Vietnam Marks Fall Of Saigon
Floats Bear U.S. Credit Card Logos As Festive Vietnam Looks Forward
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Play CBS Video Video Remembering Saigon's Fall In April 1975, several dozen U.S. Marines in Saigon managed to coordinate the largest helicopter rescue ever. Some of the last Marines to escape Vietnam described what it was like.
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Video Vietnam Booming 30 Years Later It's the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, and the past three decades have brought dramatic change to Vietnam. Joie Chen reports on the nation's resurgence.
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Video Closure, 34 Years After War Thirty-four years after a father went missing in Vietnam, his family is paying tribute after his body was located. Mark Strassmann has the story of the Vietnam soldier lost decades ago.
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Vietnamese students flip colored placards in the sign of a Vietnamese flag in grandstands during the 30th anniversary commemoration parade in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. (AP)
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A Vietnamese worker, right, installs a Pepsi machine along a parade route as young recruits practice marching in Ho Chi Minh city, formerly Saigon, on Friday. (AP)
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Interactive The Fall of Saigon Revisit the final chapter of America's struggle in a decade-long war through pictures, maps, video and stories.
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Fast Facts Vietnam Learn about the people, economy and history.
Hundreds of aging veterans, their chests decked with medals, watched from the sidelines as the soldiers headed toward the Presidential Palace. The legendary Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap was among them, standing alongside the president.
Giant billboards of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam's revolutionary leader, overlooked the parade route and adjoining streets, which had been blocked off to the public due to security concerns.
On April 30, 1975, Communist tanks barreled through the palace gates in what was then Saigon, capital of South Vietnam. The city's fall marked the official end of the Vietnam War, and the United States' decade-long campaign against communism in Southeast Asia. The war claimed some 58,000 American lives and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese.
"I was listening to the radio with my family and heard that Saigon had been liberated. I was very happy because for many years we weren't free. After 30 years we have rebuilt our country. Our land is safe and secure and I think the future will be better for my children," said To Thanh Nghia, 51, a government worker marching in the parade.
The atmosphere in the country three decades later has been mostly festive, focusing on Vietnam's recent economic rejuvenation. Memories of the war and its aftermath are little more than anecdotes in history books for most Vietnamese who were born after it ended.
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