The Women Who Fought for Hanoi

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/opinion/vietnam-war-women-soldiers.html

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Thirty-six years after she last took aim with her AK-47 assault rifle, Ngo Thi Thuong’s phone rang.

Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who had led the North Vietnamese military during the Vietnam War, was looking for the woman who had shot down an American bomber in June 1968. In the nearly four decades that had passed, she had worked many jobs and raised three children. Few people outside her family had heard her wartime stories.

Heroines and striking female figures are not new in Vietnam — they have played an integral role in Vietnamese history for millenniums. In the 1st century A.D., the Trung sisters, often called Vietnam’s earliest national patriots, led a three-year rebellion against the Chinese Han dynasty, which ruled their country. The female legacy persists in the modern era; in all of Vietnam’s recent conflicts, women have been crucial. They fought alongside men and carried heavy loads down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Yet as the historian Karen G. Turner notes in her book “Even the Women Must Fight,” “Women warriors, so essential to Vietnam’s long history and so important in the most photographed war in history, have remained invisible.”

The following are stories from women who were all soldiers for the North Vietnamese Army in the war against the United States. Most were young when they joined — teenagers, barely out of school or too poor to attend in the first place. Some had seen war already, yet still had no idea what they would find this time around. For a few, motherhood came before they fought, while for others, it was not until after they returned home.

Their experiences shaped the rest of their lives and those of their children — those children they cared for and raised to become the next generation of Vietnamese, who were to define the nation in its postwar years. It is through the stories of these women that it is possible to catch a glimpse into how a nation torn by conflict for decades has rebuilt itself, a glimpse into the memories of those who have worked to nurture this nation — and themselves — to try to become whole again.

Le Thi My Le

I was born in 1946, about 150 kilometers from Hue by the Nhat Le River. That’s why I am named My Le. It means “Beautiful.”

In July 1965, I heard the appeal from the government, saying that because the war was so fierce they needed volunteers to help. I really wanted to become a youth volunteer, but I was still too young. But because they needed people, they took me anyway.

We had about 200 people in the youth brigade, about two-thirds of them women. I was in charge of a unit with 10 people. I was the only woman. In 1968 during the cease-fire, I got married. Then I went back to fighting in the war.

I had my first child in 1971. Having a child during the war was hard — my feelings changed after I had my daughter. I wasn’t scared before I was a mother, but after I had my daughter, I was. I was afraid of death. I had two more children, one boy in 1973 and another in 1975. When I had my youngest, I said to my husband, “The war is finished now, honey, so you’re not going to die,” and I named my son “Great Victory.” But because my husband was a professional soldier, he stayed at Con Co Island even after the war, living far away until he retired in 1988.

Raising my children myself was so hard, I cannot even say it. You know, it was very dangerous when I was fighting in the war. You could die anytime. But raising my kids alone was much harder. Sometimes, I would just sit by myself and cry.

I still dream about the war sometimes. I dream about when a bomb is about to explode, and I shout to my unit to lie down. I have seen so many things, saw eight out of 10 people in my unit become wounded or die at once. War is cruel. Cruel. When you have a war, people and families are divided — between husband and wife, parent and child. Now my wish is that there is no war in the world, that we can help each other lead our lives instead of fighting. That is my message. I want peace.

Nguyen Thi Hoa

The war was tough — especially because of how cruel the American soldiers were. For example, once they came to the village and saw a pregnant woman who they thought was somehow having a relationship with a Vietnamese Communist. So they poured detergent and hot chili water into her mouth, and stood on her belly until they forced the baby out.

At that time, I was only 15. I knew that the war had nothing to do with that woman and her baby. When I heard stories and witnessed the cruelty of the American soldiers, I felt great hatred toward the enemy. Because I was single and only 15 I thought, “If I sacrifice myself, if I die, that would be easier than if I were married and had children.” So I joined the war.

One woman’s sacrifice is nothing — only like a grain of sand. But many women, many grains, can contribute a lot, and those contributions can help the country. According to traditional Vietnamese culture, the woman is dependent on three things. First, she is dependent on her father. Then when she gets married, she is dependent on her husband’s family. Whatever they say, she has to follow, even though sometimes she gets mistreated and is beaten. If her husband dies, then she has to follow her sons. As a woman, she is totally dependent on others.

