members of Robertson’s family aren’t so quick to dismiss the claims.

They want to know for sure.

The family wants to exhume the body of Robertson’s mother, Mildred Robertson, from a Birmingham, Ala., cemetery and perform a mitochondrial DNA test to see whether the man living in Vietnam is John Robertson.

“We need definitive proof,” said Robertson’s niece, Cyndi Hanna, who launched a fund-raising effort on behalf of her family to cover the costs of exhumation. “I believe it’s him. I believe it’s him enough to try and confirm it one way or another.”
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