GIAO CHỈ SAN JOSE: July 1954: 70 years later – since the country was divided
July 1954: 70 years later,
since the country was divided
Giao Chi San Jose
(Written to friends in April 1954. We, 300 young men, presented ourselves at Ngoc Ha camp to mobilize and go to Da Lat to sing the song ” Oh Hanoi”. At the age of 20, we had never known love. After 21 years of fighting, in April 1975, the course Cuong Quyet continued singing . How many beautiful dreams, melted into smoke, flew away with the afternoon clouds.
Today, July 2024, I went to the nursing home to visit my classmates. The three colonels, the green and red beret brigade commanders, and the military company that went to fight in Quang Tri were all gone, only Ngo Van Dinh remained. I leaned over to listen to Dinh ask small:
– How many guys are outside?
– Still in contact with 4 guys. All over 90. I report. Luyen just came to visit.
– I was going to say. Practicing Northern Jump for 21 years in solitary confinement and still alive. Amazing.
– I said. Don’t worry. There’s someone out there who’ll play with you.
– OK, you live to take care of your brothers.)
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July 20, 2014 marked the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Accords that divided the country. We celebrated the farewell night to Hanoi. Vietnamese soldiers from the US Army attended. Singer Ý Lan performed. songs of the homeland. We had the opportunity to recall memories from a very long time ago, when we were teenagers during the resistance war, standing behind the pillar of the communal house of Binh Hai village, Yen Mo district, listening to the very small Thai Thanh sing songs for Popular Education Program. The melodious lyrics of childhood still echo in youth. Anyone who goes to Thanh Van district market, ask Ms. Tu if she can spell yet,,,?. Through so many ups and downs Today, I am still fortunate to sit and listen to Ms. Thai’s daughter sing: My homeland has a beautiful canal.
Today, I sat down to re-read an old article about the Ben Hai River, which has become a 70-year-old story.
The old age has increased by 10 years, but the history of the country divided in two fundamentally remains unchanged. I would like to re-edit and send to my readers as follows.
Written for July 20, 1954
The country being divided in 1954 was indeed a disaster, but the unification in 1975 was even more miserable. To complete the so-called “Liberation of the South”, the Viet Cong had to pay off their debt with mountains and rivers. Because of the story Today’s news, let’s remember yesterday’s story. 70 years ago, on this day, the Vietnamese people migrated for the first time.
Does July 2024 remind us Vietnamese refugees of any memories? Seventy years ago, in July 1954, the Geneva Accords divided the country in two. Today, more than half a century and a great Far away, I would like to write a few words. First of all, some historical data, mentioned once at the end of my life.
In September 1945, Japan surrendered to the Allies, and World War II officially ended on the Pacific front. Ho Chi Minh led the Communist Party to declare Vietnam’s independence. The French returned to Indochina.
On December 19, 1946, the whole country was at war. In the days of the fiery Autumn of the past, all Vietnamese youth stood up to answer the call of the country. Pham Duy wrote the following lyrics : An Autumn of the year past, the revolution marched to Vietnam, with thousands of young people brandishing swords to break their chains. The South used this song to open the film We Want to Live. In the early days of the resistance, I was just over 14 years old. The age of bamboo shoots How naive and enthusiastic. At this time, no one knew anything about the Nationalists. People said: When the Autumn Revolution happened, he was 20 years old, he did not join the resistance, he was not a lover And I was a boy from Cua Bac school, Nam Dinh evacuated to Yen Mo, Ninh Binh also began the lesson of passionate patriotism.
Later I learned other magical quotes. When communism was born, he was 20 years old, if he did not follow communism, he had no heart. Twenty years later, he has not abandoned communism. He has no mass. brain.
Hanoi and Nam Dinh evacuated, students joined the self-defense force with the yellow star insignia and joined the capital regiment. In the South, Saigon’s young pioneers held bamboo sticks and joined forces to fight the French.
To this day, all the seniors 80 years old and above must still remember the fiery Autumn of 1946. Then the scorched earth resistance, then the evacuation, then the return to Qi, how many memories do they have? the distinctive language of an entire childhood.
Three years later, in March 1949, King Bao Dai returned from Hong Kong. The dawn of the new nationalist faction began to bloom bitterly in the arms of the French Union army.
