Stories written on the road markers

(Baonghean) -After more than 5 years of implementing the journey to increase the density and embellish the Vietnam - Laos border markers through Nghe An province, 116/116 border markers and 6 additional stake positions have been installed; construction supervision has been completed. The numbers seem meaningless, but in fact, hidden within them are stories with all the emotions of the border marker planting officers who sleep and wake up day and night with the border markers. During the process of collecting information, the reporter was lucky to hear them confide, each person has their own story, and then strangely, all of them eventually return to the common story: the border!

"Party Admission on the Border"

Mr. Pham The Vang, from Nam Dinh, is an officer of the Center for Geographical Boundaries and Mapping under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and has been a member of the boundary marking team since 2008. After years away from home and family, he said that there were times when he missed home so much that he thought he could not bear it and had to ask to go home. However, the mission and the spirit of solidarity and sharing of his teammates helped him overcome everything. In January 2012, a great honor came when he was admitted to the Party right in Team 2.

Transport construction materials to assembly point.

He shared: “As a State official, I always have the mindset that wherever there is a need, wherever there is a shortage, I will go, always trying to overcome the situation to complete the assigned tasks. The luckiest thing for me is that there is always a united team, where everyone understands and helps each other in many ways, so every task is completed, every difficulty is overcome. Being admitted to the Party right at the team is the most memorable memory and the greatest pride in my life!”

"Not knowing wife gave birth"

A little more special is the story of Lieutenant Phan Manh Quyen, born in 1979, from Hung Tay, Hung Nguyen. He has been working as an interpreter for the No. 1 Border Marker Planting Team since November 2011. Lieutenant Quyen's main and highly specific task is to act as an interpreter for the team leader and technician during the working process as well as to do a good job of exchanging information between the two border marker planting teams of Vietnam and Laos.

He shared that normal communication with Lao friends is not difficult, but the most difficult thing is the technical terms, so he always has to be conscious of self-study, learning from the interpreter of the other country, Mr. Kham Phan Chan La Xon - who has been in Vietnam for 6 years so he speaks Vietnamese very well. The life of a soldier in the border area is exposed to the sun and rain, all the emotions seem to have been hidden deep, but when asked about the most memorable memory during the process of following the marker planting team, Lieutenant Quyen had to be silent for a while before telling: Once, he went up to Marker 366 in Thong Thu commune, Que Phong for a whole week, the dangerous road was full of high slopes and deep cliffs, there was absolutely no phone signal to contact his family, when at that time, his wife was 9 months pregnant. After going down the mountain, he was sweating and ran around to find a phone signal and found out that his wife had given birth 1 week ago. He said, the memory was both sad and happy...

Dad

Members of the No. 2 Marker Planting Team still recall the working trip in early January 2012, the time near the Lunar New Year of Nham Thin. But because of the mission, the bilateral-interdisciplinary survey team still planned to conduct a survey and monitor the markers in Mon Son commune (Con Cuong). This is an extremely difficult and arduous area, because the markers here are very remote, and the residents are located in dangerous locations. The team had to march both by river by boat and by road with a distance of about 60 km. At this time, it was extremely cold, many sections had to march along the stream up to the waist for more than a day, the stream water was freezing cold, the temperature at night sometimes only dropped to 4-5 degrees at an altitude of 1,525m above sea level.

It was so cold at night that we couldn’t sleep so we just lit a fire to warm up. It only warmed our faces but our backs were freezing cold. It took more than 10 days to survey these two landmarks. During these days, the whole group never saw the sun, there was only thick fog, we couldn’t see each other’s faces clearly even 2-3 meters apart, our clothes were always wet, it was extremely cold, we just kept going, and had to stick close together because we would lose each other in a moment.

There was a section where the weather was so foggy and the forest was so dense that the GPS had no signal and the terrain could not be seen, so the whole group got lost and went down the mountainside. It took 2 hours to climb back up to the old place. At first, many members of the group were afraid of being bitten by slugs and leeches, but when they were tired, they didn't care, there was no time to stop and check for leeches, because if they were a little slower, they would fall behind and lose the group.

It was normal to trip and fall due to slippery, muddy roads. Despite the hardships and difficulties, no member had abandoned their mission. When they finished their marching mission and arrived at Station 555, it was already the 25th day of the Lunar New Year. In the group, there was Nguyen Van Hiep (Institute of Architecture and Construction Planning), who had just graduated and was assigned to return home, for 3 days he could not say a word. When he reached the shallow stream, he could only shout out the two words “Dad!” with his face covered in tears and slime.

Hai - Chung - Duy