- Title: VIETNAM: U.S AND VIETNAMESE VETERANS TEAM UP TO FORM ARTIFICIAL LIMB PROJECT
- Date: 26th April 1995
- Summary: HANOI AND HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM (APRIL 26 AND 27, 1995/ RECENT) (REUTERS TV - AVAILABLE ALL) HO CHI MINH CITY (APRIL 27, 1995) 1. SLV JOURNALISTS IN FRONT OF F-5 FUSELAGE 0.06 2. SV GROUP OF WAR VETERANS IN FRONT OF PLANE (FROM LEFT TO RIGHT) BUI VAN TUNG, COMMANDER OF THE TANK REGIMENT WHICH CRASHED THROUGH GATES
- Embargoed: 11th May 1995 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: HANOI AND HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
- City:
- Country: Vietnam
- Reuters ID: LVAAA6P6G8X7Y8U3XY2SNV527ZT3
- Story Text: Looking back two decades, pilot Nguyen Thanh Trung reckons he helped to end the Vietnam War by bombing the presidential palace and the main air base in Saigon.
The South Vietnamese air force lieutenant who became one of the war's most prominent defectors is now a senior Vietnam Airlines pilot. He says history will be his judge.
On April 8, 1975 Trung made two runs over South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu's official residence and dropped four 500-lb (227-kg) bombs. Two landed in the grounds and two damaged the palace, but the real impact was psychological, he says.
U.S. veterans and Vietnamese from both sides of the Vietnam War, which ended twenty years ago this weekend, have teamed up to expand a programme providing artificial limbs to war veterans.
The U.S. based Vietnam Assistance for the Handicapped (VNAH), made up of Vietnamese Americans who were forced to flee Saigon in 1975, and the Heart to Heart Organisation, recently airlifted in materials for prosthetics and wheelchairs for double amputees as part of a seven million U.S. dollar donation of humanitarian aid from the U.S.
A project begun in January 1994 and run out of the Thu Dhuc Centre in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), has so far benefited more than 3,000 veterans and distributed nationwide more than 15,000 limbs and wheelchairs.
The prosthetics are built in the centre's workshop for as little as $40-50 USD per limb.
Many of the centre's patients were members of the ARVN, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), which carried the bulk of the fighting alongside their American allies.
Twenty years ago, American forces pulled out of Saigon and left the war behind them. Now a new generation is going back to make money.
Mike Liscio has for years wanted to return to Vietnam, where he first came as a soldier. Now he's running the length of the country -- a run for reconciliation.
The world's multinationals are arriving in force in Vietnam after the lifting of the United States trade embargo a year ago, but U.S. trade with Vietnam remains relatively low as Japanese and other Asian countries step up business with Hanoi.
Advertising billboards compete with new tower blocks for dominance of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) skylines.
Sony's first factory in Vietnam's rapidly growing market was opened six months ago. Already, output has doubled to 100,000 TVs and VCRs per year.
Twenty years after the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces, the entrepreneurial spirit is now shaping Vietnam's future.
Small-scale enterprises catering to tourists are springing up throughout Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), selling T-shirts, postcards and souvenirs, signalling the end of Vietnam's international isolation.
In the centre of the city, one gift shop in particular stands as a symbol of the changing face of Vietnam and its attitude to the past.
Owner Hu Way has inverted the post-war strategy of turning swords into ploughshares by turning beer and soft drink cans into replicas of U.S. army helicopters.
Models of the Huey helicopter, used extensively by U.S. Marines during the Vietnam war and other U.S. mechanical marvels like the Harley Davidson motorcycle, can be bought at Hu Way's shop for a dollar each.
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