[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 23, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1702-S1703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          TRIBUTE TO SENIOR LIEUTENANT GENERAL NGUYEN CHI VINH

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I want to pay tribute to one of Vietnam's 
highest ranking military officers, Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi 
Vinh.
  General Vinh, who has served as Vietnam's Deputy Minister of National 
Defense since 2009, has played an indispensable role in the 
reconciliation between Vietnam and the United States. After more than 
four decades of military service, he is finally nearing retirement from 
the Ministry of National Defense.
  General Vinh was born in 1957. He studied at the Institute of 
Military Technology before embarking on his long and distinguished 
career in the Vietnamese People's Army. His father, General Nguyen Chi 
Thanh, came from a humble family and rose to become a decorated 
military officer and politician. Today, one of Hanoi's main 
thoroughfares bears his name.
  As someone who lived through the Vietnam war era, I remember it a 
catastrophe for both countries. The more than 58,000 American soldiers 
and other servicemembers who died, whose names are etched in the 
granite Vietnam Veterans Memorial, are only part of the story. We 
remember their families and the many tens of thousands who returned 
home with severe disabilities.
  In Vietnam, virtually no family was unscathed. Hundreds of thousands 
are still missing among the estimated 3 million Vietnamese who died. 
The majority were civilians, whose families suffered grievous losses 
and severe hardships as the fighting raged around them. Many of their 
stories remain untold.
  In the decades since, memories of that time have faded and the 
world's attention has turned elsewhere. Yet during the past quarter 
century since the normalization of relations with Vietnam, there has 
been a sustained effort by both countries to address some of the worst 
legacies of the war. By doing so, we have built a new partnership and 
set an example for other former enemies.
  It began in the late 1980s with the first use of the Leahy War 
Victims Fund by the U.S. Agency for International Development, USAID, 
to assist people with severe war-related disabilities. That was 
authorized by President George H. W. Bush, after he and I discussed the 
need to assist Vietnamese who had been injured during the war. It led 
to funding by the State Department to locate and destroy unexploded 
landmines and bombs, which litter the Vietnamese countryside and have 
maimed and killed tens of thousands of innocent people, including 
children, since the war ended.
  Nearly 15 years ago, those war legacy programs expanded to address 
the cruel legacy of Agent Orange, and it is in this that General Vinh 
and I became acquainted.
  Since then, General Vinh has been my principal Vietnamese counterpart 
in working to address the legacy of dioxin contamination at former U.S. 
military bases and the needs of Vietnamese with severe physical and 
cognitive disabilities resulting from exposure to dioxin. I consider 
him a friend and am grateful for the hospitality he has shown me, my 
wife Marcelle, and other Senators when we have visited Vietnam.
  From 1961 to 1971, the U.S. Air Force sprayed nearly 19 million 
gallons of herbicides in Vietnam, of which at least 11 million gallons 
were Agent Orange, in an effort to defoliate trees and shrubs and kill 
agricultural crops that were providing cover and food to North 
Vietnamese soldiers. Decades later, we learned that the Agent Orange 
was contaminated with dioxin, which can cause problems with 
reproduction, development, and the immune system. Dioxin can disrupt 
hormones and lead to cancer. It is also a persistent pollutant that can 
remain in the environment for many years.
  Millions of Vietnamese were exposed, and hundreds of thousands 
suffered severe physical and cognitive disabilities. My wife Marcelle 
and I have met three generations of Agent Orange victims, from young 
children to their parents and grandparents. Hundreds of thousands of 
Americans who served in Vietnam were also exposed, and thousands have 
been battling cancers for years.
  Fortunately, thanks to studies funded by the Ford Foundation, it was 
possible to identify key ``hotspots'' with significant contamination, 
and working closely with General Vinh and USAID, we cleaned up the 
contaminated soil and sediment at the former U.S. airbase in Da Nang. 
Seven years and $110 million dollars later, it is once again a busy 
commercial airport. In fact, Air Force One landed there in 2017, when 
President Trump visited Vietnam. That project would not have been 
possible without the leadership and perseverance of General Nguyen Chi 
Vinh, and I will never forget visiting the site with him when we 
formally launched the project in 2014.
  Since then, we have moved on to Bien Hoa, on the outskirts of Ho Chi 
Minh City, the site of the largest U.S. airbase during the war where 
Agent Orange was stored and loaded onto airplanes. Today it is a shadow 
of what it once was, and it is contaminated with dioxin that has been 
leaching into the nearby Dong Nai River for half a century.
  In 2019, General Vinh and I, along with Deputy Prime Minister Truong 
Hoa Binh and U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kritenbrink, and in the presence of 
eight other U.S. Senators, inaugurated a joint U.S.-Vietnam project to 
clean up Bien Hoa, including a U.S. commitment to contribute $300 
million over 10 years, half from the U.S. Department of Defense and 
half from USAID. I had several conversations with Secretary of Defense 
James Mattis about Bien Hoa, and the Pentagon's contribution is the 
result of his recognition that we have a responsibility and a national 
interest in helping Vietnam address war legacy issues.
  At the same time, USAID launched a 5-year, $65 million effort to 
expand our health and disability programs, which are being implemented 
in eight provinces that were sprayed with Agent Orange.
  Over more than four decades, the Government of Vietnam has provided 
essential access and support in locating the remains of hundreds of 
American MIAs. This year, we are embarking on a 5-year, $15 million 
program, jointly funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and USAID, to 
help the Vietnamese locate and identify some of their own people 
missing or killed during the war.
  Much has been written, and I suspect more will be, about the 
collaboration between our two countries in addressing the legacies of 
the Vietnam war. Issues that for years were a cause of anger and 
resentment are today examples of how two former enemies can work 
together for the betterment of the people of both countries. These 
projects opened the door for the United States and Vietnam to cooperate 
on a wide array of other issues, from climate change and wildlife 
trafficking, to public health and regional security.

[[Page S1703]]

Tens of thousands of Vietnamese students are studying in the United 
States, and we are supporting institutions of higher education in 
Vietnam.
  This has been possible because of the efforts of many people over 
many years. Senators John McCain and John Kerry played an instrumental 
role in the normalization of relations. By doing so, they set the stage 
for both countries to build trust based on mutual respect by addressing 
sensitive war legacy issues, which Ambassadors of both countries have 
also strongly encouraged.
  It is in this that Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh has 
built his own legacy. The partnership that has developed from our 
cooperation on war legacies and which today extends to programs jointly 
funded and implemented by Vietnam's Ministry of Defense and the U.S. 
Department of Defense would not have been possible without General 
Vinh's vision, his leadership, and his good will. For that we owe him 
our lasting appreciation and respect.

                          ____________________