July is called the Month of Tribute in the war-torn central provinceof Quang Tri as tens of thousands of people nationwide visit and offerincense to fallen soldiers who are resting in peace at local cemeteries.

Sincethe beginning of this month, a series of activities have been held inQuang Tri in commemoration of martyrs at 72 cemeteries, including twonational ones, namely Truong Son and Road 9.

Opening the Month ofTribute was a grand requiem, which was held on the bank of Thach Hanriver to commemorate fallen combatants, who laid their lives in a fiercebattlefield at the ancient citadel of Quang Tri in 1972. Five hundredof war veterans, who fought during the 81-day battle, attended theceremony.

Prominent among the veterans are fourHeroes of the People’s Armed Forces who used to be officers and soldiersof the Thach Han Regiment – deputy head of the regime Tran Minh Van,head of company Bui Trung Thanh and Vu Trung Thuong and Mai NgocThoang.

At the Truong Son National Martyrs’ Cemetery,since the beginning of July, tens of delegations have come to offerincenses and flowers in tribute to the martyrs each day, said Ho Tat Ai,head of the cemetery management board, adding that the cemeteryreceived even over 100 delegations a day.

The Truong Son Martyrs’Cemetery, the largest of its kind in Vietnam , buried more than10,300 sets of remains collected from the battlefields along the TruongSon mountain range, commonly known as Ho Chi Minh trail.

Atthe Road 9 National Martyrs Cemetery, hundreds of delegations have cometo pay tribute to the soldiers. The cemetery is the resting place forover 10,000 soldiers who were killed at the Road 9 battlefield and inLaos during the resistance war against the US imperialists.

The facility, built in 1995, was named after a road that was astrategic transport artery connecting the Vietnam-Laos borderline withDong Ha, in Quang Tri province, during the war./.