The wild dogs in Bu Dop and the haunting memory of war

The haunting image stuck in my mind when I read the pages about the wild dogs in Bu Dop in the chapter “To the Southeast” of the autobiography “In Search of a Star”. When our army occupied Bu Dop District, before leaving, the enemy army threatened and chased the people to Phuoc Long because they were on guard on the way to escape, if the liberation army fired artillery to chase them, there would be people to shield them. During the process of going to the field to collect documents and write articles to send to the rear, the author and the working group witnessed that Bu Dop town with more than ten thousand people had only about ten families with people left. In the houses without owners, buffaloes, cows, pigs and chickens could find some leaves and grass in the garden to stave off hunger, but the dogs had nothing to eat in the middle of a ruined battlefield, so they became skinny wild animals with wild eyes that seemed to be on fire. They formed a swarm of up to hundreds of them and stood in an arc outside where the R propaganda team was. They kept their distance and had no intention of attacking people, but seemed to beg for food. Every time the soldiers threw out some food, a terrifying fight broke out, tearing and tearing at each other.

To save the poor dogs, every time the author cooked, he added a little rice and spread it out behind the house and in the yard when they were not waiting, and the lucky ones who found it ate it. This happened throughout the entire time the working group stayed in Bu Dop. But what haunted the readers was not the terrifying fights between the dogs fighting for food. On the day they left Bu Dop, although the working group left very early to avoid the harsh summer sun, hundreds of dogs followed behind - a unique "farewell" not between blood relatives, comrades, teammates but a pack of dogs that had been given bowls of rice by the soldiers during the days of hunger. They followed in a long line as if to thank the soldiers for taking care of them. At first, they went by the hundreds, then gradually decreased and finally only one light-haired dog followed the author all the way. The sun was hot, and the author felt sorry for the animal. He raised a handful of rice to signal it, then broke off a piece and left it on the side of the road for it. But strangely, the animal only sniffed the rice and hurriedly ran after it until the working group turned into the rubber forest. As if understanding the separation, the dog stood on the road and watched until the author and the working group disappeared into the forest.

"Dogs and horses understand each other" is an ancient idiom about the attachment between dogs and horses and their caregivers. But surely the author not only expressed his philosophy about life and human affairs when writing about stray dogs, but also wanted to say that in war there are countless fierce situations. No matter how imaginative someone is, they cannot fathom the terrible suffering that war causes. Not only does it exceed the limits of human endurance, but even animals fall into desperate situations of starvation and thirst. Both humans and animals in war do not enjoy a normal death like all other species born on earth. Or the story between the author and Aunt Nam in the suburbs of Huu Dao when the author was invited to attend a funeral. Seeing the simple, small hut with 3 altars, the author honestly asked, and Aunt Nam answered in a sad voice: “The middle altar is where I worship him. He went to work in the field and stepped on a mine and died. The two sides worship two boys, Ba and Tu. One was in the national army. The other was in the liberation army. We had to set up two altars so that they wouldn’t see each other every day. Today, we had to make a meal to worship Tu, so we had to pull the curtain to cover Ba’s altar”! The dialogue between the author and Aunt Nam reflected the ultimate pain that could not be expressed in words, a pain that piled up, tearing at the heart of a wife and mother when her two children were on opposite sides of the battle line before passing away.

Vietnam, a small nation, is always threatened by foreign invasion and time and time again, our people have had to go through challenges through wars to defend the country. Many literary works, many films and other forms of art have shown the obsession with war, so that humanity can read, watch and imagine its cruelty. However, war still takes place continuously all over the world, in one place the smoke of bombs has not yet cleared, but the fire of war in another place has been lit again. Martyrs' cemeteries with thousands of tombstones stretching from the South to the North, even in remote islands; lands of death due to toxic chemicals that the US imperialists sprayed on villages and hamlets of Vietnam; and the second and third generations of those directly exposed to toxic chemicals still have physical and mental disabilities... are the terrible evidences that war has left on this S-shaped land. Today's generation must know and understand the cruelty of war in order to fully appreciate the great contributions and sacrifices of previous generations, to fully understand the value of peace and to live responsibly towards the country.

Two books by comrade Pham Quang Nghi, former member of the Politburo and Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee, have many chapters about the battlefields of Binh Long, Loc Ninh, and Bu Dop in 1972-1973.

Source: https://baobinhphuoc.com.vn/news/9/170644/dan-cho-hoang-o-bu-dop-va-noi-am-anh-ve-chien-tranh