US Ambassador to Vietnam Daniel J. Kritenbrink and Deputy Chairman of Quang Tri Provincial People's Committee Hoang Nam pay homage to martyrs at the Truong Son National Martyrs Cemetery. Photo: Toan Vu - Dan Tri

Daniel is the first US ambassador to have visited the cemetery nearly 25 years after the two sides normalized their diplomatic ties.

The Truong Son National Martyrs’ Cemetery is the last resting place of over 10,000 soldiers from across Vietnam. Most of them were from Corps 559 – Truong Son Army Corps and sacrificed on Ho Chi Minh Trail during the resistance war against the US.

He also visited the Hien Luong Bridge relic site in the Hien Luong-Ben Hai special national historical relic site, which expresses Vietnam’s aspiration for peace and national reunification.

Quang Tri is the province hardest hit by UXOs with the area of land contaminated with the deadly war legacy amounting to 82 percent of its total, and more than 8,500 local people have been killed or injured after the war ended.

The locality previously recorded about 70 bomb and landmine-related incidents each year. However, in 2018, the province for the first time recorded no incident and it is striving to become the first locality of Vietnam free from such incidents by 2025.