Authorities have identified the remains of an Army soldier from Palisades Park, Bergen County, who has been missing in action in Vietnam since 1969.
The Defense Department says Army Sgt. 1st Class Gunther Wald was part of a Special Forces reconnaissance patrol operating near the Vietnam-Laos border in 1969.
The Pentagon says Wald and two other Americans were wounded during an ambush. There was no sign of the men when a search-and-rescue team, hampered by the enemy and weather, reached the site eight days later.
A Vietnamese citizen led investigators to human remains he had discovered in 2007. They were excavated in 2010 and later identified.
Wald and the others will be buried in a single casket at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday.
