In a small house in Kim Long ward, Hue City, Vietnamese Heroic Mother Nguyen Thi Thanh Xuan sits in a wheelchair, next to a simple kitchen. Her hair has turned completely white, her thin hands rest quietly on her blue shirt.

On the house wall, certificates, medals and Party age badges are carefully preserved by the family. But what makes her pause the longest is not those noble rewards, but the photo of her son in military uniform that she keeps in the bedroom.

Senior Lieutenant Colonel Tran Minh Hai, former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Military Command of the former Thua Thien Hue province, died in a rescue mission at Rao Trang 3 Hydropower Plant in October 2020.

Age 14 in the war zone forest

Xuan was born in 1950. When she was only 14 years old, she asked her family for permission to join the revolution in Huong Tho Commune, former Huong Tra District.

She was assigned to study literacy, deliver letters, transport documents, supply food, and cook for the troops.

Later, she joined the commune guerrillas to sharpen bamboo stakes, set traps, and manufacture crude weapons for combat. In early 1965, she was appointed Deputy Head of the Huong Tho Commune Military Command cum leader of the self-made weapon production team. In 1966, at just 16, she was admitted to the Communist Party.

In her memory, the battle in La Khe Village around mid-1966 remains vivid. As a self-propelled barge carrying US-Saigon troops along with weapons and provisions passed through the upstream section of the Perfume River, she and her comrades laid a secret ambush along the riverbank.

“Waiting for the barge to come within range, our forces opened fire, using satchel charges and mines to strike the target. The barge sank in the middle of the river,” she recalled.

Between 1966 and 1968, she was assigned as President of the Huong Tho Commune Women's Union cum Leader of the Enemy Proselyting Team. 

In late 1967, while preparing enemy proselyting activities with comrades at a local base, her group was unexpectedly surrounded and ambushed by US-Saigon troops, resulting in the sacrifice of several cadre members.

In that battle, multiple shrapnel pieces embedded in her back near her spine. The severe injury forced the 17-year-old girl to leave the battlefield for medical treatment.

In late 1968, she was transferred to the North and later to the Soviet Union for wound treatment. The war left her with an 81 percent bodily injury rating. She was also exposed to Agent Orange.

Referring to her disabilities, she never complained, only saying that by surviving to return, she was far luckier than many of her comrades.

Love forged during a bombardment

Amid the fierce memories of war, the love story between Xuan and Tran Thien Cuong emerges like a gentle ray of light.

Cuong was also born in 1950 in the same hometown, had participated in the resistance war, and was also a wounded veteran. After a period of medical treatment and study in the North, the two met at the former Hai Hung Cultural School, now part of Hung Yen Province.

In 1976, a small wedding was held where they were studying. There was no lavish feast, only a few congratulatory candies, blessings from friends and comrades, and a marriage certificate to mark the beginning of a family.

Two wounded veterans walked through war together and returned together to build a new life. Yet that family peace was tested once more when their son sacrificed his life during a peacetime rescue mission.

The son resting in peacetime

Xuan and her husband had five children: four sons and one daughter. Among them, their son Tran Minh Hai, born in 1979, carried on the family tradition by enlisting in the army and joining the local armed forces.

In October 2020, torrential rains and floods battered Central Vietnam. Upon receiving the assignment to participate in the search and rescue mission for workers missing due to natural disasters at the Rao Trang 3 Hydropower Plant, Senior Lieutenant Colonel Tran Minh Hai and his comrades set off.

And he has never returned.

In 2021, Nguyen Thi Thanh Xuan was conferred the title of Heroic Vietnamese Mother by the State. Earlier, she had been awarded the Second-Class Resistance Order.

Ha Nam - Ho Giap