Nguyễn Hợp Đòan was to be the last Mayor of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam

South Vietnam

South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...

 and Province Chief of Gia Dinh Province, before the fall of Saigon

Fall of Saigon

The Fall of Saigon was the capture of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, by the People's Army of Vietnam and the National Liberation Front on April 30, 1975...

 that led to the reunification of Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 under the Communist party in 1975.

Family

Born in Hai Duong

Hai Duong

Hải Dương is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Hai Duong province. Its name is Sino-Vietnamese for "ocean" .- Geography :Hai Duong city is bordered to the northeast by the Nam Sách District and Thanh Hà District...

 Province in 1928 to Nguyen Thuc Vinh, a former Governor of Bac Can Province in French Indochina

French Indochina

French Indochina was part of the French colonial empire in southeast Asia. A federation of the three Vietnamese regions, Tonkin , Annam , and Cochinchina , as well as Cambodia, was formed in 1887....

 and what was then northern Vietnam. The senior Nguyen nearly captured Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh

Hồ Chí Minh , born Nguyễn Sinh Cung and also known as Nguyễn Ái Quốc, was a Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam...

 early in Ho's career. For his efforts, Ho's comrades tortured and killed Nguyen's mother. Fiercely anticommunist, the family fled South at the partitioning of the country following the Geneva Accords

Geneva accords

The Geneva Accords, known formally as the agreements on the settlement of the situation relating to Afghanistan, were signed on 14 April 1988 between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the United States and the Soviet Union serving as guarantors....

 of 1954.

Military career

Nguyen attended the 4th class of the Vietnamese National Military Academy in Da Lat, the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (USACGSC) and the U.S. Army War College

U.S. Army War College

The United States Army War College is a United States Army school located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on the 500 acre campus of the historic Carlisle Barracks...

 (USAWC).

He served as Commanding Officer of 705th Battalion, Commanding Officer of 42nd Brigade, Commanding Officer of 14th Division and Chief of Staff of 9th Division. He also served as Chief of Staff of Vietnam's Rangers and Special Forces

Special forces

Special forces, or special operations forces are terms used to describe elite military tactical teams trained to perform high-risk dangerous missions that conventional units cannot perform...

 and participated in the Phoenix program

Phoenix Program

The Phoenix Program |phoenix]]) was a controversial counterinsurgency program designed, coordinated, and executed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , United States special operations forces, and the Republic of Vietnam's security apparatus during the Vietnam War that operated...

. The program was designed to identify and "neutralize"—capture; induce to surrender; kill; or otherwise disrupt—the noncombatant infrastructure of Viet Cong (VCI) cadres who were engaged both in recruiting and training insurgents within South Vietnamese villages, as well as providing support to the North Vietnamese war effort.

Nguyen was Province Chief of Kon Tum from 1965-1970. He excelled as a Military officer in his dual role as the Sector Chief of Tuyen Duc Military District and as Mayor of the provincial capital city of Da Lat from 1970-1975.

Decorations and Badges

Nguyen received numerous Medals, Honors and Citations including National Order of Vietnam, 4th Class (Bao Quoc Huan Chuong), ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) Joint Forces Order (Luc Quan Huan Chuong), Service Medal (Tham Muu Boi Tinh), Campaign Medal (Chien Dich Boi Tinh) and the United States Silver Star

Silver Star

The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....

award.