The Ho Chi Minh Trail

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The Ho Chi Minh Trail
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Ho Chi Minh

• February 1941, a Vietnamese revolutionary named
  Ho Chi Minh trudged past a small stone pillar in
  the jungles of southern China and entered
  Vietnam. For the first time in 30 years, the man
  calling himself Ho was back in his native land.
  He had left Saigon in 1911 aboard a ship working
  as a cook's assistant. After imprisonment in Hong
  Kong and a narrow escape from execution by the
  French, he settled in Moscow in the 1930s where
  he took charge of 144 Vietnamese students at the
  Stalin School. Finally, in 1945, after years
  abroad, Ho Chi Minh, ailing and looking old
  beyond his 54 years, stood on a makeshift
  platform in a Hanoi park and proclaimed the
  independence of Vietnam, as the country's new
  President.

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• Ho Chi Minh devoted his life to the revolution
  and cause of communism. Vietnamese statesman,
  Communist leader, and Confucian humanist, he led
  the country's struggle for independence in the
  1940s and was a major figure in the war between
  North and South Vietnam in the 1960s.
• Like Mao Tse Tung, he emphasized the
  revolutionary potential of the peasantry, but
  unlike the Chinese leader, Ho was known for his
  modesty and simplicity in his private life.

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The Trail

• Ho Chi Minh Trail, also called Truong Son Trail,
  was an elaborate system of mountain and jungle
  trails linking North Vietnam, South Vietnam,
  Cambodia, and Laos during the war against the
  United States.

The initial small trail developed into an
elaborate trail system including paths for troops
and vehicles, with a total length of nearly
12,500 miles along the Truong Son Mountains.
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• The Ho Chi Minh Trail existed for 16 years and
  was a legend of the 20th century, during the
  Vietnam War. The road became the most important
  network for transportation and of strategic
  significance, supplying materials and weapons
  from the North to the battle fields in the South,

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The Brigade of Youth Volunteers

• The Trail was built and defended by the Brigade
  of Youth Volunteers. Established on May 19, 1959
  with only 440 young men and women, the Brigade of
  Youth Volunteers has matured with many hardships
  and developed strongly. On liberation day, April
  30, 1975 the Brigade had thousands of members.
  During the war, nearly 20,000 young volunteers
  died, and among the remaining ones, thousands of
  people were wounded.

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• The end