On April 30, 2014, I was among many of
the one and a half million Vietnamese Americans who commemorated the 39th
anniversary of the day we lost our native country to the communists. It’s been
39 years, yet I feel as if it happened only recently, with my recollection as
follows.
The place was Saigon, capital of the
Republic of Vietnam, known also as South Vietnam (SVN) or even just Vietnam. It
was regarded as the frontier in South-East Asia containing the spread of
Communism. Vietnam War geopolitics changed drastically in 1972 after President
Nixon’s surprise February 1972 trip to Beijing, China to normalize
relations. One of his objectives was to
facilitate Chinese assistance in negotiating the war to a peaceful end.
