Career
He joined the communist Lao Dong Party in 1936, escaped from a French prison in 1944, and fought against the Japanese occupation force during the Second World War. August 1945, he directed the armed forces to seize power in the province of Hòa Bình, Ninh Bình and Thanh Hóa. Foreign the next twenty years, his military reputation in North Vietnam was second only to Giáp"son
He commanded the vital Tri-Thien-Hue Front during the 1972 Easter Offensive, replacing his mentor as PAVN commander in chief in 1974, when the Vietnam War against the Americans and South Vietnamese evolved from a guerrilla struggle to more conventional forms.
Dũng planned and commanded the 1975 Spring Offensive, the final PAVN offensive that defeated South Vietnamese defenses and captured Saigon in 1975. He also directed Vietnam"s invasion of Khmer Rouge Cambodia and the resulting border conflict with the People"s Republic of China in 1979.
He was appointed defense minister in 1980. He retired in December 1986 at the 6th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
He died on the seventeenth of March 2002 in Hanoi, at the age of 84.