Many US 🇺🇸 broadcasters have since last year begun to arrive in Vietnam 🇻🇳 in preparation for the 50th anniversary of Vietnam’s reunification & end of the #VietnamWar. Its many key witnesses are however slowly departing, incl. Trần Thị Yến Ngọc (in blue shirt & army outfit). 
Trần Thị Yến Ngọc (wartime code name: Thu Ba Điểm) was a veteran of the “Saigon Rangers” (Unit A20-A30), among the most secretive urban warfare guerrilla communist forces in South Vietnam. She passed away shortly after 🎥 with a 🇺🇸 broadcaster for the 50th war anniversary.
Ms. Ba Điểm was till 2024 among the few survivors left of the Saigon Rangers, which suffered heavily by manpower & eliminated after the Tết Offensive in 1968. It was not until recently that the 🇻🇳 state began to recognise & publicize more about them, a relief for her.
A museum on the Saigon Rangers, comprising at least 3 sites across District 1-3 of underground urban warfare in Ho Chi Minh City, was opened in 2023. Ms. Ba Điểm was passionate about it, in a sign of belated recognitions which until then was a heavy, emotional absence for her.
🇻🇳🇺🇸 I visited the museum sites in early 2024. One of them also now runs as a popular lunch & coffee place, with a peculiar name after Chinese Tang poet Du Fu & Saigonese ‘broken rice’ reminiscing South Korea (Cà Phê Đỗ Phủ & Cơm Tấm Đại Hàn, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City).
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