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After three decades of bloodshed, Vietnam’s civil war abruptly ended 43 years ago today, on April 30, 1975. The events surrounding this date are seared into the minds of every Vietnamese person of a certain age.I was not yet four years old, but these are some of my earliest memories. There was no longer a North and South Vietnam divided at the 17th parallel, only the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Days before, the radio inside our house in Saigon had been ticking off provinces that had fallen into North Vietnamese hands: some of them the hometowns of my relatives. As...

A jewelry store in Little Saigon, Orange County California, has become a magnet  for robbers.   In 2012, there was an attempted robbery in which one of the robbers was shot.  In 2013, several shots were fired at a thief who fought with the store owner, and escaped with a $9,000 watch.   Yesterday, 21 August, 2014, another robbery attempt ended in gunfire as a store employee drove off two robbers who had smashed a display case.  From ocregister.com: Two men wearing ski-type masks and hooded sweatshirts entered the store, used a hammer to break glass on a display case and...

Full Title: ISIS butchers leave 'roads lined with decapitated police and soldiers': Battle for Baghdad looms as thousands answer Iraqi government's call to arms and jihadists bear down on capital The full horror of the jihadists’ savage victories in Iraq emerged yesterday as witnesses told of streets lined with decapitated soldiers and policemen. Blood-soaked bodies and blazing vehicles were left in the wake of the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS fanatics as they pushed the frontline towards Baghdad. They boasted about their triumphs in a propaganda video depicting appalling scenes including a businessman being dragged from his car and executed at the...

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is preparing contingency plans to evacuate its employees if necessary now that one of the deadliest Islamic militant groups in the region has taken control of large swaths of Iraq, a U.S. official told TheBlaze. The State Department also warned U.S. citizens against traveling to Iraq, following several days of bloody clashes between insurgents with the Al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and Iraqi military forces. ISIL has taken control of Mosul, Tikrit and Fallujah and aims to create an Islamic state across the Iraq-Syria border. The U.S. official told TheBlaze that...

The Dong A Commercial Joint Stock Bank inaugurated its first automated teller machine (ATM) specifically for selling gold at its Tran Phu branch in district 5, Ho Chi Minh City. Tran Phuong Binh, General Director of the bank, said this ATM is the first of its kind in Vietnam and the second in the world;. the other one is in Dubai. Banks will issue buyers a card and, when they decide to make a purchase, they will pay using their cards, not cash. Prices will be updated at the ATM on a real-time basis. Dong A bank currently has almost...

In September, 200 courses begin in parishes across the city, with the fundamental contribution of 5 thousand young catechists who bring experience and enthusiasm. The cooperation and participation of parents. Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) - 80 thousand children and young people this year will study the catechism in about 200 parishes of the archdiocese of former Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. In September, with the resumption of the school year, parishes also reopened their courses, with the fundamental contribution of 5 thousand catechists, youth volunteers, enthusiastic and full of experience, who teach the basics of Christianity and human...

Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO, Calif., May 28, 2010 – After being asked a question about his life, Marine Corps Pfc. Duy Trinh took a moment to reflect on the answer and how it may sound. Marine Corps Pfc. Duy Trinh checks his gear before returning it to the property control office at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, May 25, 2010. The Vietnam native will serve as an engineer equipment mechanic. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Frances Candelaria  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “I was born in Saigon, Vietnam,”...

Ultimately, South Vietnam became a casualty of American domestic politics: Watergate, the oil crisis and a general crisis of national confidence. The 1973 Paris Peace Agreement was a flawed deal forced on Saigon with promises of future support that were soon broken. President Nixon was hounded from office. The emboldened Democratic Congress cut aid to South Vietnam and left the Paris Peace Agreement unenforceable. President Ford was too weak politically to force the issue, even if he had wanted to. Hanoi seized the opportunity in the spring of 1975 and invaded the South. The South Vietnamese mounted a spirited defense...

Thirty-five years ago saw one of the most disgraceful episodes in American history. South Vietnam's capital of Saigon fell to communist North Vietnamese troops, bringing a close to the Vietnam War, a conflict that the United States lost by choice. The Vietnam War could have turned out much differently. As veterans of the conflict often say, "We were winning when I left." But President Johnson's limited war sought not victory but stalemate. He wanted to preserve South Vietnam's freedom but not destroy the principal threat to that freedom in Hanoi. In 1965, Johnson said he sought to convince the communists...

This needs to be widely distributed.I can't post the video clip so you will have to go the the link. It's a clip of John McCain appearing on Des Moines' WHO radio last July, when on-air talent Jan Mickelson played him Tom Harkin's comments from earlier that month, recorded on the floor of the Senate: And if we leave, there will be a bloodbath in Vietnam. All of the people who supported us will be slaughtered in the streets. Well, it didn't happen.

