"Living is to give, not just to receive."

(Baonghean) Artist Huynh Van Thuan - the designer of the Youth Union badge once recounted the emotion when he, a 31-year-old young man in the Viet Bac War Zone, held a pen to sketch the ideas flowing in his heart: "At that time, I only thought of a very simple and passionate thing that the youth, especially the Youth Union members, are the pioneers leading the way, holding the red flag with a yellow star, advancing under the glorious leadership of the Party and the Youth Union. Study, work and fight for the beloved Fatherland. From that idea, I chose the hand holding the fluttering flag in a position ready to move forward."

That is also what flows in the hearts of the young pioneers over the past 81 years. They are the communist member Ly Tu Trong with his famous words before the enemy court: "The path of youth is only the revolutionary path, there can be no other path"; the hero Le Ma Luong with his reason for living: "The most beautiful life is on the front line against the enemy", the heroic martyr Nguyen Viet Xuan with the command: "Aim straight at the enemy and shoot".



Donating blood for the community. Photo: Tu Thanh.

There are Nguyen Van Thac, Dang Thuy Tram, the Dong Loc girls, the Truong Bon boys and girls... and thousands of other young people who have devoted their youth to the country. There are those in their twenties who have remained in a corner of the mountain, a Truong Son forest, on the main road of the vehicles going to the front line, there are those "twenties who became water waves" on the Thach Han River... Those youths have transformed into the land of the country, so that today, the grass and trees are green, the birds' songs in the morning are so passionate that people cannot associate them with a brutal battlefield, and the war has receded as if it had never existed on this earth...

Then, from the suicide youth volunteer teams “determined to die for the Fatherland”, the movements “Five Volunteers”, “Three Ready”…, now followed by the campaigns “Summer Cultural Light”, “Green Summer”, the movements “Youth Volunteers”, “Returning to the Source”… The 20-year-old soldiers are steady in their guns on the front lines. There are quiet youths on islands, silently spreading knowledge in remote areas, extending arms to donate blood to save the sick…

They are not only pioneers in studying, researching science, mastering technology, but also pioneers in reclaiming land, greening barren hills, and enriching swamps. The joy and warmth they bring spread under the roofs of heroic Vietnamese mothers, in the shirts of highland children, in the fragrant rice bowls of people in flood-affected areas. And the green shirt has become so familiar that it is trusted and loved. From the green shirt of soldiers on the battlefield, the bright shirt of the girls who opened the way in the past, to the green shirt of young volunteers now, the distance between generations is not far because in their hearts still burns that fire: sacrifice and dedication!

Just like the question that martyr Nguyen Van Thac promised to answer for the person he loved: "What is happiness?", was it said through his own sacrifice, that: "Living is giving, not just receiving for oneself" (Poem by To Huu)?

Nghe An weekend