Lieutenant General Pham Hong Minh: A life of glorious military achievements.
As the Deputy Commander of Military Region 4, promoted to General in 1998, few know of his glorious journey through life and death. I met him at his home in Hamlet 14, Nghi Long Commune, Nghi Loc District. He still looked agile and healthy beyond his nearly 70 years. He said his eldest son had a house in Vinh, but he wanted to live in this rural area with his wife for company. And in his house, nestled deep in a quiet little hamlet, I listened as he recounted his military career...
(Baonghean.vn) -As the Deputy Commander of Military Region 4, promoted to General in 1998, few know of his glorious journey through life and death. I met him at his home in Hamlet 14, Nghi Long Commune, Nghi Loc District. He still looked agile and healthy beyond his nearly 70 years. He said his eldest son had a house in Vinh, but he wanted to live in this rural area with his wife for company. And in his house, nestled deep in a quiet little hamlet, I listened as he recounted his military career...
Joining the army in 1963, in 1964-1965, Mr. Pham Hong Minh was sent to study engineering at Nam Dan, then returned to E18 - B 325, serving as a squad leader. Due to his bravery and resourcefulness as an engineering soldier, in February 1965 he was promoted to deputy platoon leader of Battalion 18B. During the battle in Tuy An - Phu Yen, he was wounded. Despite the lingering pain from his wound, he and his comrades marched into the battlefield to coordinate with Battalion 10 in a sweep operation across the "Mother and Child" slope in Tuy An, fighting to reclaim every inch of land from the enemy.
In September 1967, the platoon marched to Khanh Hoa, participating at the regimental level in the Tet Offensive with fierce offensive operations. In this battle, his unit was assigned the task of combating at the regimental level, preventing enemy ships from crossing the railway and river to resupply troops. The deeper they went into the Eastern battlefield...
By the end of 1969, his platoon advanced into the southeastern region, where life-or-death battles with the enemy took place at Suoi Giay and Soc Con Trang on National Highways 10 and 13. After being sent to study in Cambodia for a year, he returned to the An Giang battlefield, where he served in the 232nd Regiment, leading the attack on the southwestern gateway, paving the way for the legendary Ho Chi Minh Campaign.
In 1971, recalling the battle in Binh Thuan, he was the platoon leader of Platoon 7, Company 7, G20. Having transitioned from engineering combat to commando operations, he directly commanded the assault teams advancing into enemy territory, launching surprise attacks and preventing the enemy from reacting. He said: “While he and his comrades had to camouflage themselves by smearing soot on their bodies, they crawled through 12 rows of barbed wire fences to penetrate the enemy base. After reaching the 6th fence, the enemy suddenly spread white lime powder, forcing the men to use the lime powder to camouflage the soot. Our bodies ached, but my comrades and I still pushed forward. We won this battle decisively. I often told my comrades that the outstanding characteristic of commandos is that they must attack from within, creating a scene deep within the enemy's ranks. Only through secrecy and surprise can we achieve great victories.”
During long marches into fiercely contested areas in the Southwest, for three months straight, he and his comrades went without a single grain of salt. One comrade suffered from severe malaria, so he went to a meeting of senior officers to ask for a pinch of salt for his soldier to chew on for a while before giving it to another. Sometimes, the entire platoon ran out of rice while the whole unit was deep inside a fortified position, forcing him to organize a battle to secure supplies.
His nine-year military career involved relentless marches from North to South, resulting in eight injuries. Even now, whenever the weather changes, his body aches. Yet, reflecting on those days on the battlefield, he cherishes those experiences, which instilled in him revolutionary ideals and invaluable lessons for a revolutionary cadre. He says that after peace was restored, what he valued most was the camaraderie among his comrades during the resistance. For him, the most important thing was that officers and soldiers shared hardships, even sharing potatoes and cassava. During his years commanding on the fierce battlefields, he realized the importance of tactical and technical training for soldiers. More importantly, it was crucial to educate and train officers and soldiers to have a firm ideological stance. Even during wartime, when their comrades considered death as light as a feather, they remained steadfast in their fighting spirit despite hardship and danger. Yet there were also weak and discouraged soldiers who asked to be discharged to get married, or to return home to care for their elderly parents...
Now approaching seventy years old, Mr. Pham Hong Minh remains deeply concerned about current events regarding the islands and seas, the problem of corruption, and the moral decay among some young people. However, he still believes that studying the Central Committee's Resolution No. 4 will lead to internal self-improvement among Party members and cadres, resulting in positive changes in their lives and awareness. And, according to him, the path the Party is treading will forever lead towards the sun, towards prosperity and happiness, as President Ho Chi Minh wished during his lifetime.
Thanh Nga
