Dang Thuy Tram’s Dairies

June 2, 1968. Rain this afternoon, all the rain on the roof thatch and on the tree leaves make a monotonous sound which saddens me. For a long time I forgot the feelings of a schoolgirl from Chu Van An* sitting there with the tip of her pen in her mouth listening to the teacher but not paying attention, just looking at West Lake obscured by the drizzle….thinking of something else. Today those feelings of long ago, of a bourgeoise and a child just coming into adulthood came to me again. A cadre working hard in the life and death resistance of this year in the war made me understand the word “practical”. Yes! Practical life has two sides. Life is still filled with emotion. I still easily find love in life but only on condition that I have to live very honestly, to live with altruism. But no matter how honest you are, at times you still are hurt because there are still those who skillfully cheat you in order to gain a little prestige, a little interest, or even sometimes so small a thing as food. You want to live perfectly without thinking, only knowing rightness and the spirit of love? No, you cannot do that: someone will think that you are stupid and that you will allow anyone to press your hand and easily load you with burdens. So you have to struggle, but when you struggle you must have reason and experience with life. This struggle is not only between two persons, or between two groups of persons, but it is the struggle between two ideas… to improve or to hold back. The conservative idea is that of people who still hold on to the remains of bourgeois thought, and the idea to improve is that of the people who are fighting for the common good. That is the natural order.

June 4, 1968. The more one tries to be practical, the more complications occur. Why do people ask so much from each other when they are together? Never satisfied. Day by day, the more one asks for, the more need for completion, and against this need are so many obstacles. If you are not strong enough then failure is very easy.

Oh my dear! You live with so much thinking! Why do you have so many thoughts which make you sad? Please be happy, with a forgiving heart, with your sacrifices. Please don’t ask too much of life.

It is still raining. The rain makes me feel sadder, and cold rain makes a person want to reunite with his family. I wish I had wings to fly to the small, beautiful house on Lo Duc Street* with my parents, brother, and sister, to eat a meal of spinach, and to lie on the warm cotton blanket and have a good sleep. Last night I dreamed that peace returned. I went back and met everybody. Oh! The dream of independence and peace has burned in the hearts of 30 million people for a long time. They have volunteered to give all of their lives for the words of independence and freedom. And me, I also have sacrificed all my personal life to this great goal.

June 15, 1968. Diary please don’t blame me if I continue to note in you all the sad and heavy things, okay? The sounds of victory guns explode on all the battlefields North and South. Victory comes close already, but all of Duc Pho remains heavy with sorrow; day by day blood still runs and bones still fall. The saddest part of the hardship is that I still have not found fairness or rightness. I still have not won the struggle with the bad traits which dishonor the members of the Party and break the spirit of the people who work at the clinic. Thuy! Are you a loser? While the Party members and the youth all support me, I still cannot win over some of the evil persons in the clinic. All during the terrible dry season, I never felt sad, but always smiled in the face of hardship; yet now I am so hurt. The real enemy I do not fear, but I am afraid of how the enemy has poisoned my comrades’ minds.

Please keep a strong, fighting spirit: try to find a winner’s happiness. Try to believe in yourself and hope to keep strong and maintain the fight to the end for the good of the Revolution.

June 20, 1968. The letter Duong sent through legal channels is a letter filled with tears from prison. Duong writes “This letter is very simple, but Sister please keep it as a souvenir as it contains all my truth”.

I met Duong one hot afternoon as I carried a bag from the province to Duc Pho, this very strange place which welcomed me with all its love. Duong is typical of this place. I only stayed at Duong’s house one day, but still he already liked me very much. He is a very courageous and intelligent student. In the socialist system he is a young pen filled with hope. But under the roof of the enemy’s school are all the terrible controls against a spirit rich with understanding, a spirit filled with dreams and hopes, a spirit like Duong’s.