Mr. Hoang Dinh Buong (75 years old, Ba Don town) is a retired teacher and the author of many poetry collections and wartime memoirs. Half a century after peace was restored, he still persistently preserves his memories through writing, as if to tell future generations a better understanding of the price of independence.
The person passing through the flames
With a love for literature and a passion for reading, young Hoang Dinh Buong entered university with a simple dream: to become a literature teacher. But in 1971, when the country entered the most brutal phase of the war against the US, he—like more than 200 students and lecturers at Vinh University of Education—left the classroom, enlisted in the army, and went to the battlefield.
On the march from Nghe An to Tri Thien, from Quang Tri to the mountains of Thua Thien-Hue, their equipment included not only an AK rifle and a backpack full of ammunition, but also a small notebook. Inside were poems—where he recorded his thoughts, anxieties, and fragmented emotions caught between life and death. His unit had a very special name: the Literature-History Squad. War had shattered their dreams of standing on the giảng platform, but bombs and bullets could not extinguish their love for literature.
Author Hoang Dinh Buong (top row, right) with his classmates before the march. |
During his years on the battlefield, he chose to keep a diary in verse. Once, his hastily written, handwritten poems were burned to ashes amidst the gunfire. Twice he was wounded, and twice his poems were lost to the smoke of gunfire. But thankfully, he still remembered those heartfelt verses and preserved them. Some poems were pieced together from memory, from still-painful scars, from the names of fallen comrades. In his poem "Roll Call," he wrote about the pain that spanned two shores of time: "Half the platoon lost / Half wounded / Reeking of war / A roll call with a numb heart." Only those who had experienced war, witnessed the pain and loss, could have such a unique way of "taking roll," which, as he said, was "a roll call with both blood and tears."
The language is unpretentious, without metaphors, smooth or affected. But it is precisely this simplicity that resonates directly with the reader's heart, conveying the most genuine and raw emotions about loss. Hoang Dinh Buong's poetry is not merely his own personal expression. It is the echo of a generation. It is a farewell left unsaid, a message from home never sent, the last glance of a friend who has passed away. For him, writing is about preserving memories for those who no longer have the chance to tell their stories. He once wrote about a friend who fell in the forest, an unfinished letter still in his backpack. He wrote about nights of marching when the murmuring of the Truong Son streams sounded like a mother's lullaby. He wrote about the silence of nameless graves, where death needs no record, a withered leaf is enough to serve as a tombstone.
During his 10 years on the battlefield, his 6th-Phu Xuan Infantry Regiment fought in 2,828 battles. More than 12,000 soldiers sacrificed their lives. On peacetime, only 7 members of the Literature-History squad remained, but each bore the scars of bombs and bullets. He said: “The battles have haunted my life, seeping into every fiber of my being. Even at this age, the blood in me is still the blood of a soldier.” That soldier, in the very first days of battle, used charcoal to write verses by the poet To Huu on a wooden wall as a solemn oath: “Our land, we will defend / Not an inch will be given up! / This is a moment of life and death / What do we need blood and bones for?”
"Nothing can be forgotten."
Returning from the battlefield, he returned to his initial dream: to become a literature teacher. But the war didn't end like a book. It silently followed him into the classroom, into every lesson. One time, while teaching the poem "Comrade," he choked up. Another day, while writing on the blackboard, his hand suddenly froze, afraid of accidentally writing the name of a deceased friend. The fragile boundary between "alive" and "deceased" always haunted those who had experienced the fire of war. As he once wrote in his poem "Begging for Time": " Hair turning gray / Half alive, the living / Half restless, the dead / Half the past / Half reflecting on the present / throbbing with the future / Life's journey is so vast and long / A misstep, becoming a guilty person / The poem 'Truong Son' we wrote into the clouds and mountains / Will anyone read it at the far end of the sky?"
The poetry collections and essays of author Hoang Dinh Buong all write about war. |
For Teacher Buong, war was not just a story to be told, but a quiet moral lesson, deeply ingrained in every lesson. In the eyes of generations of students, he was a teacher who tirelessly sowed knowledge from the "fire" of the battlefield and through unforgettable memories. In his classes, students heard about Nguyen Du and Nguyen Trai, but also about the anonymous soldiers, names that remain only in poetry and the memories of their comrades. He didn't preach morality; he told stories steeped in blood, tears, and compassion, enough to keep students silent for hours and remember them forever.
Author Hoang Dinh Buong, born in 1950, was formerly the Principal of Luong The Vinh High School (Ba Don Town). He has published many collections of poems and essays about the war, notably "Saddle After the War," "Beggar of Time," "Roll Call," "Recurring Melody of Life," "The Regiment's Sorrows," etc. Among them, the essay collection "Saddle After the War" won the B Prize at the 6th Luu Trong Lu Literature and Art Award (2016-2020). |
Besides poetry, Hoang Dinh Buong is also the author of many emotionally rich essays and memoirs. Books such as "The Saddle After the War," "The Regiment's Sorrows," etc., are not only war documents but also a stream of literary expression. His writing is deeply authentic, without embellishment or artificiality. Each character, each detail reflects someone who lived, sacrificed, and was remembered by him with the heart of a soldier. As writer Nguyen The Tuong assessed, "Reading the writings of a former war veteran who was a literature student about to graduate and lecture, readers will 'pick up' countless valuable details of war."
Mr. Hoang Dinh Buong, 75 years old, lives with his small family in Ba Don town. His simple study corner features a wooden shelf neatly arranged with poetry collections, essays, and textbooks. He still reads 50-60 pages a day, a habit he can't break as someone who has dedicated his life to knowledge.
Not everyone who has experienced war chooses to recount it. Some remain silent because the pain is too great. Others forget to live more peacefully. But he—a man who has been through the flames of war—chose to write, not to glorify himself, but to preserve a part of the truth for future generations. For him, each line of poetry, each page of a book, is an incense offering to those who have passed away, because, as the Russian poet Olga, whom he always cherishes, says: "No one is forgotten / Nothing can be forgotten." His writings serve as a silent reminder that peace does not come easily and that memories need to be recounted so that the lessons of the past are not forgotten.
Dieu Huong
Source: https://baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202504/song-de-ke-lai-viet-de-giu-gin-2225925/
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