Vietnam marks 40 years since fall of Saigon
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Vietnam was set Thursday to mark the 40th anniversary of Saigon's fall with a huge military parade celebrating the moment their communist forces ended a decades-long conflict and delivered a painful blow to American moral and military prestige.
The centre of Vietnam's usually bustling southern business hub was sealed off ahead of the parade marking the moment tanks smashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace in the then southern capital of Saigon -- now named Ho Chi Minh City. "That day my comrades and I were overjoyed as our country was totally liberated and we gained freedom and independence," veteran Le Cong Bui, 63, who planned to attend the parade, told AFP.
