January 19, 1970. Thank you dear comrade: you came to me with a true affection like a brother’s love. You are a place for me to lean on. Life is so complicated; I don’t know how to satisfy everyone, just like you said. Would it be natural if I was never sad when meeting trouble on the way? I have said many times that life is a colorful picture: next to the main color is red, victory red, and the green of dreams, but there is still the black mourning color and cold and courageous gray. Anyway, I still love life, the life of the revolutionary filled with love and burning with belief in her own strength.
Dear Tan, do you believe me? Please believe me, do you hear?
January 21, 1970. I find that for a few days I have been angry for no reason at all. What has caused it? My friends and I, none of us feels happy. I must not be that way. Please be severe on yourself, train yourself and know how to yield to him, become nice and kind, a responsible cadre, understanding all the people and knowing how to look after their interests above everything else first of all. I must be humble and courteous. Believe that people must bring admiration but that you must not admire yourself. Please be stern and control all your weaknesses.
January 22, 1970. An afternoon with a few people at Hoc Ban.* The CH class of Pho Cuong has already left so there is no-one in the empty houses. I returned and cannot hide my sadness at this place being empty. Am I thinking of anything in particular? I must believe that the people were also sad to leave this place. Oh! Love is always anxious in my heart.
January 24, 1970. Dew makes the night cold, the moon is bright like a mirror and the cold is just like a small knife pricking my skin. Parachute cloth is too thin so I shiver, and the cold won’t let me sleep. It seems that a lively emotion fills my heart. I heard the warm breathing of my beloved comrades and their hearts beat strongly in their chests. This struggle has thousands and thousands of hardships. Yesterday I passed boot prints from the pirates and an army which has yet to be buried just fallen on the road, with the wires of enemy mines all around the road. We went through the pass with no enemy activity, but soon they will return to the attack. Death is so near and simple. What makes us feel that life is still growing strong and that love remains with us… a dream of tomorrow still burning in our hearts and the hearts of all the people in the same unit… is this true beloved comrade?
January 28, 1970. There is hope and sadness shining in those eyes. When will the hope be realized… from a summer day with the fire of war burning the sky… from the night with the moonlight gloomy on the dusty road… from the hardships when the dead lie next to you? My dear Thuy, girl filled with strength and ideas, are you strong enough to extinguish that hope? Like the person planting a tree in the desert, for himself he thinks that only here can the plant be placed, but still there is a picture in his mind, the image of a thin and weak branch with its attractive flowers. No! This branch of flowers can only be planted in a copper vase: it will die if planted in the desert. We must understand that and act accordingly. Only when nature is controlled and fresh water is brought to the desert will the branch of flowers live: I don’t believe that I am not part of that generation!
January 29, 1970. Little Nga is dead: just a few days ago she stood here, her head to one side singing: “I still have the fish that the crab kicks; he lies on the cleft and has 8 small crab legs”*. Nga was born in the forest and mountains, with one hand her mother carried her, with the other hand she carried the sickle, studying and working for four years. The women of Viet Nam have a very hard life, but no-one has had more difficulties than Su: she married and had a child and took care of the baby without her husband’s support because of some misunderstanding. Through four years of hardships she raised the child while studying, looking older than her years. But she was successful: she is a pharmacist, a Party member, a mother with a good child, and a wife patient with her husband. She returned to the delta to be with her husband again and the happy days passed. She took her things back to the province and not a month later her daughter died.
Nga died because of swelling in her lungs which could not be treated because of an enemy attack. No one realized she was sick, so no one came to her house which was close to the attack. I am very sorry for her and her mother though Su is not good to me because she doesn’t understand me. All because of the war… if there was no war a simple disease like this wouldn’t have caused Nga to die.
