Associate Professor Dr. Pham Thanh Hung - Vice Head of the Faculty of Literature, student of the Faculty of Literature, class 15 - was one of hundreds of students of Hanoi National University who put on military uniform and went to the front to fulfill the duty of a citizen when the country was in danger. Until now, the impression of the fierceness and tragedy of the war still lingers in his heart like an inconsolable torment...
- Could you please share your memories of joining the army when you were a student at Hanoi National University?I and hundreds of students from Hanoi University set off in the fall of 1971. September of that year was also the flood season. Hanoi was on red alert because the Red River dike might break. Before the day of departure, I also participated in flood relief work for the Faculty of Literature. The work was simple. Just carrying library books from the first floor to the fourth floor, in case the dike broke, the school flooded, and the books were damaged. Holding heavy textbooks and climbing each step of the stairs, I wondered: Am I keeping the books for myself or for someone else? After the war, will I live to return to read these textbooks? Vietnamese poetry has very good lines about the departure of Hanoi soldiers on the day of the national resistance: “
Remember the night I left, the sky and earth were on fire / The whole city was burning behind me…” or "
The person leaving does not look back / Behind the sunny porch, leaves fall all over…”. In 1971, when we set out, there was no fire behind us, nor was there any sunlight at the foot of the steps. Behind us, the student soldiers, were vast fields of silver water. The water flooded the potato fields outside the city, the entire Yen Vien station, many rice warehouses that were about to be sent to the battlefield were submerged several meters deep. We gave our unfinished notebooks to our girlfriends. Paper was very scarce at that time, so we had to write in small letters, carefully and economically, saving each page. Friends didn’t have much time to say goodbye and sob. Some went to the battlefield, others went to save the flood. The North was busy preparing ammunition, rice, and new soldiers. The South was silent from gunfire. But it was a very suspicious silence of war. The country was like a soldier, silent because it needed to hold its breath to prepare to pull the trigger: The 1972 Campaign was about to begin.
- At that time, how intense was the impression of war for a young intellectual like you?The most intense impression of war for me was when I participated in my first battle as a soldier. I was grazed by an enemy bullet that grazed my ear, my helmet turned half a circle, and I was dizzy… When I crossed the Ben Hai River, I thought that no matter what happened in battle, I would have to become a hero, at most a poet. When I was hit by the first bullet, I felt cold and thought to myself: Maybe my nerves are not capable of becoming a hero. And already shaking like this, it is difficult to write poetry!
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Back then, the student soldiers going to war must have had certain differences compared to their other comrades?Students who join the army are often assigned to technical units, or assigned to jobs that require calculation. For example, martyr Nguyen Van Thac, a student of the Mathematics department, trained in the same company as me, was assigned to the infantry division (F 325), but at that time was assigned to use a 2W radio. He also sacrificed himself with the 2W on his shoulder. In general, the number of student soldiers who fought hand-to-hand, directly with the enemy is not much. The difference of student soldiers is probably in their spiritual needs: They crave experience more than they crave victory. They fight and try to understand the nature of the war. They try to collect information to know the situation of the campaign, predict the situation of the front and international news. They worry and think more. Every student who goes to war has a diary or a notebook to write down. What is the purpose of writing? Not yet. But it is necessary to write, because everyone has a hunch that it might be the last writing left behind. As for the students of the two faculties of Literature and History at that time, they took notes for another reason: They needed to accumulate documents, because they had the duty to be witnesses of a rare and tragic era. The days of experiencing the taste of university had turned them into gunmen in their thinking.
- Up until now, what significance has the time you spent as a soldier directly fighting on the battlefield had on your life?In mid-July, I went to Quang Tri with the group of veterans from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Almost every year, I go to Quang Tri, visit the Road 9 cemetery, burn incense for my comrades and friends in my company who are resting in peace scattered across each grave. Returning from the cemetery, I feel more peaceful, love this life more and consider myself a lucky and happy person. I am also proud that I once fought in the same trenches with the martyrs who are lying quietly under those rows of tombstones. They sacrificed like heroes, like innocent, pure and noble young men, they fell without needing anyone to acknowledge their achievements. I remind myself not to "beg for the past", trying to erase the haunting memories of war, trying to look towards the future, but clearly the past of war remains in me as a temporary asset called "savings". Whenever I feel sad, I take it out to sip and console myself: in my youth, I did something meaningful in life. Savoring the memories, I became generous and forgiving of others and myself.
- How does the soldier's "quality" or personality affect your current work as a scientist and lecturer?I think that soldier quality is a very general and sometimes vague concept. Because there are many types of soldiers, there are soldiers in peacetime, soldiers in war, office soldiers, technical soldiers, infantry soldiers. Perhaps we are talking about and should talk about soldier quality. Actually, the lifestyle of soldiers, in my opinion, has a negative impact on scientific activities. Because of immediate victory, because of sudden death, soldiers in battle often do not have the habit of thinking and considering for a long time. The debauchery, freedom, recklessness, and disregard for life are the inherent nature of soldiers. This personality trait is not entirely negative. It is the wild style and the blood of the gangster that creates the charm and beauty of soldiers. But that beauty, that style is only beneficial to art, not to science. However, when discussing the teaching work, the classroom activities of a lecturer, the "soldier quality" can become a positive catalyst. Whenever I remember that I am a soldier, a wounded veteran left from the Quang Tri battlefield in 1972, I feel closer to the students. Many students, after meeting me and listening to a few sentences from my lectures, discovered that I was a soldier. They are so smart and sensitive. Of course, part of it is because they see me as their fathers and grandfathers - people of the generation who held guns more than pens.
- Once a soldier, now a teacher in the classroom, what do you want to convey to students through your lectures?To the students, my annual appeal is: take time off from wandering around and learn and use a foreign language. Our generation’s memory was once used to record weapons and identify types of bombs and mines. The war is over, so there is no need to waste memory. Take advantage of it while your brain is still young. And foreign languages will unlock the door for you to enter the world, to go further and deeper into this life.
Thank you for your insightful sharing!
