Vietnamese Veterans

VIETNAMESE VETERANS RUBEN HAMELINK

VIETNAMESE VETERANS PREFACE Julia Zaremba

The idea behind the project dates back to 2011, when Ruben Hamelink (1992, The Netherlands) finished high school and decided to buy a one-way ticket to South East Asia. First stop: Hà Nội, Vietnam. Vietnam wasn’t a random choice: during his last year of high school Ruben had developed a specific interest in the USVietnam conflict, one of the topics he studied for his final exams.

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VIETNAMESE VETERANS THE PORTRAITS

Lý Yên was a commander in the army for 40 years, and he fought in three wars. In 1951, during the struggle against the French, he and his troops were hiding in a tunnel when the tunnel collapsed, killing most of them and leaving the others, including Lý Yên, badly injured. The army however, assuming he was dead, gave news of his death to his family. “Back home my family built an altar for me and mourned me for two years, it was only when I ran into one of my relatives that they found out I was actually still alive. Communication was very bad at the time; we couldn’t write letters home because if the enemy found them, they would know that the family supported the anti-French guerrilla, and they would arrest them or kill them. I had no idea they thought I was dead.”

Although war was tough and terrible things happened, fighting in the army is the only youth Lý Yên knows and from time to time looks back to it nostalgically: “I miss the war. I wish I could go back on duty. I often dream about it and think back to those days, but when I do I only remember the good things, such as the friendships with my comrades. Only a few of them are still alive today and most of them are too weak to come to our gatherings.”

Born in 1930 Living in Hà Nôi Fought in Anti-French Resistance War, American Resistance War and China-Vietnam Border War

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Khương Xuân Mùi was stationed in a territory that today has become part of Laos, where he protected and repaired telegraph cables. “The roads were very small, and the Americans dropped a lot of bombs on us. In those years I lost many of my friends. I got injured twice: once a bullet went through my cheek, and another time a bomb fell next to the cave where I was hiding, making it collapse. Both times I was very lucky to survive.”

Born in 1942 Living in Diên Biên Phu Fought in American Resistance War

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Nguyễn Văn Đạt is the only son out of eight children, and as such he was officially exempt from joining the army. However, when the war began he felt the desire to fight for Vietnam’s independence, and so in 1971 he voluntarily joined the North Vietnamese Army, undergoing training to become a foot soldier: “As soon as I finished my training I was sent to Quảng Trị with most of the others I had been trained with. Many never made it to Quảng Trị; they either died or were so badly injured they had to be carried back to Hà Nội.”

After the war Nguyễn Văn Đạt got married and he and his wife tried to have children. However, after nine miscarriages they were told that the miscarriages could be a result of his exposure to Agent Orange during the war; this diagnosis could also explain his current poor health and memory loss.

Born in 1953 Living in Hà Nôi Fought in American Resistance War

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Hồ Văn Trung voluntarily joined the American Resistance War as a young man: “I was very young, so I wasn’t even officially allowed to carry a gun.” In 1961 he was sent to the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to join a patrol troop whose duty was to protect the carriers along the trail. It was on the Hồ Chí Minh Trail that he met the woman that later became his wife; she was working as a supplies carrier. In 1964, as the conflict worsened, he was sent to fight in the coastal lowlands where he was promoted to commander: “Thanks to the love I held for my country I had no fear, not even when bombs came down like rain.” In the lowlands his division of 600 soldiers fought against 2500 American and South Vietnamese and managed to beat them in a day and a night, although the Americans were equipped with tanks and helicopters. 1500 of them were killed, and the rest retreated. “We only killed our enemies when we had no other choice, and we never tortured them; this was the policy of the North Vietnamese Army. There was no cruelty on our side, sometimes we would even share our food with prisoners. Of course as a commander I had to order a few killings, but I only did it when I had no other choice and even then it wasn’t easy.”

Born in 1940 Living in Ra Hang, Quang Tri Fought in American Resistance War

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When he was a young man Hồ Văn Can fought for 3 years in the Vietcong, the guerrilla forces that fought against the Americans and the South Vietnamese, before officially joining the Northern Vietnamese Army in Quảng Trị. He fought in the 81-day battle of 1972 which he recalls as being one of the most violent he ever witnessed with countless soldiers from either sides losing their lives. By that time however he had become accustomed to the war and its paradoxes: “The battle was fought at night, during the day we played cards with the Southern Vietnamese soldiers, then at night we killed each other.”

