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Hoa later wrote an article in a widely read Vietnamese newspaper about Axelrad's quest to return the bones to their owner. Hung said his brother-in-law in Ho Chi Minh City read the article and contacted the newspaper's editors.
Hoa, now a communications officer for the International Labour Organization, arranged Monday's reunion in An Khe, near the coastal city of Qui Nhon, and served as an interpreter for the veterans.
"It's just time for closure," Axelrad said a day before the meeting.
Hung was surprised to be reunited with his lost limb, to say the least.
"I can't believe that an American doctor took my infected arm, got rid of the flesh, dried it, took it home and kept it for more than 40 years," he said by telephone last week from his home. "I don't think it's the kind of keepsake that most people would want to own. But I look forward to seeing him again and getting my arm bones back."
Hung served Axelrad and his family lunch, shared memories and reflected on all the time that had passed. Axelrad said he was pleased to learn where and how Hung had been living for so many years, and to meet his children and grandchildren.
"I'm so happy that he was able to make a life for himself," Axelrad said.
Vietnam is now a country full of young people who have no direct memory of the war, which ended in 1975 and killed an estimated 58,000 Americans and 3 million Vietnamese. But the war's legacy persists in the minds of combat veterans who still are processing the events and traumas they witnessed in their youth.
John Ernst, a Vietnam War expert at Morehead State University in Kentucky, said he knows of a few American veterans who have traveled to Vietnam to return personal items to former enemy soldiers as a way to bring closure.
"It is a fascinating phenomenon," Ernst said by e-mail Sunday. "I always wonder what triggers the decision to make the gesture."
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