The Little Brown Reader

On Tuesday, Dr. Dean, who rarely mentions his family on the stump, interrupted his schedule to announce that a search team had found his brother's remains buried in a rice paddy in central Laos.

"This has been a long and very difficult journey for my mother and for my brothers Jim, Bill and myself," Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, said after a Democratic presidential candidates' forum at a hotel here. "We greet this news with mixed emotions, but we're gratified and grateful that we're now approaching closure on this very difficult episode in our lives."

The Pentagon will not try to make an official identification until after the remains are flown to a forensic laboratory in Hawaii next week, but personal items found with the bodies — shoes, a sock and a P.O.W.-M.I.A. bracelet with the name of a Texan, all similar to those worn by the 23-year-old Charles Dean — strongly suggest the crude grave was his. Remains believed to belong to his traveling companion, Neil Sharman of Australia, were also recovered at the site.

Charles Dean is one of 1,875 Americans, including 35 civilians, still missing in connection with the Vietnam War.