Father and son pairs fight against America

Mr. Man (left) and his father, Mr. Nguyen Phuc Cuong, had a surprising and emotional reunion under the canopy of Truong Son forest during the anti-American war (documentary photo)

Father meets son in the trenches fighting the Americans

Mr. Man did not keep his promise to make a pot of good tea and smoke a cigarette with me to watch the parade celebrating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and the reunification of the country. Because not long ago, he had followed his father and his comrades.

Mr. Nguyen Minh Man and his father - Mr. Nguyen Phuc Cuong, from Cao Due village, Nhat Tan commune (now Nhat Quang commune, Gia Loc) were one of the few father-son pairs in Hai Duong who went to the battlefield together to fight the Americans.

Mr. Nguyen Phuc Cuong was born in 1927, went through 3 wars against France, America and the Northern border war, returned home with a disability rate of 2/4.

After nearly 10 years in the Viet Bac War Zone, belonging to the heroic 246th Guard Regiment, based on the situation on the battlefield at that time, Mr. Cuong was mobilized to directly participate in combat in Group 559 - Truong Son Army. During his time in Viet Bac, during his leaves, his children were born one after another, some of whom followed in their father's footsteps to fight the enemy, wholeheartedly devoting themselves to the great frontline in the South.

When he was alive, Mr. Cuong told me that through the few letters from his family, he only knew that his eldest son, Mr. Man, had gone to war and would "go to war for a long time", but he never expected that one day he would meet his son under the canopy of the Truong Son forest filled with the thick smell of gunpowder.

At that time, Ta Le tunnel - the fire gate on Road 20 Quyet Thang was the most important frontier gate of the legendary Ho Chi Minh trail, located between Quang Binh and Laos. As Deputy Political Commissar and Chief of Political Department of Station 32, Mr. Cuong often asked for information about the Hai Duong troops. One day before Tet Mau Than 1968, the political commissar reported:

- Deputy Commissar, Man is a new person from Hai Hung.

Mr. Cuong blurted out:

- Man, are you from Cao Due village?

Looking up, in front of Mr. Cuong was a new soldier, white, thin and frail. The soldier stammered:

Hello boss!

That's how father and son met in the Truong Son mountain range.

When he was still alive, Mr. Man told me: Being given priority by the military station, every week he and his father were allowed to sleep together once to talk about their hometown, village, family, and war...

From Station 32, in 1969, Mr. Cuong was transferred to Station 35, while Mr. Man went to study military medicine at Command 559. They parted ways from then on.

When the war against the US was about to end, the old soldier Nguyen Phuc Cuong returned to the North, working in Military Region 3. In 1978 - 1979, he and his comrades in an artillery regiment fought the Chinese army, all the way to Tien Yen, Ba Che (Quang Ninh). The northern border was peaceful, Mr. Cuong transferred to the court system of Quang Ninh Special Zone until his retirement.

And it wasn't until 1982, when Mr. Cuong retired and his son was discharged from the army, that they met again.

After returning, Mr. Man still recited these verses: "In the past, my father went to fight the French/ I was still young and ran after him/ Now my hair is gray under my floppy hat/ My father met me in the trenches fighting the Americans/ With deep affection, my father called me comrade/ Then smiled as he listened to stories about his homeland... Father and son both laughed when the shadow of the American invaders/ Had to bow their heads for the two generations of father and son".

Don't recognize your father

Mr. Nguyen Minh Nhung lights incense on the altar of his father, who was also a comrade he met in the West during the war against America.

The day his father, Nguyen Van Nhuong, joined the army, Nguyen Minh Nhung was still young.

At that time, information about the battle was still sparse in Dich Son village, Hiep Hoa (Kinh Mon). When his father joined the army, information from home gradually became less and less and then stopped. Everyone thought that Mr. Nhuong had died, so Mr. Nhung was repeatedly refused permission by the commune to join the army.

In his imagination, Mr. Nhung always thought of his father as a soldier, wearing an umbrella, carrying a gun in the misty rain, rushing into battle and then lying down on the grass with a smile. Therefore, in the story under the banyan tree at the village entrance, the boy Nhung and his friends were determined that one day they would join the army.

It was not until 1974, when he was 17 years old, that Mr. Nhung was able to fulfill his wish. At that time, Mr. Nhung only knew that his father had joined the army but did not know which battlefield he was in or whether he was still alive or dead. After 3 months of training in Ben Tam (Chi Linh), Mr. Nhung was able to return home for Tet, and on the 7th of January, he returned to his unit and walked to Tien Trung train station. The group went straight to Thanh Hoa, then transferred to a car, went through the Western Truong Son of Laos, and then went to the West to fight, belonging to Company 2, Battalion 1, Regiment 207, Division 8, Military Region 8.

Mr. Nhung said that during his time on the battlefield, his unit was stationed near Saigon, so the puppet army attacked fiercely. There were battles where the enemy fought for hours and could not move, just lying under the artillery fire overhead. At those times, he always looked forward to the day of liberation, whether he lived or died, but he never thought about seeing his father again.

On April 30, 1975, although he and his comrades were close to Saigon, they did not know that it had been liberated. They were all ordered to go to the checkpoint along Route 4. Only when they saw people coming out to the streets cheering did they know that Saigon had been liberated. At that time, everyone hugged each other happily, knowing that the day they would return to their mother was very near.

One afternoon in Lap Vo (Dong Thap), the unit's contact person, accompanied by a middle-aged man, called Mr. Nhung to meet. The contact person asked Mr. Nhung: Do you know who this is?

"When my father joined the army, I was still young so my memory was quite vague. I really didn't think it was my father, I just thought he was a fellow countryman," said Mr. Nhung.

When the contact person said this was his father, Mr. Nhung stood still and could not utter a word, partly because he thought his father had passed away, and partly because he thought that if his father were still alive, there would be no way they would have met in this land that was also a battlefield.

The meeting between Mr. Nhung and his father was short, and they parted ways in the afternoon. After that, Mr. Nhung visited Mr. Nhuong in Long An a few times. Later, Mr. Nhuong worked at a re-education camp until he was discharged from the army and then returned home.

As for Mr. Nhung, after liberation, he continued to protect the southwestern border, advanced to Cambodia to fight Polpot to liberate the neighboring country, and then demobilized in 1981.

Now that his father, who was also his comrade, has passed away, Mr. Nhung has become a real farmer. Although life is difficult, Mr. Nhung always believes that he is still luckier than many of his comrades who have not been able to return for more than half a century.

TIEN HUY

Source: https://baohaiduong.vn/nhung-cap-bo-con-cung-danh-my-409743.html