Listening to the sacred call of the Fatherland, in 1966, at that time, Mr. Tinh was only 17 years old but had applied for military service and enlisted in the 46th Regiment, Nam Ha Provincial Army. He was then transferred to the 9th Regiment, Division 304, fighting in the Quang Tri battlefield.
Participating in fierce battles, witnessing his teammates fall, Mr. Tinh and his teammates buryed them in aEderly position.
Mr. Tinh recalled: "At that time, life and death breathed into every moment, we suppressed the pain to bury our fallen comrades and then continued the mission. Until the country was at peace, I was concerned about how to find the remains of my comrades and bring them back to their relatives and homeland. After a dream night of comrades, in July 2005, I began my journey to find a martyr's grave."
The journeys to find his comrades, veteran Nguyen Thien Tinh has mostly gone alone, his footsteps have been imprinted in Quang Tri. There are graves that he had to travel many times to find the identity of a martyr, but he did not give up.
The three first martyrs I met in 2007 were Do Hung Giang (from Thai Binh), Nguyen Van Ham and Pham Van Thanh (both from Thanh Hoa). All 3 people are also my teammates who sacrificed their lives in Quang Tri. That day, I and my brothers buried them, so I remember each person's location as imprinted. After that, I tried to contact my family, and then I and my family went back to the old peak to bring our comrades back to their hometown," Mr. Tinh emotionally recounted.
Before doing this meaningful work, since 1976, Mr. Tinh participated with the Gathering Team of Division 304, gathering nearly 300 martyrs' graves to martyrs' cemeteries in Quang Tri province.
The work Mr. Tinh did has now become a habit. His pages of books carefully record each cemetery, name, age, day, month, year of sacrifice, hometown, and unit of martyrs colored with time.
Up to now, after 20 years of spending time and effort, Mr. Tinh has found and, together with the families of the heroic martyrs, brought the remains of 20 comrades back to their motherland and homeland in many different provinces and cities.
In addition to finding a comrade's grave, Mr. Tinh also had worries and wishes to bring his younger brother who died in 1974, buried in the martyrs' cemetery of Dat Do - Long Dien district, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province back to his hometown. After many years of searching, up to now, his family is waiting for the DNA results to determine the exact grave.
With many years of contributions to finding teammates, veteran Nguyen Thien Tinh was awarded a certificate of merit by the Central Executive Committee of the Vietnam Veterans Association for his outstanding achievements in providing information on the search and collection of martyrs' remains in the period of 2005 - 2015.
