Vietnam Marks 50 Years of fall of Saigon with Grand Parade

Vietnam mounted its biggest-ever celebration of the fall of Saigon on its 50th anniversary Wednesday, including Chinese troops for the first time after Xi Jinping visited to portray Beijing as a more reliable partner than Washington.

- PT News

Fighter jets and helicopters carrying flags flew overhead, state TV images showed, with a float carrying a portrait of founding leader Ho Chi Minh as part of a march in the city renamed after him. Thousands of people many wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the Vietnamese flag including families with young children and the elderly stayed out overnight in the streets, sharing food and waiting for the display. The celebrations come half a century after tanks of communist North Vietnam crashed through the gates of the city's presidential palace, defeating the US-backed South and delivering a painful blow to American moral and military prestige. “I am proud of having contributed to libera