The souls of martyrs are green in the sacred forest

In the rainy season of 1970, after several months at the guest house of the Regional Education Subcommittee, we had a training session on the new situation and tasks, and listened to reports from new brothers and sisters from the battlefields of the West, the Southeast, and even Saigon - Gia Dinh... including those who were undercover, when they came to disseminate their experiences of operating in the suburbs, they still wore scarves covering their faces, only their eyes were visible... we were very excited.

Soldiers who left to support the Southern battlefield when they were just 18 or 20 years old. Photo: Document

The marching route from the Central Bureau base at that time drifted to the mountainous area of ​​Kampong Cham province in Cambodia, from the mountains down to the plains. Our group consisted of 6 people, 2 liaison officers and 4 of us. Every night we traveled and rested during the day, departing at around 5 pm, traveling all night until dawn, then stopping at the liaison station to cook rice, hang hammocks to rest, and waking up around mid-afternoon to cook and prepare for the night march. After more than 10 days passing through the villages and hamlets in the highlands, we began marching down to the plains.

At that time, it was the flood season, so the liaison took us to the Moc Cau - Mo Vet area by boat. The closer we got to the Vietnam border, the closer we got to the enemy zone, the more difficult and fierce the situation was. The liaison rowed the boat to take us along while listening ahead to see if there was an enemy ambush.

When reaching the Tien River bank, the section with several overseas Vietnamese villages in Vinh Phuoc, Vinh Loi... had to wait outside the forest for more than a week to cross the river because a group of puppet soldiers were camping in the overseas Vietnamese villages. It was called a guest area but it was just a flooded forest, with some large, tall o moi trees rising above the water, the rest were low, squat trees.

During the day, we sat on a small boat with the locals fishing, netting, catching snails, picking water lilies and sesbania flowers to cook, but whenever we saw a helicopter or an OV10, we would dive down and hide in the water hyacinth or sesban clusters, occasionally coming up to breathe.

After a few days of the enemy withdrawing, we were transported by liaison officers across the Tien River to the Hau River. Around midnight, while we were dozing off, we suddenly smelled a terrible smell from the forest ahead, the smell of death. The liaison officer Tu Ny told us: Our boat is going near the Ma forest, where many corpses are hanging on trees, so you "three ready" brothers should endure a little hardship because going around the Ma forest is safer, the "national" side rarely goes to stalk and arrest in this forest.

Then the liaison officer informed that in the border area above Moc Cau - Mo Vet, the Vietnamese people living abroad fished, farmed in the wild fields and often lived concentratedly along the banks of canals. In the rainy season, when the water level rose, they raised their houses higher, living off the river, but when they died in the rainy season, they were taken to the Ma forest. The corpses were wrapped in mats or American sandbags and then taken to the Ma forest, hung on trees, and waited until the dry season when the water level receded, then lowered them down, buried them in the ground, and made graves.

After the Mau Than 1968, the enemy swept through the border, and our bases in the provinces near the border temporarily took refuge here. Our soldiers and civilian cadres who sacrificed their lives were also brought here to be buried with the people. Last year, a special forces soldier who hugged a mine and attacked an enemy ship on the Tien River died. A few days later, his body floated near Goi station. People retrieved his body and brought it here. Then, nurse Chin of T2 was ambushed by the enemy on her way to work. People dragged her body to the station to fight and then brought it here to be buried...

The "B-going" officers were happy and moved when reviewing the files, documents and memorabilia. Photo: Thanh Le

Passing the Ma forest, we took a boat until the next morning to Tam Be Tam Ban, where there were two Vietnamese villages. In the plan, our group would go down to An Giang and then return to the T2 Propaganda Department, but when we arrived, we received news that the entire T2 agency had gone to the forest area on the Cambodian side. We were assigned to stay in K1 to carry out the task of building a revolutionary base.open teacher training classes, open popular classesfor officers and employees of zone 1.

During my two years of working in this area, I passed through the Ma forest many times. During the rainy season, I often went by boat at night, and during the dry season, I walked in the forest canopy. Whenever I got close to this forest, I heard the sound of crows cawing loudly, and the sound of rats running in groups. I don’t know how many of our compatriots and comrades died here.

On the day our group said goodbye, our brothers and sisters in K1 asked to go to the Ma forest - the sacred forest to burn incense for the last time. When we tied the half-burned incense to the O Moi tree at the forest entrance, we could not hold back our tears. After the Paris Agreement in 1973, we returned to the Regional Education Subcommittee in Tay Ninh, then on April 30, 1975, we returned to take over Saigon - Gia Dinh. In the joy of victory, we remembered with nostalgia the difficult years in the border areas of the Tien and Hau rivers.

In 2015, I was appointed by my friend tovisit the old battlefield, when passing through Moc Bai Border Gate, to the old land of Moc Cau - Mo Vet, sitting on the car running smoothly on National Highway 1, near Nec Luong Bridge, Mr. Thai Duy Trap, Mr. Le Anh Tuong and I stopped, looking at the peaceful and quiet villages and hamlets of our neighboring country beside the green canals, we were filled with nostalgia for the mothers and fathers of overseas Vietnamese who took care of and protected us during the years of war and war, and the Ma forest - the sacred forest, where so many of our compatriots and comrades lay here, their bodies hanging on trees in the rainy season, buried in the ground in the dry season, no one had a tombstone... I think, surely those who marched from Tien River to Hau River during the years of fighting against the Americans to save the country all passed through the Ma forest - the sacred forest more than once. Suddenly I remembered someone's poem, roughly:The souls of unknown martyrs/Blue waves of the ocean, green trees of the mountains.

Teachers "going to B" took souvenir photos. Photo: My Ha