There are stories outside the written pages that cannot be left untold to remind us of the Truong Son forest flowers during the years when the whole country went to the front. They created immortal legends for the heroic homeland of Quang. They were the female Youth Volunteers of the 232nd Transport Battalion, which the army and people of Quang and Zone 5 used to call with the simple name: Mrs. Thao Battalion.
1. I will always remember the first time, and to this day the only time, I and the former President of the Association of Former Youth Volunteers of Quang Nam Province, Do Tan Hung, brought 5 female former Youth Volunteers of the anti-American era back to the old battlefields in Nam Giang and Phuoc Son. This was the route that they were most closely associated with in the past.
In particular, the Kham Duc martyrs cemetery is where many female Youth Volunteers are buried, including Ms. Tran Thi Lau who sacrificed herself at a very young age. That afternoon, the sky was sunny but suddenly a heavy rain poured down from somewhere, so our group only had time to burn incense at the central memorial of the cemetery. We were unable to find the grave and burn incense, especially for Ms. Tran Thi Lau.
At that moment, I don’t know why, but I suddenly realized that not far from the memorial, there was a bush of flowers blooming with bright red petals, shining brightly in the pouring rain. And in a scene filmed there, I discovered the grave named after martyr Tran Thi Lau…
The sisters gathered around the grave of their old comrade with many emotions. It was getting dark, tears were flowing in the rain. No one told anyone, but in each of their intuition, Ms. Lau appeared to welcome her comrade. She was so sacred, who would have thought that before she fell into the ground, she was still a virgin flower.
The story of Ms. Lau’s sacrifice has been told and heard many times, but it still stirs up in me an indescribable emotion. The regretful and sad verses in the poem “Where You Lie” seem to echo.
“ Now I return to the place where you lie/ Following the forest path you passed through over the years… The rainy season of 1970/ landslides and landslides/ Carrying goods/ You are pale and thin/ I love you so much/ Boiled cassava and stewed corn…/ Not a grain of salt/ The road day and night is still stained with your footsteps… Then: The place where you lie/ The forest spreads its canopy to protect/ The night is sparkling with moon and stars/ The day butterflies return to meet the sun/ Orchids release clusters of bright white stars/ Sweetly fragrant on the old path you passed… (Excerpt from The Place Where You Lie - dedicated to Ms. Tran Thi Lau by To Hoan).
According to her comrades, Ms. Tran Thi Lau died in 1972 while transporting goods across the Nuoc Che River. That day, in the middle of the flood season, the river was flowing rapidly, Ms. Lau volunteered to wade across the river to tie a rope to the other side for the unit to use the rope to wade across. In the middle of the river, a strong flood occurred and she was swept away. When the water receded, her comrades found her body next to a rock, her load still on her shoulder.
Ms. Tran Thi Lau is one of 58 women - girls in their late teens and early twenties who have been buried along the Truong Son road. According to Mr. Ho Van Dieu - former Secretary of Phuoc Son District Party Committee (a local official), at that time, Ms. Tran Thi Lau's grave was located next to the transportation trail. Later, Military Region 5 opened a motorized road, and anyone who passed by the place where she lay would leave a stone or a wild flower, along with some simple and touching poems.
2. Ms. Nguyen Thi Huan - former Deputy Political Commissar of Company 2, was a person who made extraordinary achievements, known to many people during the war. Notably, in the battle at Chu Lai airport in 1970, she alone crossed the pass, climbed the slope carrying 2 DKB bullets, 1 warhead weighing 25kg, total weight approximately 110kg, while she was 1.55m tall, weighed 42kg.
In early 1972, the unit was assigned to transport many weapons, including 120mm mortars. She stayed up all night thinking of ways to tie the mortar on her back, but no matter what she tried, she couldn't stand up because the base of the gun weighed more than 100 kg, and the base's legs stuck out, making it cumbersome. Then, with her own initiative, she added more wood, even though it was heavier, it didn't get in the way, so she could carry it.
That time, she carried the mortar across Chin Khuc stream and Thanh Son hill to the delivery location on time. That achievement was indeed something to be proud of, as a male comrade on the battlefield at that time wrote in a poem: “ What I did, I never dreamed of/ After the campaign, I would become a brave soldier/ You told me about my time fighting the Americans/ The extraordinary thing about the female liberation army… ”.
In a conversation with us, People's Armed Forces Hero Pham Thi Thao - former Battalion Commander of Battalion 232 confided that there was a time when people carried rice on their shoulders but no one touched a grain, and when they were hungry, they ate cassava, sweet potatoes, and wild vegetables. The hardships of wartime were indescribable, there was a time when they could not find water for a whole week, waiting for the rain to come when women scooped water from bomb craters to wash their hair, but all their hair was poisoned and lost.
Our clothes were patched up, and during the rainy season, the water from upstream poured down, soaking our whole bodies... Thinking back now, I still don't understand how we were able to make it through.
According to People's Armed Forces Hero Pham Thi Thao, "every action we take is always with the thought of not letting the soldiers on the battlefield go hungry, cold, lacking weapons, food and ammunition. We always remind each other that not being able to deliver goods to the front is a mistake towards the soldiers on the front line. Such as Lo Xo slope, Cop slope, Ong Day slope, Xuan Mai slope, Eo Gio, Tranh river, Le pass... have become familiar places to the female soldiers of Battalion 232. Ms. Thao said:
“During a shipment to Que Son, 6 comrades were killed and 9 were injured. On that shipment, 15 of my sisters and I carried medicine and medical equipment from Dai Loc transit station to the border of Que Son. On the way back, the enemy shelled our formation, killing and injuring 15 comrades. I was the only one left unharmed. Waiting for the American planes to withdraw, we quickly carried our comrades’ bodies out and buried them on a nearby hill. After peace, we returned to find the remains, but it took too long, the burial area had been plowed over many times, so we only found 2 comrades.”
Time is like a layer of dust gradually covering memories, but the flowers of Truong Son forest every year when mentioned still exude the pride, the simple beauty of the daughters of the homeland who once fought and died, knowing that life is to give, not just to receive.
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