Thạnh’s eldest brother left home at eighteen, promising to return when the country achieved peace. More than half a century later, the little sister of that year still walked through cemeteries, searching for a place where her family could call her brother back.

We met Thạnh during a trip to Điện Biên to visit former battlefields and pay tribute to heroic martyrs, organized by the Elderly Association of Hà An ward, Quảng Ninh province. After the visitation service at A1 National Martyrs’ Cemetery, Dương Thị Mơ, the delegation leader, reminded everyone to gather near the gate to continue the journey. Thạnh alone lingered among the rows of graves.

Late afternoon sunlight faded over the rows of headstones. Incense smoke swirled around golden chrysanthemum vases before slowly dissipating into the quiet space. Thạnh walked toward an unidentified grave, knelt down, placed both hands on the grave border, and bowed deeply. The person lying beneath that grave was not a relative she knew, but in that moment, the distance between an unnamed soldier and the brother she was searching for seemed to vanish.

After praying, she stood up, slowly walking past the rows of graves and gently touching the cold stone surfaces. From the grave area, she made her way to the Memorial Stone for heroic martyrs who sacrificed in the Điện Biên Phủ Campaign. She stood close to the stone surface, one hand lightly resting on it while the other traced each line of letters. Occasionally, she paused before a somewhat familiar name, reading each word slowly before softly shaking her head and whispering that it was not her brother’s name.

Among the names solemnly engraved on stone, Thạnh only wished to see the name of her eldest brother, martyr Đỗ Văn Trường. She searched from the beginning to the end of the stone tablets, slowly and attentively, as if fearing she might skip a line. Then she pulled out her phone to call her relatives. In the sacred space of A1 National Martyrs’ Cemetery, her voice trembled with emotion as she shared that she was in Điện Biên, standing in A1 National Martyrs’ Cemetery. After that brief update, the longing of an entire family spanning multiple generations grew even more earnest.

Martyr Đỗ Văn Trường hailed from Ngưu Khê village, Liên Hòa commune, Yên Hưng district, which is now Residential Group 7, Liên Hòa ward, Quảng Ninh province. He was the eldest child in a family of eight siblings, with Thạnh being the fifth child. Time blurred many dates and years, but in her memory, her eldest brother remained ever-present. He enlisted upon turning eighteen. She best remembered his return following training, dressed in his military uniform as he told the family he was heading to the front lines. That day, their mother went into the garden to pick jute and Malabar spinach, serving a meal with pickled eggplants and a pot of braised goby fish. The frugal meal resembled any wartime dinner, yet it became the last meal where parents, the eldest son, and younger siblings gathered together.

Thạnh recounted that after the family received the death notice, her parents never stopped waiting for their eldest son’s return. Whenever they heard news of soldiers returning to the village from the old battlefield, they inquired, and wherever they heard rumors regarding martyrs, they asked others to help trace information. Yet as years passed, the door of the house in Ngưu Khê village never once welcomed Trường back as promised during that farewell meal. Toward the end of their lives, her parents held a single simple wish, which was to know where their son rested and to have a mound bearing his true name so the family would have a place to offer incense on death anniversaries and traditional holidays. On the altar today, the space reserved for martyr Đỗ Văn Trường holds only a Fatherland Merit Certificate, representing family pride.

Dương Thị Mơ, leader of the tour delegation from Quảng Ninh to Điện Biên, shared that throughout the trip, everyone understood Thạnh carried her entire family’s wish. To her, going to Điện Biên was not merely a trip of gratitude but another attempt to search for her brother, even if hope remained fragile.

That afternoon, the name of martyr Đỗ Văn Trường was not found on the tablets she read, but she expressed her intention to continue to Him Lam Martyrs’ Cemetery, Tông Khao Martyrs’ Cemetery, and other locations.

Thạnh’s feelings reflect the sentiment of many martyrs’ families nationwide. In Điện Biên alone, approximately 5,280 graves remain unidentified, with headstones lacking information lining row after row across cemeteries. Behind each headstone might be a mother who waited for her child until the end of her life, a wife who never learned where her husband rested, or younger siblings growing old while memories of their brother fade into the distance.

The “500-Day-and-Night Campaign to accelerate searching, gathering, and identifying martyrs’ remains” opens a new direction for searches that long relied primarily on memory, old records, and narratives faded over time. In Điện Biên, local party committees and authorities identify this as a special political task tied to responsibility before history and the morality of gratitude toward those who sacrificed for the Fatherland. The provincial Military Command leads, coordinating with the Department of Home Affairs and relevant forces to strive for sample collection across 4,594 unidentified graves in seven martyrs’ cemeteries, including A1, Him Lam, Độc Lập, and Tông Khao.

Time has receded, records remain incomplete, and eyewitnesses grow fewer. Collecting biological samples, completing data, and cross-referencing DNA cannot immediately answer every family’s questions. Yet every sample qualifying for testing, every supplemented record, and every connected piece of information opens further opportunities for unidentified headstones to return true names to those who laid down their lives.

Late afternoon descended upon A1 National Martyrs’ Cemetery. Before departing, Thạnh looked back at the rows of headstones amidst thin incense smoke. The promise to return for a family meal that year remained unfulfilled. Yet in her memory, her eldest brother remained eighteen, wearing his military uniform after training and reminding his sister to be good at home and help their parents.

As for her, from the little sister of that year, she was now 70 years old with gray hair and fading eyesight, still walking through cemeteries to slowly trace her brother’s name on every stone headstone. For somewhere beneath an unidentified grave might lie the brother she and her family waited for across more than half a century.