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The Graves Registration Service operated two mortuaries during the Vietnam War. Part of what the Service did was identify and repatriate the remains of soldiers who had died while serving.
Army veterans Gary Redlinksi and Glen Fruendt worked together in the Graves Registration Service at a mortuary near Saigon. Here, they remember how they identified the bodies of American soldiers.
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Piece Description
The Graves Registration Service operated two mortuaries during the Vietnam War. Part of what the Service did was identify and repatriate the remains of soldiers who had died while serving.
Army veterans Gary Redlinksi and Glen Fruendt worked together in the Graves Registration Service at a mortuary near Saigon. Here, they remember how they identified the bodies of American soldiers.
Broadcast History
NPR's Morning Edition November 12, 2010
Transcript
GR: You'd look for body marks, scars, tattoos. It does get to be a strain on you after a while and some guys couldn't handle it.
GF: You know, the Graves Registration is the only part of the service that, if you don't want to be in it, you don’t have to be…
GR: You can get out of it, yeah.
GF: They can't keep you in it.
GR: The mortuary part, they always consider it to be demoralizing to the troops that are out in the field fighting. So, they kind of just, keep us hidden. About five years ago, I remember meeting a guy, he was an infantryman. And when I told him I worked at the mortuary down in Tan Son Nhut near Saigon, he said, "We never knew you guys existed." They thought, whoever died, they sent them right back to the states.
You know, I have problems a lot, I can see the things that happened to me in Vietnam. They just come back, clear as…clear as it was yesterday. And, I alw...
Read the full transcript
Intro and Outro
INTRO:Gary Redlinski and Glen Fruendt [Froynt or Froint] worked together at an Army mortuary near Saigon.
Here, they remember identifying the dead...
OUTRO:Gary Redlinski and Glen Fruendt at StoryCorps in St. Louis.
Their interview will be archived at the Library of Congress.
The StoryCorps podcast is at NPR DOT Org.
Additional Credits
Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Marc Hass Foundation
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