The memories of a teacher "carrying knowledge across the Truong Son Mountains" to the South.

Born into a family with a strong tradition of scholarship and patriotism in the former Yen Thanh district, Nghe An province, four out of eight siblings directly participated in the Southern battlefield. Although his father worked in the judicial system, Hoang Tu Hau chose the path of teaching, following in the footsteps of his eldest brother, with the simple belief that being a teacher was also a way to contribute to the country.

In 1962, he passed the entrance exam for the Chemistry Department at Vinh Pedagogical University (now Vinh University). Three years later, while in his third year, the student movement to "put aside their studies" and head south was in full swing. He was assigned by the Ministry of Education and Training to work in Hoa Binh - a difficult and deprived region.

The journey to the North to receive my assignment was an unforgettable experience. “The sun was halfway up the west, and I was alone, carrying a brown backpack, walking along the dike down to Dien Chau beach, crossing the Bung River by ferry at dusk. The Bung Bridge had been destroyed by air raids. I got onto Highway 1 and joined a group of strangers silently walking north… The most difficult part was crossing the border between Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces because this treacherous stretch of road was constantly bombed by the Americans day and night. I had to run quickly to get through the area riddled with bomb craters. Around Phu Ly, there was a bus going to Hanoi. I waited in line all day at the bus station to buy a ticket to Hoa Binh,” recalled teacher Hoang Tu Hau.

Those hardships were just the beginning of a long and challenging journey. During his nearly nine years working in Hoa Binh (1965-1973), Mr. Hau was assigned to teach at the Teacher Training College, Hoang Van Thu High School, and then served as Deputy Principal of Ky Son High School (Hoa Binh). Classes were sometimes held in stilt houses, sometimes in the middle of the mountains and forests; teachers and students taught and worked together in makeshift shelters.

In the evenings, he also taught supplementary literacy classes for workers and for concentrated artillery officer training courses. From September 1970, teacher Hoang Tu Hau was assigned to work as a professional staff member at the Hoa Binh Education Department. In August 1972, he was sent to study abroad as part of a selection process for postgraduate studies.

In 1972, when the US used B52s to heavily bomb Hanoi, he was summoned to the Ministry of Education and Training to participate in a special training course to prepare for deployment to the South – to the battlefield in Southern Vietnam to perform educational duties. In March 1973, before going to the South, he held a simple wedding with teacher Trinh Thi Oanh, originally from Nam Dinh. Shortly after, the young teacher left, leaving behind his pregnant wife. He said: "NIf you have a son, name him Nam Son - to remember that his father is in the South. Truong Son.

At that time, the US Air Force was still heavily bombing the area, and it took the group of teachers two months of trekking through forests and crossing streams to reach Southern Vietnam. The presence of these teachers on the Southern battlefield during those years of fighting and simultaneously carrying out educational duties demonstrated the spirit that, no matter how difficult or arduous the circumstances, the revolutionary cause of education would continue to exist and develop, the children of the people would still have access to education, and the cultural level of the people would always be raised.

The members of the delegation were divided among various localities, and Mr. Hoang Tu Hau was assigned to Tan Bien district (Tay Ninh province) - the base of the Central Committee of the Southern Region. “Our first task was to go into the forest to cut bamboo, trees, and thatch to build shelters for the education office and several other shelters to train teachers on the spot (called the Teacher Training School). In 1974, I was assigned to set up several classrooms in Binh Thanh commune. Around the classrooms, we dug shelters… for many days and nights, enemy planes roared, and the sound of bombs and bullets echoed, sometimes near, sometimes far,” shared teacher Hoang Tu Hau.

Besides teaching, Mr. Hau also had the responsibility of providing food, shelter, production, and disease prevention for the newly established hamlets. Despite the hardships, what he remembers most is the kindness and generosity of the people of Southern Vietnam.

He stayed at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Tư Thôi – a simple thatched house in the middle of the forest. They lent him a broken bicycle frame, picked up the rims discarded at the edge of the forest, and welded them together to make a makeshift "three-no" bicycle for his work trips. At the end of 1974, upon receiving news that his wife had given birth to a son in the North, he only had time to write a few lines to send with someone to the rear, hoping the letter would reach his family.

After April 30, 1975, teacher Hoang Tu Hau and his colleagues took over the educational facilities, organized teacher training, completed the unfinished school year, and built a new education system under extremely difficult conditions.