Vietnam honors war heroes through remains searches, ceremonies and tributes

Veteran Trung tá Nguyễn Thiện Tỉnh, now 77, has returned repeatedly to Quảng Trị to locate and identify the remains of more than 300 fallen comrades, continuing a promise made decades after the war. In Ho Chi Minh City, Lê Chí Công, son of Liệt sĩ Lê Thị Riêng, joins the national effort to exhume bodies beneath the park named for his mother, hoping to reunite her with surviving relatives after nearly 60 years.

On 19 July, a memorial service in Vĩnh Long honored over 600 soldiers of the former Battalion 14 who died during Vietnam’s international mission in Cambodia (1979‑1989). The ceremony included wreath‑laying and gifts to families, recalling the unit’s role in counter‑Pol Pot operations.

Two days later, the Party’s Central Committee leadership, led by General Secretary Tô Lâm, entered the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and placed wreaths at the memorial to the nation’s martyrs, marking the start of the Party’s third Central Committee conference.

The television program “Cất cánh tháng 7 – Không thể lãng quên,” aired on VTV1 on 18 July, highlighted these remembrance activities, featuring veterans, DNA scientists and young historians who work to preserve the memory of those who sacrificed for Vietnam’s independence.