Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Tai Ba, chairman of the Truong Son-Ho Chi Minh Trail traditional association in Hoa Binh province, and his comrades have recalled the days of building and protecting the arterial supply route for the southern battlefield as the Traditional Day of Truong Son Army Corps (May 19, 1959) is approaching.
Lieutenant Colonel
Nguyen Tai Ba, chairman of the Truong Son-Ho Chi Minh Trail traditional
association in Hoa Binh province.
Ba volunteered to join the army in 1962 when he
was only 18 years old. After three months of training in the northern province
of Bac Ninh, he and others marched southward.
He said to meet the requirements of the
resistance war against the US, the Politburo, the Party Central Committee and
President Ho Chi Minh on May 19, 1959 decided to open the strategic Truong Son
– Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Corps 559, whose name stood for May 1959 when
the trail was blazed, grew from 500 hand-piked men to a division-level unit on
October 23, 1961. It was tasked with opening the track in the Truong Son
jungle.
Recounting the hard-but-glorious decade-long
task, Ba said Vietnamese soldiers shot down enemy aircraft and used collected
bombs to pay the way through mountains to the South.
Truong Son soldiers and youth volunteers stayed
optimistic and ready to sacrifice their lives to protecting the Ho Chi Minh
Trail, which Ba said, was not only the large-scale supply route but also a big
battlefield spanning 11 Vietnamese provinces, seven southern Lao localities and
four northeastern Cambodia provinces, with a total length of nearly 17,000km.
The US launched more than 150,000 air strikes, with
tens of thousands of B52 sorties, and more than 4 million tonnes of bombs, more
than half of the bomb tonnage they pounded away across Vietnam, along with 120
raids and 1,235 commando operations. The bodies of more than 20,000 Truong Son
officers and soldiers have still remained on the battlefield, and 30,000 others
were injured.
The Ho Chi Minh Trail was considered an
indelible eight trigram formation in the jungle.
The 4th Congress of Ethnic Minority Groups of Hoa Binh province was successfully held on November 15 at the provincial Culture Centre.
In line with the Politburo’s Directive No. 05-CT/TW on promoting the study of and adherence to President Ho Chi Minh's ideology, morality, and lifestyle, the Party Organisation of Kim Boi district has been focusing on developing practical models that align with the roles and realities of local agencies and communities involved. Through this initiative, numerous officials and Party members have emerged as exemplary figures, leading by example in learning from and following the late leader.
Hoa Binh province has paid due attention to developing Party membership in non-state enterprises, helping improve the role of the Party committees, organisations and members in the firms.
A delegation from the National Assembly (NA), led by Lieutenant General Tran Quang Phuong, member of the Party Central Committee and Vice Chairman of the National Assembly, on November 10 visited and presented gifts to poor households and policy beneficiary families in Yen Tri commune, Yen Thuy district of Hoa Binh.
Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Quang Phuong attended the ceremony to mark the 60th founding anniversary of Yen Thuy district, Hoa Binh province, on November 10.
The Standing Board of the provincial Party Committee has issued a conclusion reviewing the three years implementing its resolution on preserving and promoting cultural values in Hoa Binh province for 2021 – 2025 with a vision towards 2030.
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