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.
But Vietnam is on the crest of an economic wave, recording an annual growth of 7.7 percent last year — second only to China in Asia. One of the biggest signs of that is the construction under way in much of Ho Chi Minh City.
Luu Quang Dong, a 68-year-old veteran from northern Vinh Phuc province, traveled for four days via bus to attend Saturday's ceremony.
Dressed in his olive uniform covered in red and gold medals, he said he made the trip to see the city he had stormed into three decades ago, arriving with his unit just minutes after the tanks crashed through the palace gates.
"I wanted to come and see how much the city has changed," he said.
Though the North and South reunified three decades ago, the task of reconciliation still looms large.
On Friday, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai reached out to Vietnam's former enemies, urging them to "close the past, look to the future."
The United States has become Vietnam's single-largest trading partner. But relations with overseas Vietnamese, who sent back nearly $4 billion in remittances last year, remain more sensitive.
Despite the government's message of reconciliation, lingering mistrust continues. Earlier this week, the government banned a book of love songs from the pre-1975 era.
"Thirty years after the war, the country is really reconciled now. Maybe some people still feel bitter about the liberation of Saigon but that number is very small," said Han Van Minh, 65, who was a sergeant in the Saigon army and now runs a small business.
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