"Vietnam - My Second Homeland": The touching memoir of Hero Nguyen Van Lap

The book's content is based on the memoirs and diaries of Hero of the People's Armed Forces of Vietnam Kostas Sarantidis-Nguyen Van Lap.

Kostas Sarantidis, although born in Greece, spent almost his entire youth participating in the Viet Minh army fighting against the invading French colonialists.

From a young man in the French Foreign Legion who came to Saigon in early February 1946 with the "desire to liberate" the areas here as the French government said, but when he witnessed countless scenes of brutal murder, robbery, and house burning by the legionnaires under the command of French officers, he realized that the legionnaires came here not to protect the people but to oppress, murder, and rob.

Just four months after arriving in Saigon, Kostas Sarantidis left the Foreign Legion and sided with the Vietnamese people fighting for independence and freedom.

Upon reaching the liberated zone, he immediately joined the resistance army, taking the Vietnamese name Nguyen Van Lap, and officially became "Uncle Ho's soldier" in June 1946.

In 1949, he was admitted to the Vietnam Workers' Party. During the nine years of resistance against French colonialism, Kostas Sarantidis-Nguyen Van Lap was assigned to many tasks in regular military units of Inter-Zone 5, and was present in many fierce battles in the central region.

During his early days of enemy agitation work in the Quang Nam - Da Nang battlefield, he made outstanding achievements, broadcasting radio programs to enemy posts, and converting many legionnaires. After the Geneva Agreement in 1954, he gathered in the North and continued to contribute to the revolutionary cause of Vietnam.

In 1958, he got married and had four children, all of whom had Vietnamese names. After nearly 20 years in Vietnam, in 1965, Kostas Sarantidis-Nguyen Van Lap returned to Greece and continued to be a bridge of friendship between Vietnam and Greece.

It can be said that the youthful, vibrant, and meaningful life in Vietnam of Kostas Sarantidis-Nguyen Van Lap is truly admirable, a shining symbol of proletarian internationalism, an affirmation of the justice of the Vietnamese revolutionary war, attracting and strongly attracting the support and participation of peace- loving people around the world, including soldiers who had fought in the enemy's ranks.

With important contributions to the cause of national liberation and national construction of Vietnam, in 2011, Kostas Sarantidis-Nguyen Van Lap was awarded the Friendship Medal and granted Vietnamese citizenship by the Party and State of Vietnam.

In 2013, he was the first and only foreigner to date to receive the noble title of Hero of the Vietnam People's Armed Forces.

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