1950: The war continued throughout the country until 1950. A year of many events. January, Communist China recognized communist Vietnam. February, the United States recognized the State of Vietnam. March, The United States began to aid France in Indochina. In June, the first group of American advisors arrived in Vietnam.
Then came the fateful year of 1954. In May 1954, Dien Bien Phu fell, and half of the soldiers who participated in the battle were Vietnamese national soldiers who shared the same fate of sacrifice and the fate of prisoners of war. Among them were Lieutenant Pham Van Phu. The Geneva Conference on Indochina opened. In June 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem returned from the United States to take office as prime minister. In July 1954, Geneva decided to divide the country at the parallel 17, on the Ben Hai River between the Hien Luong Bridge. And the fateful day of the entire nation was July 20, 1954. England, France, China, etc. signed the treaty with the Vietnamese communist side. The United States Ky and the national Vietnam did not sign. The then French Prime Minister promised the nation that the agreement must be signed by July 20, 1954. The meeting was held until midnight and it was not finished. The clock in the conference room stopped at 12. late hour The meeting continued until the next morning. After signing, the clock was restarted. The Vietnamese Foreign Minister, Mr. Tran Van Do, cried because the country was divided right at the conference. Le Duan, the communist commander in the South, was on his way. When he heard the news of the ceasefire in the North, he returned to continue leading the liberation effort. From Hanoi, a number of National Vietnamese officers and French officers attended the Trung Gia conference to decide on the ceasefire. . French units and Vietnamese light infantry battalions quietly withdrew from Bui Chu, Phat Diem, Thanh Hoa, and Nam Dinh, leaving behind painful panic in many autonomous Vietnamese dioceses.
In the North, the French and the nationalists were given a time limit of 80 days to gather in Hanoi, 100 days in Hai Duong and 300 days in Hai Phong. In the South, troops were gathered in Ham Tan for 80 days and Binh Dinh for 100 days. and Ca Mau 300 days.
Today, how many of us still remember the period of regrouping in the South and the migration of the North? Before leaving, the Southern army launched a campaign to plant people to stay behind and establish families. en masse to make an appointment to return two years after the negotiations and elections. Lieutenant Giao Chi participated in the Freedom Operation to Take Over Ca Mau and saw the communists gather to greet each other with two fingers spread out, promising to meet again after two years. , with the slogan: Leaving is victory, staying is glory. The Southern resistance to the North left pregnant women in the village and guns and ammunition buried in the backyard.
Meanwhile, in the North, the communists tried their best to block the nationalist troops from evacuating and to stop the great migration from August 1954. But the Nationalists still had enough one million people to leave. Lieutenant Vu Duc Nghiem , graduated from class 1 of Nam Dinh, migrated to the South with his unit and family when he was over 20 years old. From Phat Diem, he went with the 711th Light Infantry Battalion to Hai Duong and then withdrew to the South. Captain Le Kim Ngo evacuated the Engineering School from the North to Nha Trang and participated in the operation to take over Binh Dinh. Both Vu Duc Nghiem and Le Kim Ngo later had the opportunity to return to the North in communist prisons before the HO came to settle down. residing in the United States.
Also during the migration with his Catholic family, 17-year-old Pham Huan still remembers the Hanoi of his youth. After signing the Paris Agreement, Major of the Republic of Vietnam Pham Huan had the opportunity to return in an official delegation to wrote the work “One Day in Hanoi” in 1973. After that, Mr. Pham Huan once again said goodbye to Saigon in 1975. On July 7, 2004, Colonel Ha Mai Viet and I visited Pham Coach at Dr. Ngai’s Nursing Home in the Tully area of San Jose. Born in 1937, the Hanoi teenager who became a young officer in Saigon is still the youngest senior at the Nursing Home. “Eyes wide open, sending dreams across the border, at night I dream of Hanoi, Kieu’s fragrant figure.” Pham Huan said that if one day you take back Saigon, I will also take a wheelchair trip back to my hometown. He passed away in San Jose and never once back to Vietnam. But from July 1954 to July 2019, the days and months are long gone and the dream is far away. Pham Huan and poet Hoang Anh Tuan both left San Jose, leaving both the rain of Saigon and the rain of Hanoi.
