Photo collector of Uncle Ho
(Baonghean)Out of boundless respect and gratitude for President Ho Chi Minh, a former soldier has quietly collected over 400 photos of the President and is preparing to hold a small exhibition to serve the community in his neighborhood to commemorate the 119th anniversary of the President's birth. He is Ta Quang Loc (Chairman of the Veterans Association of Tan Phuc neighborhood, Hung Dung ward, Vinh city)...
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His diary on the way to the battlefield quotes President Ho Chi Minh: "The duty of young people is not to ask what the country has given them, but to ask themselves what they have done for the country." This was also the motivation that helped him overcome all hardships, firmly holding his rifle and fighting bravely and tenaciously on the fronts of A Luoi, A Bia, Hill 935, Coc Bai, and the Route 9 Southern Laos campaign… Company 3 of the 12.7mm machine gun unit, under Ta Quang Loc's command, was twice awarded the title of Hero of the People's Armed Forces. He himself was wounded many times and transferred to hospitals 112, 108, 268, and Military Hospital 4 for treatment, with a disability rate of 81%.
Returning to civilian life after the war, he faced countless difficulties and hardships: struggling to stabilize his family life during the subsidy period while also battling the recurring pain of his wounds whenever the weather changed. But with the traditional spirit of a soldier of Uncle Ho's army, he remained optimistic, cheerful, and lived a simple, modest life. Uncle Ho's teaching, "Wounded soldiers may be disabled, but they are not useless," gave him strength and faith to overcome all obstacles. For nearly 10 years, he toiled as a portrait painter and ran a small tea stall to support his children's education. Despite his declining health, Ta Quang Loc actively participated in local community work, serving for 14 years as the head of the veterans' association and then as an exemplary neighborhood group leader, earning the trust of the Party and the affection of the people.
Busy with family and social responsibilities, it wasn't until 1996 that he had the opportunity to fulfill his long-held wish: collecting photographs of President Ho Chi Minh. He confided, "Although I never met President Ho, his image and teachings are deeply imprinted in my mind. I want to collect as many photos of him as possible to display for others to see, learn from, and follow his moral example." Besides collecting through books, newspapers, documents, relatives, and friends, in his journey to find photos of President Ho, he sometimes had to spend his own money traveling back and forth between the North and South of Vietnam many times to obtain valuable photographs.
Whenever he heard that someone possessed valuable photos of President Ho Chi Minh, he would pack his bags and go to ask for or buy them. He acquired two photos of President Ho Chi Minh with French President Georges Bidalt in 1946 and a photo of Ho Chi Minh in 1933, upon his return from China to the Soviet Union, from Mr. Khang's house in Bac Hong ward (Hong Linh town, Ha Tinh province). As for the photo of Ho Chi Minh at the National Congress of the French Socialist Party in December 1920 and the delegate card to the 5th Congress of the Communist International in 1924 belonging to Comrade Nguyen Ai Quoc, he had to make two trips to Mr. Nguyen Van Giang's house (in Quynh Mai ward, Hai Ba Trung district, Hanoi) to obtain them. The most arduous task was traveling all the way to Binh Thuan Ward, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, to collect President Ho Chi Minh's handwritten notes on "Maintaining constancy while adapting to change" from 1946, and photographs of him visibly moved when mentioning the people of the South at the 6th Session of the 1st National Assembly in December 1956.
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In early Spring 2008, Ta Quang Loc had his poetry collection "Homeland Love" published by Nghe An Publishing House, containing 86 poems. He is currently preparing to release two more poetry collections on the themes of combating corruption and social evils. He also uses the royalties from his poetry to collect photographs of President Ho Chi Minh. To date, he has a collection of over 400 photographs of President Ho Chi Minh, categorized by period and carefully captioned. These have appeared in documentaries on Nghe An Television, the Vietnam News Agency, and VT1 of Vietnam Television. For him, collecting photographs of President Ho Chi Minh is not about gaining "fame," but stems from deep respect and gratitude for the Father of the Nation.
Currently, the nearly 70-year-old veteran is enthusiastically preparing the outline and content for an exhibition of President Ho Chi Minh's photos at the community cultural center to commemorate the 119th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh's birth. His wish is to organize a larger-scale exhibition to attract a wider audience, contributing to the effective promotion of the "Studying and Following the Moral Example of Ho Chi Minh" campaign.
Khanh Ly
