... located in central Saigon, this was to honor the Vietnamese Marines (notice the similarity of their insignia with that of the US Marine Corps). This memorial was blown to bits by the invading Viet Cong and North Vietnames Army when they stormed Saigon in April 1975.

The statue was the site of a famous suicide just hours before the VC & NVA arrived at the location. Lt Colonel Nguyen Van Long of the Vietnamese National Police saluted the statue and used a pistol to kill himself. Photographers were present and some of those pictures have surfaced on the web. He was among many South Vietnamese military and civilian leaders who committed suicide that day, but his act, in daylight and in public, was one of the most widely noted. Sorry about the URL size but here's a site carrying one of the photos:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl http://ngothelinh1.tripod.com/ttnguyenvanlong1_tusat.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ngothelinh.tripod.com/Suicide_on_April_30_1975.html&usg=__PTM2FIRTx-4XHjPKMP_bUadMq98=&h=662&w=400&sz=84&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=dPh7_qQc5ZtPgM:&tbnh=138&tbnw=83&prev=/images%3Fq%3DLt%2BColonel%2BNguyen%2BVan%2BLong%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1