At the end of May 2014, Ha Mai Viet returned to San Jose to launch his work The Roots of the Vietnam War, which began in the North. I wonder if anyone still remembers the origin.
In 1954, a 16-year-old girl boarded a plane alone with her friend’s family to go to the South to seek freedom. Her mother was orphaned, her father stayed behind to look for his son and then got stuck. The girl’s name was Nguyen Thi Chinh and later This trip brought to the South a first star named Kieu Chinh. Kieu Chinh’s trip in 1954 to say goodbye to Hanoi was filled with tears of fatherly separation. In 1975, Kieu Chinh once again said goodbye to her father. Saigon on a troubled flight around the world as the southern capital was dying.
And also in 1954, a 9-year-old girl Nguyen Thi Le Mai boarded a ship to migrate to the South. Later, she became a typical singer of the miserable war, a life of exile in a miserable life. The name of the person Singer Khanh Ly has been busking all over the world for 50 years. Last year she returned to sing for the first time on the Hanoi stage. After 50 years of being an anti-communist symbol with overseas lyrics, today she stands and sings love songs. for the audience who have never met but love very much.
And along with Vu Duc Nghiem, Le Kim Ngo, Pham Huan, Kieu Chinh, Le Mai, there was also Bui Duc Lac , a member of the Northern migration who temporarily resided in Phu Tho Leu area and by 1975 became an evacuee. color of the artillery uniform of the Airborne.
In 1972, in tears in Laos, Bui Duc Lac heard Khanh Ly sobbing and said that the loss of the way home was not because the US abandoned her but because of Trinh Cong Son’s music.
Another person from Phat Diem who soon became a Ho Nai immigrant then crossed the border with a wife and nine children and continued to calmly work as a daily journalist in San Jose. That was Ky Com – Vu Binh Nghi. Why did the North Why did the South migrate and flee across the border? The tradition of the Vietnamese people is to live forever with green bamboo hedges, with ancestral graves, with villages. Having to leave without any other choice is a shameful act. I went to the countryside to make a living but then returned after a few years. My childhood national literature textbook stated that only my hometown is the most beautiful place.
Lieutenant Phan Lac Tuyen, while participating in the reception operation in Binh Dinh, wrote an immortal song. I came back through the small hamlet, you waited under the coconut trees. The afternoon sun on my hair, the simple love of my homeland. But it was precisely at This simple countryside in Bong Son has never been quiet for 20 years.
When the communists rose up with a fierce and excessive total war, they completely destroyed all reconciliation in national sentiment. First, the urban people, intellectuals, petty bourgeoisie and religious people had to Abandon the Resistance and return to the city. Next, leave the North and migrate to the South.
In 1954, the Northerners came to the South and awakened the Saigon dragon. After the initial differences, they moved to a time of harmony. The South began to flourish from cuisine to literature and journalism. From literature to business. And harmony knows no borders.
Captain Le Cong Danh, a Can Tho nobleman, stood at Nha Rong wharf to welcome migrants and took the petite Northern girl with demi-garcon hair to be his wife.
Engineer Lieutenant Nghiem Ke, a playboy from Hanoi, had to go all the way to Bien Hoa, Buoi region, to marry Be and make her his main wife. He lived for 20 years in military camps with 8 children born one after another.
Lieutenant Giao Chi, who went to the Dinh Tien Hoang campaign, had to go all the way to Rach Gia to bring home a beauty from Kien Giang. After more than 60 years of old love, he realized that it was not only Da Lat that had Than Tho Lake, but also in the North. Hau Giang also has quite a few.
The young Northern officers who went to Saigon each brought back a lake of complaints. When she arrived in the United States, she was still complaining through her cell phone…
After the tragic 1954, the story of North-South love continued in all fields. Together, they built two Republics with a beautiful army.
Until 1975 and then until today, 2024, Vietnamese people continued to leave the country. From evacuation to border crossing, sea crossing, reunification, HO, mixed-race.
Why do we leave our homeland?
One go is one goodbye.
Once gone, there is no turning back.
In 1954, when the Northern migrants left, they had little hope of returning to their old place. The song “Towards Hanoi” was sung day and night on the radio. Until the impatient government had to issue a ban. The wings North-South communication postcards were intermittent for a few months and then cut off after two years of separation.
