Vietnam Marks 50th Anniversary of War’s End with Patriotic Parade

On Wednesday, Vietnam commemorated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War with nationwide celebrations, culminating in a massive military parade in Ho Chi Minh City. 

Thousands of uniformed troops marched in unison as Russian-made fighter jets and helicopters roared overhead. 

Citizens filled the streets waving red flags and singing national songs, while the country’s communist leader hailed the moment as a “victory of faith.”

The historic anniversary commemorates the first act of the country’s reunification on April 30, 1975 when Communist-run North Vietnam seized Saigon, the capital of the U.S.-backed South, renamed Ho Chi Minh City shortly after the war in honour of the North’s founding leader.

“It was a victory of faith,” and also of “justice over tyranny,” To Lam, Vietnam’s Communist party chief and the country’s top leader, said on Wednesday, citing one of Ho Chi Minh’s mottos: “Vietnam is one, the Vietnamese people are one. Rivers may dry up, mountains may erode, but that truth will never change.”

The fall of Saigon, about two years after Washington withdrew its last combat troops from the country, marked the end of a 20-year conflict that killed some 3 million Vietnamese and nearly 60,000 Americans, many of them young soldiers conscripted into the military.

Reuters