Like most of his peers Hồ Văn Can spent his whole youth fighting: “As a young man I never thought about what would happen after the war, or dared to fantasize about the future; all I could see was the present, made of smoke, deaths and killings, and all I thought about was fighting for a free Vietnam. We sacrificed our personal lives so that young Vietnamese people today can have better ones.

It was tough, but I don’t regret it: the war also left us some special memories and taught us to live by strong values.”

Born in 1940 Living in A Môr, Quang Tri Fought in American Resistance War

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“When the war began it didn’t matter if you were a man or a woman, we all wanted to defend our country. Many women volunteered to join the revolutionary forces against the Americans.” Hồ Thị Bưa was one of them. She was born in 1943 in a village not far from where she lives today; at 17 she joined the North Vietnamese Army and became part of a transportation group whose task was to carry supplies from her village to Huế, on foot. Each one of them carried between 20 to 30 kg of weapons, food and petrol at a time. They were always on the move in order to avoid being discovered and so only stopped to rest in ally bases when it became strictly necessary. Ally bases, however, were often under enemy attack, and during one of these bombings Hồ Thị Bưa injured her leg so badly she had to abandon the transportation group.

After her recovery she was sent to the army’s medicine school along the Hồ Chí Minh Trail to study and become a nurse and having completed her studies, she went to work in a hospital near the battlefield, on the trail that went from Quảng Bình to Huế. She and Hồ Văn Can, her husband, met in the army and got married in 1975: “For a woman of my ethnicity I got married very old, but during the war, victory was the priority, not our personal lives.”

Born in 1943 Living in A Môr, Quang Tri Fought in American Resistance War

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Nguyễn Kim Hùng joined the army in 1985. “The government requested that I join the army, so I did, and got sent to fight the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.” He stayed in the army for five years, and then while on a reconnaissance mission, he stepped on a mine and badly injured his leg. “I owe my life to the comrade and friend who brought me back to camp.” His injuries however were too bad to be treated in the camp, so two days later he was transported back to Vietnam, and his leg was amputated: “I was lucky, it was only a small mine, I lost a leg but I could have lost my life instead.”

Born in 1966 Living in Ho Chí Minh City Fought in Cambodian–Vietnamese War

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“One day, while we were on our way to some villages in the mountains to recruit for the Vietnamese army, the truck I was on fell off the ridge. Four out of six of the people that were on the truck died, only me and one other soldier survived. I was very lucky, but I still suffered severe burns on 81% of my body. After that I spent a long time in hospitals. The skin on my hands was so badly burned that it is still very hard for me to use them.”

Born in 1964 Living in Tinh Ky, Quang Ngãi Fought in Cambodian-Vietnamese War

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Hồ Văn Sơ joined the North Vietnamese Army in 1959 and transported supplies along the Hồ Chí Minh Trail until 1963, when he volunteered to go and fight a fierce battle which was being fought near his home village. After that battle he joined a local mobile team that he stayed with until the end of the war. During this time he fought in 63 battles and eventually became a major: “Day and night, I never let fear overtake me.” One of his weapons from that time is today on display in a local war museum: “I’m happy we won those battles, and the war, but I miss the comrades who died; sometimes I stay awake at night thinking about them.

But I didn’t let memories from the war affect me too much after it ended, I just coped with what had happened by looking into the future rather than the past.”

Born in 1937 Living in Ba Linh, Quang Tri Fought in American Resistance War

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VIETNAMESE VETERANS RUBEN HAMELINK Vietnamese Veterans is a book about the personal stories, memories and feelings of the men and women who fought for Vietnam in four different wars throughout the past century, and focuses on how these wars have influenced their lives.

The project acknowledges and gives a voice to those people who have played such crucial roles in Vietnamese history, and yet whose stories have remained largely unknown.

Photographer Ruben Hamelink (1992, The Netherlands) travelled around Vietnam photographing and interviewing Vietnamese veterans in the areas around Điện Biên Phủ, Hà Nội, Hồ Chí Minh City and the province of Quảng Trị.

The resulting portraits speak out a medley of emotions and feelings such as pride, nostalgia, fear, and pain.

Born in Living in Fought in

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ISBN 978-94-6226-084-9