Most people have never heard of Operation Frequent Wind, which ended on April 30, 1975, 33 years ago. But every American has seen pictures of it: the Marine helicopters evacuating the last U.S. personnel from the embassy in Saigon, hours before communist tanks rolled into the city. Thousands of desperate Vietnamese gathered at the embassy gate and begged to be taken with them. Others committed suicide. Those scenes are a chilling reminder of what happens when a great power decides to cut and run. Two of the three presidential candidates are proposing to do just that in Iraq. We need...

HANOI, VIETNAM (BosNewsLife)-- A young democracy activist has been detained and tortured in Ho Chi Minh City after she participated in an Internet forum dealing with religious and political rights and provided aid to homeless protestors, dissidents told BosNewsLife Saturday, July 14.

.NEVER FORGETAfter appearing in the Sundance & Newport Beach Film Festivals, and being awarded serveral Awards in the process, the ImaginAsian Motion Picture Production .."JOURNEY from the FALL".. finally premieres across America. This film accurately and sadly shares the horrible human consequences resulting from the 1975 Fall of Saigon. A Fall brought about when a post-WATERGATE Democrat Congress cut off all our funding for the then Free South Vietnamese People to fight for their own Freedom with against Communist invaders.This just as the Communist Soviet Union gave $6 Billion in military aid, according to uncovered KGB Files, to Communist North...

Recalling the last days of the Vietnam War, when President Ford was trying to get a Democrat Congress to fund those fighting for a free Vietnam:NARRATOR: Backing Thieu, President Ford and Ambassador Martin affirmed that America had a moral responsibility to South Vietnam. REP. PETE MCCLOSKEY: The Ford Administration was then trying to get Congress to vote more money for Vietnam and Cambodia, and a number of us went to Vietnam and Cambodia in late February and early March to try to appraise the situation to test against what Martin had been saying, what the reality was. Graham Martin, the...

A South Korean High Court today freed Chanh Huu Nguyen, an Orange County activist who has been held in that country for three months after the Vietnamese government accused him of terrorism.

HANOI, Vietnam, June 6, 2006 – Aging witnesses and more urban areas are making it harder to find remains or evidence of missing American servicemembers in Vietnam, but a select group of experts here works year-round to fulfill the U.S. military's pledge to leave no man behind. A team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command along with several locally hired Vietnamese workers clean up a recovery site to prepare it to be photographed in 2004. The site is located in Quang Nam province, Vietnam. Photo by Sgt. Douglas Stubblefield, USMC    The seven-member team -- four servicemembers and three...

HANOI, Vietnam, June 5, 2006 – Recovering remains of missing American servicemembers and de-mining operations were among the host of issues Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his Vietnamese counterpart discussed here today. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vietnamese Minister of Defense Gen. Pham Van Tra participate in a ceremony officially welcoming Rumsfeld to Hanoi, Vietnam, June 5. Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, USN   In his first visit here as defense secretary, Rumsfeld and Vietnamese Minister of National Defense Pham Van Tra met at the Ministry of Defense headquarters for discussions on policy issues....

Intel Announces Plans to Build $300 Million Chip Assembly Plant in Vietnam HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (AP) -- Intel Corp., the world's largest chipmaker, announced plans Tuesday to build a $300 million chip assembly and testing factory in southern Vietnam, giving a huge boost to the country's efforts to raise its high tech profile. The facility, which will be built in Ho Chi Minh City's Saigon Hi-Tech Park, marks the single largest U.S. investment so far in its former wartime adversary. The deal is considered a significant one for Vietnam in its campaign to attract more foreign investors. "We...

MIA Peter Arnett magically appears in Vietnam journo reunion pic In its December 2005 issue, Vanity Fair magazine manipulated a photograph to make it appear that veteran journalist Peter Arnett was among a group of war correspondents gathered on a teeming Ho Chi Minh City street during a reunion of the Vietnam press corps. In fact, according to a source familiar with the photo shoot, Arnett was not present when photographer Jonas Karlsson shot a group portrait of eight journalists last April. Instead, the former CNN star (who covered the war for the Associated Press) was subsequently photographed solo and...

Hello friends, I have returned (intact) from Saigon and Vung Tau (formerly Cap St. Jaques), found both places beyond recognition. The famous Tu Do street is no more, it's now called Dong Khoi. Couldn't find my old MACV/SOG headquarters either in Pasteur street (at least that name hasn't been changed). The good old Caravelle Hotel is still there, but nobody will recognize that either, as it has been totally remodeled, including the rooftop restaurant/bar. I went there at night and, spooky enough, somehow flashed back or expected to see tracers in red and green on the other side of the...