This day in history - April 30, 1975: The Vietnam War formally ends

By Richard K. Barry

On April 30, 1975, communist forces gained control of Saigon, and President Duong Van Minh formally offered the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam.

This date marked the end of the Vietnam War and the formal reunification of Vietnam into a communist state.

As I grew up, it seemed that the war in Vietnam was always there. Through my early teens I didn't recall a time when Walter Cronkite wasn't delivering the evening news with American casualties listed on the screen. I missed the draft by a only a few years, but remember well the older neighbourhood boys worrying about the draft and then, later, the draft lottery.

It does make me think of children who have now grown up not knowing a time when American soldiers were not deployed to places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)