During the 1960s, Hanoi opened the Ong Cu line, sending cadres to the South to build infrastructure and create a war that even former communist party member Duong Thu Huong today considers to be a wrong war. , sacrificing too many lives and potential of both sides of the country.
Today, on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Geneva Accords that divided the country, let us reflect on the life that has led the Vietnamese into exile. There will be no answer that can be considered the truth for a historical problem
In everyday life, there are so many mysteries that have no answers. Why are some people happy and some people miserable? Why are some people sacrificed and some people survive? Why are some people successful? and who fails? Historical dates like July 20th, April 30th are just marks in the life of a nation, of a community. Those are the days of bitterness blossoming.
Recently the most civilized nations of the Western world including Russia, Germany, England, France, Canada, Australia, America and many others attended the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings. Now we are also citizens. Citizens of a civilized country like the United States, let’s remember the historic day of July 20th 70 years ago, marking history is a way of behaving of civilized people.
Once again, let me remind you that July 20, 1954, 70 years ago, the Geneva Accords divided the country in two. One million people from the North migrated to the South. Why did the Vietnamese leave their homeland? That question is for you. taste.
Since April 30, 1975, over two million Vietnamese have left their homeland. Why did the Vietnamese leave their homeland? That question is also for you.
Why are you leaving?
Why return? Why not return? Return to the homeland. A question for a lifetime. A question for a generation. Is this true for Vietnamese exiles?
Poet Do Trung Quan wrote:
Homeland, each person has one
Like just one mother…
Is this true for Vietnamese exiles?
Or as Vu Hoang Chuong lamented:
We are the people who were born in the wrong century.
Homeland abandoned, race despised.
Is it really that painful?
Do we take our homeland with us when we leave, or do we leave it behind? With the path of settling down and making a living in this land, are we living happily in our new homeland?
Professor Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born Jewish American, Holocaust survivor who was saved at age 16. Naturalized as a US citizen in 1963. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. He said: Wherever I live with freedom and happiness, that is my home.
But who said that anti-Communism is not anti-the whole homeland. Whether old or new homeland. Giao Chi.
On July 20, 2014, I organized the 60th anniversary of farewell night to Hanoi with the participation of musician Vu Duc Nghiem and many friends from Hanoi. In 2019, I organized the 65th anniversary of Remembering Hanoi. There are not many friends from Hanoi left. people. Instead of missing the old city on Saturday night, we organized 11:00 am on Sunday, July 21, 2019 at Phu Lam restaurant. Not only for the Northern migrants who are not many left . I would like to invite friends from the Central, South and North to come together, both the second and third generations. If the national day of hatred on April 30, 1975 is still full of pain, then the national day of hatred on July 20, 1954 is only a memory. peaceful memories of North-South love.. Let’s review old stories from the mid-20th century to the 21st century. The program is very simple. But extremely meaningful and full of emotions. Let’s review the eternal answers in the United States. Who are the Vietnamese, why did they come here and when did they come? Last week’s San Jose Mercury News published pictures of two famous old Japanese men. of the United States also recalled the story of two boys and their families being imprisoned in a concentration camp during World War II. One later became mayor of San Jose and then Secretary of Transportation under President Bush. He became a federal representative. In response to the youth of the future generation, both Japanese men said: Whatever you do, you must always know who you are. So after so many years of dominating the American political arena, when they were old, Minister Mineta and Congressman Honda suddenly remembered that they were Japanese. With 70 years of remembering the 1954 migration. With 49 years of remembering the life-changing event of 1975. We, though Became an American but always remember who you really are.
Giao Chi San Jose
This article is dedicated to my wife, a female student from Kien Giang who had the courage to follow a Northern lieutenant stationed in Ca Mau and throughout the battlefields of the Eastern and Western regions of the South.
There are so many people in the world, but why do I only see you? The 87-year-old woman still burns incense in April and
sheds tears in July.
Bring Dinh Bang communal house in Hanoi to the Viet Museum in San Jose USA
Lieutenant of Northern Vietnam migrated and met a student in Kien Giang,Now she has become a woman, burning incense for April and shedding tears for July migration.
Giao Chi San Jose. Giaochi12@gmail.com (408) 316 8393