When I was young, I knew we had to figure out how to escape from this oppression. And the only way to do it was to follow the revolution. The war did change the position of women in society. After the war ended in 1975, the country tried to set a new standard for women. We called this the Woman of the New Life; they are faithful to the family, but they also have a chance to study and to be successful. Now, we can contribute to building society and also take care of raising our children. The war made me a better mother, taught me a new way to raise my children — as a liberated woman.

Ngo Thi Thuong

I worked as a militant for the North, which was very important work. We had to bring rice, weapons and ammunition to the soldiers in the South. One day, in June 1968, when we were transporting goods, three U.S. airplanes discovered us and began to shoot at us. So we took our guns and fired back. When I shot the first time, I didn’t hit the plane. So I lay down and placed the rifle against a tree and aimed. When I shot the second time, I shot right at the gas tank, and the whole airplane exploded, and crashed into the next hill.

Then I saw something falling from the sky — I thought it was a bomb, but actually, it was the pilot parachuting down. So I ran, followed the parachute. When the pilot landed, he had already untied one side of his parachute, but I came and put my gun right to the guy’s neck, and said, “Stay still.” He raised his hands, and I told my friends that they should cut up the parachute rope, so we had something to tie him with.

Thirty-six years later, a man from a government office called. He asked, “What did you do during the war, did you achieve anything?” After I told him the story, he told me that General Giap had been looking for me for 36 years. When I met with him, General Giap asked me, “Why are you so good?” and I said, “It’s probably also luck, but I just followed the words I was taught.”

Of course no one wants war. The life of the human being is sacred. You don’t want the war, you don’t want to fight, but when the enemy comes you have no choice. We had to protect our country, had to protect the life of our people.

Hoang Thi No

I was born in 1949 in the countryside outside Hue, where I lived with my parents. I joined the war when I was about 15 years old. At that age, I could understand, could see that the Americans had come and were trying to control and take my country. At that moment every woman and man joined the war, and I wanted to as well.

When I joined the war, I joined the group that gathered information. We would go around and see what the Americans were doing, and then we would send that information to the leader. A bit later, I joined the group that rounded up other women to join the war. At the time, all the women and I were very young, and we didn’t know really about the war and its plan. We just had to believe in the government, that everything would be O.K. If we had any problems, even though we didn’t really know the grand plan or the next step, we were always happy to be fighting for our country. We were ready to die.

There were many difficulties. Everyone was very poor, but everyone loved each other and tried to trust each other. Now, we have freedom, maybe life is easier, but money controls many things. So when I talk to my daughters about the war, I tell them how to love and trust other people. I tell them how people followed the laws, the rules of the government.

Nguyen Thi Hiep

I grew up in Hue. My parents passed away when I was 3 years old, and I had to live with my grandparents. At that time, my family was a rural family and we were very poor, so when my parents got sick they couldn’t get medicine.

In 1946, when the war with France began, I was living in the small village. Many in the village wanted to fight in the war, and so I joined, too. I was 14. I didn’t go to school, but when I joined the war, in the evening they taught me. You see, that time in Vietnam was very difficult because France was there, and Vietnam’s government was terrible, and the people were very poor. Many people had lost their children, and I had lost my parents when I was 3, so I wanted to join the war.

During the French war, I made mines and planted them. After that, I worked to organize other women to join the war, too. The women had anger, had pride, had their health, and so they wanted to join with the soldiers to fight.

When I was 19, I got married and had my son. And when I was 20 — my son was just 6 months old — my husband died. When my son was 15, he joined in the American war with me. One day, the soldiers were taking their guns to go out to Hue, and the American soldiers surrounded my son and shot him. I lost my son. And my husband was dead, too. Everything that I loved was gone.

Many people who fought in the war, maybe they could never forgive America. But when I joined the war, I knew everything had two sides. And the sides had the same hurt together. In Vietnam, maybe we lost our country, lost our family, had a lot of people die — but in America it is the same. All the soldiers are the sons of parents, and they lost their children, too. It is all the same, the same hurt.

This series is part of A Woman’s War, a project that documents the stories of women who have served in recent conflicts. The interviews were conducted in Hue, Vietnam, in July 2010 through a translator and have been edited for clarity.