The story of the Dien Bien artist couple

TP - Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Thi Ngoc Diep turned 88, looking very graceful thanks to the artistic talent flowing through her veins. After the reporter's plea, her hands still softly danced a part of the Xoe dance of the Dien Bien Phu campaign. She and her husband were both artists of Dien Bien Phu, holding hands through decades of marriage "without ever arguing".

Fire-lighting Xoe dance Although she is 88 years old, Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Thi Ngoc Diep (born in 1936, actress of the 308th Division's art troupe of the Vanguard Army in the Dien Bien Phu campaign) is still full of energy and youthful at a rare age. Lieutenant Colonel Diep said that at the age of 15, she joined the army and went through two major campaigns: Hoa Binh and Tran Dinh (Dien Bien Phu campaign). In December 1953, Ms. Diep was 17 years old at that time, following the soldiers to participate in the campaign. In the morning, the whole unit received their mission, and by the afternoon, the whole group was ready with their military equipment to march.

Although nearly 90 years old, Ngo Thi Ngoc Diep and her husband do not hesitate to show each other love and affection.

She said that the campaigns at that time were all highly confidential, even if your name was on the list to go on a campaign, you could not know where you were going and what the name of the campaign was. “When we heard about the campaign, we just went. At that time, I was still young, I just knew to be ready to go with the enthusiasm of a 17-year-old breaking a buffalo’s horn,” Lieutenant Colonel Diep confided. Even now, when she thinks back, she is still surprised at how she overcame those difficulties. Her shoulders were heavy with military equipment, the weather was harsh. The 17-year-old cultural worker only carried simple belongings including a backpack, a bag of rice weighing about 3-4 kg, a shovel and a hoe, and a bamboo water pipe. It sounds simple and light, but for a girl born and raised in the capital, carrying all that stuff on a march was no joke. “No matter how tired you are on the march, you cannot complain, because it can easily dampen the spirit of the whole team. My spirit at that time was strangely enthusiastic, perhaps because deep down I was always thinking about the moment of victory and hoping that wherever our army went, they would win,” Ms. Diep recalled. The road was long and the mountains and forests were dangerous, and the members of the troupe could not avoid fever. She herself had suffered from severe malaria. During short breaks, the artists performed. At that time, they could only perform on small, dimly lit areas. Before leaving, Diep and many other artists learned to dance, learned the Thai people’s Xoe Hoa dance, and were eager to perform. However, to perform successfully, we needed hand bells. “At that time, props were very rare, so we thought of using lighter lids as bells. After the performance, the soldiers often teased us by saying that we were dancing with lighters instead of flowers,” Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Thi Ngoc Diep laughed.

Ms. Ngo Thi Ngoc Diep on stage performing when she was young.

The most memorable moment was the stage play with the theme of the village being oppressed by the French and the spirit of solidarity of the soldiers. In the play, Ms. Diep played the daughter-in-law in a family whose mother advised her son to join the army with the desire to avenge his family and village. “In the play, there is a song: Go, brother, kill all the enemies to avenge, go, kill all the enemies to avenge... Many soldiers after my song stood up and shouted: Brothers, our compatriots are suffering so much, we are determined to kill all the enemies so that our compatriots can be happy!”, Ms. Diep said. When asked about the feats of “digging mountains, sleeping in tunnels, pouring rain, and rice balls”, she just smiled with relief. The cultural performance was only a small part compared to the other great things of the campaign. That said, her eyes always shone with pride. The days of going on the campaign, the songs and dances encouraging and motivating the fighting spirit of the soldiers were the most beautiful and precious years. The love story of the Dien Bien Artistic Duo Near the day of the general counter-offensive, along with the 316th and 312th divisions, Ms. Diep's 308 Artistic Group was also mobilized to make way for tanks to enter Dien Bien Phu. Ms. Diep clearly remembers the moment she received the news of victory. "I was very happy, extremely happy. At that moment, we threw the whole carrying pole into the stream. The whole group ran forward without anyone telling anyone. It turned out that the car was carrying General De Castries who was captured alive from the command bunker," Ms. Diep excitedly said. When peace was restored, Lieutenant Colonel Diep returned to the capital. This was also the time when she and her husband - Mr. Nguyen Khac Tue - became husband and wife. "I met my lover and also my husband after the Dien Bien Phu campaign. I was in the 308th division and he was in the 312th division. He was in the dance team at that time and was a newly-arrived soldier. Later, he returned to the General Department of Politics and was in the same group as me. He and I danced together… talked to each other, and then fell in love without knowing it,” Ms. Diep recounted.

Mr. Nguyen Khac Tue is from Kien An (Hai Phong). At first, he felt inferior because his wife's family had many revolutionary achievements and was an intellectual family in Hanoi, while he was just a farmer. Because his parents were no longer alive, Mr. Tue considered his wife's family as his own, and was taught by his father-in-law as his own son. His wife's tolerance, patience, and perseverance impressed him and their love grew more and more. After many years of living together, Mr. Tue affirmed that the two never argued.

The love story of the artistic duo also has many interesting things. Ms. Diep revealed that at that time, the artistic troupes had regulations on the age of love and marriage. The two were not old enough so they often had to hide, did not dare to talk directly much, only wrote letters to each other. "If we wanted to read letters, we had to hide behind a curtain to avoid being discovered. We loved each other from the end of 1954 to 1958, still secretly. When we returned to Hanoi, on Sundays we were allowed to go out, the whole group went together but then separated to go on their own. In the troupe, there were many couples who loved each other in secret like us," Lieutenant Colonel Diep confided. Only later, when the leader discovered and agreed, did they publicly take care of each other. Not long after getting married, Mr. Tue had to continuously take on missions abroad for nearly 4 years. The burden of taking care of and raising the children fell entirely on Ms. Diep's shoulders. She was both father and mother to two children. “When my husband became the leader of the Youth Union, there were many girls around him, but he was still determined to be faithful and loved his wife and children very much. He admired me because, after many years away from home, I still raised my children alone,” Ms. Diep confided. Young people admire the fulfilled life of Mr. Tue and Mrs. Diep, who are over 80 years old. When they were healthy, they often went swimming and dancing together to make up for the days they had to live apart.

On the march, embroidering the flag of "Quyet Chien Quyet Thang" Ms. Diep and Meritorious Artist Phung De were then unexpectedly assigned the task of embroidering the Quyet Chien Quyet Thang flag, and were only given a piece of red cloth. This task was assigned to many units on the march, because there were no flags sent from the rear to the front. To get the star, they had to dye their bandages yellow with anti-malaria medicine. "We pounded the medicine and dyed it on the march. The bandages were dried on backpacks. The star and the letters were cut out letter by letter and sewn onto red cloth. The tassels of the flag were made from the guts of the French army's parachute cord. After finishing, we sent them to the assault team - the force that first entered the enemy's base. If they won, the soldiers would plant this flag to announce the news. When the soldiers received the flag, they were very happy and gave them a notebook and asked them to copy the song so they could sing it together when they had free time," Ms. Diep said.

Gia Linh - Bao Han

Tienphong.vn

Source: https://tienphong.vn/chuyen-cua-cap-doi-van-cong-dien-bien-post1631462.tpo