July - Coming back to the brothers...!
The war ended more than a third of a century ago; grass has grown green on the site of Quang Tri Ancient Citadel! Rubber forests, pepper gardens, tea plantations, cassava fields… have covered the red soil of Con Tien-Doc Mieu, Highway 9-Khe Sanh, Dong Ha, Cam Lo…! But the pain of tens of thousands of mothers, wives, and children who have not found their loved ones—not even a single name—remains!
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| Mother Giang stands beside the grave of an unknown soldier. |
In the last days of July, Quang Tri was bathed in scorching sun, yet people's hearts were filled with a somber atmosphere, as if the entire space of this former "Latitude Line" war zone was permeated with fragrance! ...millions of people are turning their attention to the land of Quang Tri, creating the sacred and tragic epic of the nation.
On my journey to find the graves of my loved ones, I visited the Ho Xa Martyrs' Cemetery; this is the first cemetery in Quang Tri province when traveling from the North. A ceremony commemorating the martyrs had just taken place here, with over five thousand graves shrouded in mist and the faint scent of incense. I met Mrs. Hoang Thi Giang, along with her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren, gathered around the grave of martyr Nguyen Tai Loc. They had come from Khanh Ha commune, Thuong Tin district, Ha Tay province. Pointing to the tombstone bearing her husband's name, Mrs. Giang said to me with tears in her eyes: "My husband died in 1968, but it wasn't until thirty years later that our family learned his remains had been relocated here. Since then, every year on July 27th, our family visits and participates in the incense offering ceremony at the martyrs' cemetery with the local community."
Leaving Vinh Linh, our car was crossing Hien Luong Bridge. The "17th Parallel" flagpole flashed by. Someone sitting at the back of the car exclaimed, "Oh, this afternoon's folk song, how heavy with emotion it sounds…" It was truly moving! The car began its ascent to Con Tien - Doc Mieu. I could hardly recognize Con Tien - Doc Mieu, the battlefield once known as the impenetrable electronic barrier of the Americans. Houses lined both sides of the highway; red flags, banners, and slogans from the "drinking water, remembering the source" festival stood out against the green backdrop of rubber plantations, eucalyptus hills, and vast pepper gardens stretching as far as the eye could see.
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| On July 27, 2008, General Nguyen Huy Hieu revisited the Gia Binh banyan tree and the memorial monument to Martyr Cao Nhu Thiem. |
Sitting next to me was a man in his sixties, wearing a bucket hat and clutching a worn-out backpack. Striking up a conversation, I learned he was Nguyen Van Tam. This was his first return to Quang Tri since his injury in 1975. The story Tam told me wasn't about the fierce counterattacks against the Marines at the Citadel in 1972, but about the martyr Cao Nhu Thiem from Dien Tho commune, Dien Chau district (Nghe An province): On the morning of March 26, 1968, in an unequal battle against the American "Mad Buffalo" battalion in Gio Linh, Cao Nhu Thiem, the last remaining member of the squad guarding the observation post of the 27th Regiment, was wounded and captured. Unable to subdue Thiem, the enemy tied him to a banyan tree in Gia Binh, Gio An commune, and fired until his body was unrecognizable. Later, people in Gio An recounted that while the enemy was firing at him, Cao Nhu Thiem still held his head high and shouted, "Vietnam will surely win! Long live the Vietnam Labor Party!" The banyan tree in Gia Binh was also burned down by bombs and bullets in 1972. Uncle Tam's voice was filled with emotion: "Knowing that at the base of the old banyan tree in Gia Binh, Lieutenant General Nguyen Huy Hieu, Deputy Minister of National Defense and former commander of our 27th Regiment, had replanted a red-budded banyan tree, and that the people of Gio An had erected a memorial plaque for martyr Cao Nhu Thiem, I packed my bags and decided to make a pilgrimage to visit the place where Thiem and his comrades sacrificed their lives…"
We arrived at the "Reception House for Relatives of Fallen Soldiers" in Quang Tri province; people often call it the "July 27th" reception house because every year on July 27th, people from all over the country return to Quang Tri to be welcomed here to visit or find the graves of their fallen relatives. Mr. Nguyen Minh Hoan, the director of the reception house, along with his staff, were busy arranging accommodation and transportation for the groups of relatives to the various martyrs' cemeteries. I earnestly asked Mr. Hoan to allow me to accompany the vehicle to Cua Cemetery in Cam Chinh commune (Cam Lo district) to find the graves of my wife's two older brothers, both of whom died in 1972; although for more than thirty years, their graves have been identified as lost in the handover records of fallen soldiers, and I have searched twice without success, I still harbor a faint hope that their graves are in Cua Cemetery. We arrived at the cemetery in the late afternoon. After offering incense at the monument, everyone dispersed to visit the graves of their loved ones. I walked past each row of graves, nearly a thousand tombstones clearly inscribed with names and hometowns, but I still couldn't find a single tombstone bearing the names of my brothers, Pham Van Dien and Pham Van Hien. Mr. Cap Kim Sinh, the cemetery caretaker, comforted me: "This cemetery contains many martyrs from the 304th Division and the Cam Lo local troops, but when they were gathered here, their names and hometowns couldn't be identified. Perhaps among those hundreds of unmarked graves, there are some of them…!"
Following the cemetery caretaker to the northern section of the monument, I counted nearly three hundred graves, each inscribed with the words "Unknown Martyr." At the end of the outermost row of graves, an elderly woman with white hair and her two grandchildren, a boy and a girl, were gazing around, holding bouquets of fresh flowers. The grandchildren told us they were from Hoang Dat commune, Hoang Hoa district (Thanh Hoa province). Their grandmother, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Dai, was over ninety years old. She had two sons and a son-in-law who died in Quang Tri, and their graves have yet to be found. Mrs. Dai sat down beside a grave, her wrinkled, trembling hand tracing the words "Unknown Martyr"! We were all choked with emotion, our eyes welling up with tears.
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| Flower release ceremony on the Thach Han River - Quang Tri on the evening of July 27, 2008. |
That evening, I was fortunate enough to be arranged by the director of the guesthouse to join a group of veterans from the 27th Regiment at a flower-releasing ceremony on the Thach Han River. We arrived at the riverbank as dusk was falling; the flower rafts were already assembled, incense and candles lit. The Thach Han River was gradually turning purple... Our boat was in the middle of the river. The fiery flower rafts floated, their surface red. Someone suddenly exclaimed, "Read Le Ba Duong's poetry!"; then a voice with a distinct Nghe An accent chimed in:
"The boat is sailing down the Thach Han River, row gently;
My friend still lies at the bottom of the river;
At twenty years old, one becomes like waves on the water;
"The shores will remain calm for a thousand years!"
The twenty years of my comrades, of my brothers, of Mother Dai's daughter in Thanh Hoa, of Mother Giang's husband in Ha Tay... have forever become like the waves that have calmed the shores for millennia; they have forever merged into the earth, creating fertile fields! They fell for a nation that is being reborn!
Text and photos: Tran Canh YenDien Thinh - Dien Chau - Nghe An
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