The story of a female guerrilla became a legend

Quang Ngai= Hwang Sang Cheol/ reporter of The Hankyoreh21
Translated by Yoon Yong Ah

Le Thi Ngoc was raped by Korean soldiers and was murdered by American soldiers. When she was 24-years-old, she was raped by Korean soldiers and beaten on her forehead by their guns. In revenge against Korean soldiers, she became a Viet Cong guerrilla and was killed by American soldiers later (People in Phuoc Binh thought that she died during a battle against Korean soldiers.) Her husband still keeps her portrait in his house. Korean soldiers made a Vietnamese woman a warrior for the independence of Vietnam.

We visit her husband who lives in Quang Ngai. After his long service as a military doctor at clinics in outlying regions, he retired to his hometown. After the war ended, he remarried and now has a son and two daughters. When we ask him to tell the story about Le Thi Ngoc, his ex-wife, he goes to a guest room without a word. Then he comes back to us with her portrait, which is on an altar in the guest room. The young woman in the portrait wears a white Aogai with long black hair.
    He worked for National Liberation Front (NLF) as a nurse. In 1958, he was engaged to Ngoc. Then he had to leave her to be a Viet Cong guerrilla. In 1965, he climbed down the mountain to marry her. After the wedding, he went back to the mountain to fight. Ngoc just had to wait for him. In November 1966, he heard that all his villagers were murdered by Korean soldiers. He thought that his wife was also dead, but she visited him at the clinic of the mountain the next day.
    We ask, "At that time, you already heard that many women in your village had been raped by Korean soldiers, didn't you? Didn't you care about that?" "Never! Because I thought that she had been killed cruelly by the soldiers, I was really happy to see her again," he replied.
    She stayed with him for 10 days. She wanted to stay with him longer, but he had to send her back to the village for food and clothes. He promised that he would bring her back to the mountain. A few days later, he and Ngoc met again and climbed up the mountain together.
    We ask him again, "Did she come back to the mountain to be a guerrilla?" "Sure, to take revenge against the Korean soldiers she decided to be a guerrilla With anger and animosity against Korean soldiers who killed innocent people cruelly, she became a revolutionary following me," he says.
    She served as a nurse. It was October 21, 1969 by the lunar calendar. Ngoc and two comrades got the order to gather vegetables for patients. After they finished their job, they had lunch. Then they went to have a nap in a house nearby. American soldiers found out her location by the smoke. When they cooked lunch, they should have taken more care not to leak smoke. Going to a rest room, she found American soldiers coming from the mountain in front of them. She shouted, "U.S. soldiers, U.S. soldiers!" Because Ngoc warned her comrades quickly, they could run away, but she was shot to death by the Americans.
    "Do you still hold a memorial service for her?" we ask. "The altar and the portrait of her used to be in her parents' house, but I brought them to my house to hold memorial services for her. Her parents received subsidies from the government because of her patriotic death."
    "A Vietnam veteran has confessed to massive killings by Korean soldiers. If he visit you to apologize, will you forgive him?" we asked him. "If he, the very soldier who killed my family and neighbors, come to apologized to me and my family for his past faults sincerely, I'll welcome him and forgive him. We already decided to forget about the war.

    They had kept their pure promise

    We ask him what the most impressive memory about her is. He replies that it's a poem that he wrote for her. Then he recites the poem for us.

       When we were young, we loved each other.
       But I had to leave you for my country,
       You spent your youth in waiting for me alone.
       Whenever we met for a while, the flowers of our tears bloomed.
       Even though we were separated for seven years, we kept our pure
       promise!