Bui Van Khanh & Duong Van Doai (2008) Jeffrey Wolin

Bui Van Khanh and Duong Van Doai Vietnam People’s Army Sergeants “We enlisted in the army together on the same day. We were friends and had studied in the same high school. We walked from our commune here in Thai Binh Province to Kon Tum in the south. It took three months on foot. We were in the same division but assigned to different companies after we arrived in Kon Tum. We became closer during those three months. We agreed that if we both survived we would return home and find each other. During the trip south we took care of each other and if one of us got sick the other would carry his pack or weapon. The pack weighed about 50 kilograms with rice, ammunition, clothing and so on. We sang two songs: “Independence in the South” and “Climb Truong Son Mountain.” Truong Son Trail was what the Americans called the Ho Chi Minh Trail. There was a mountain range the trail crossed near the Laotian border where North and South Vietnam met. So the song was about climbing the mountain and crossing the border into the south. There was a long line of us and we had a leader who knew the way. The next company would take a slightly different trail. When we came to a river we put all our gear in a big plastic bag and swam across while holding the bag. Or else we took a small boat that could carry three or four people. The boat would go back and forth all night long until we were all across. The name of our commune, Dong Hoa, means ‘peace’. From our commune, fourteen people marched south together in 1971. We were all close. We all knew when we enlisted that we might never return home. Five of the fourteen died and the rest of us received serious wounds. When the two of us met back here in our hometown after the war we felt very happy. We hugged. We cried. The war was so terrible but we survived. We have remained best friends ever since.”