Perceptions from "dioxin hotspots"

(Baonghean)The A-Sho and A Luoi areas in Thua Thien Hue province were heavily contaminated with Agent Orange during the recent war. When I visited in the early 2000s, the percentage of people infected and suffering from dioxin-related effects reached 26%. In front of the A-Sho airfield, where many of the former storage facilities for Agent Orange used by the US military in Vietnam were located, a large warning sign about Agent Orange was erected, clearly stating that consuming animal fat and organs from this area was prohibited…

Behind me lies the Truong Son mountain range, surrounded on three sides by the A-Sap River, and across the river lies the A-Sho airfield… Here I met a family of soldiers from Production Team 4 (Economic-Defense Group 92 - Military Region 4), living like an isolated oasis. Lieutenant The Tai and his wife, teacher Thanh Huong, had a four-month-old baby boy born right in this area known as a "dioxin hotspot." And I heard the jingling of a bell around the neck of the lead cow as it returned to its pen from the mountainside in the golden afternoon light. The bell, made from a brass bullet casing, jingled, jingling… dispelling the stillness and silence of the mountains and forests.

Following our captain, who had served in the military for decades, we marched deep into the Truong Son forest. Thanks to the remaining traces, we knew that this place was once a forward medical station of a Ho Chi Minh Trail military base during the war years. On the ancient trees, I saw many telephone lines still strung up, and here and there, at our feet, were the remnants of combat fortifications, A-shaped bunkers, and wounded soldier bunkers... It felt as if only yesterday, a unit of the liberation army had just moved on, marching to the front lines. And in the spacious bunker with two branches leading to the trenches, it looked as if a meeting of the liberation army commanders had just taken place. Then there were the bomb craters. Craters from B52 carpet bombing, craters from 105mm artillery shells... Now, the Truong Son vegetation has grown lush and green, concealing them.

I understand that a few years ago, the people of Huong Phong commune (A-Luoi district, Thua Thien Hue province) organized a cleanup effort along the old Ho Chi Minh Trail, collecting electrical wires, cables, oil pipelines, and other materials left over from the war to build a small suspension bridge across the A-Sap River. With the bridge in place, during the rainy season, even when floodwaters rose, people on both sides could still communicate and travel normally. They no longer had to erect two tall poles on either side of the river, stretch a steel wire across, and tie letters and food to it for people on the other side to pull across for supplies throughout the rainy season, as was the case before. However, during the historic flood of 1999, the bridge was swept away.

Then, in its place, we had a makeshift "ferry" made by the soldiers of Regiment 92. The ferry was also made from four iron drums that had previously contained aviation fuel, salvaged from the old A-Sho airfield, capable of carrying people and motorbikes across the river... Sitting on the precarious ferry crossing the turbulent river, I silently thought that objects from the war, even if only repurposed, have served life very well. And if the trillions of US dollars burned in the Vietnam War hadn't been used to produce bombs, weapons, and chemical weapons, how many ferries, how many bridges, and how many books for children to go to school could have been built?

In A-Dot commune, a group of MIAs recently arrived to verify the identity of an American pilot shot down by the Liberation Army in 1968. Using modern specialized equipment, they successfully located the crash site and identified the pilot's identity and background. However, among the curious children of A-Dot who came to watch, some had been exposed to Agent Orange…

I'm going to share with you, dear readers, a story with many fragmented details that I witnessed and experienced from a distant land – A-Sho, A Luoi, Thua Thien Hue province. That place has now been revived. Three weeks ago, I returned to A Luoi and could no longer recognize the traces of the makeshift airfield that once contained so much dioxin. Life has covered up many things, including the pain of dioxin; but even though that pain has passed, it still leaves scars, wounds, and unbelievable paradoxes… So now, occasionally reading in the newspapers about the discovery of dioxin levels exceeding permissible limits in food and children's toys, society is once again stirred by a prehistoric pain!

Is it possible that someone's depraved ambitions will continue to run rampant without being stopped?!

Hoai Quan