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| From remote forests to a thriving countryside |
In early October 1977, the Hue City Party Committee launched the formation of the Pioneering Youth force and assigned the City Youth Union to recruit passionate young people to join. Within just a few weeks, 1,800 individuals signed up and were organized into two regiments.
They were 18 - to 20-year-old young men and women, born and raised in the city, unfamiliar with machetes, hoes, or farming tools. Yet their youthful spirit and determination transformed them into pioneers who accomplished remarkable feats. Among the many achievements of the two Hue City’s Pioneering Youth regiments, one was the clearing of wild forests and building of roads to establish the new Huong Lam NEZ area, welcoming 3,000 households from Hue to settle along the Dong Nai River in the majestic southern Central Highlands…
Mr. Do Duc Du – Head of the Pioneering Youth Liaison Committee of Hue City in Lam Dong – and his comrades recall those days with deep emotion. They remember every moment etched in their memories. They were years of extreme hardship, countless challenges, and dangers. But in the hearts of Hue’s youth at the time resounded only the words of Uncle Ho to the Pioneering Youth force: “Nothing is difficult / Only afraid of a wavering heart / Digging mountains and filling seas / With resolve, success will come.”
Mr. Du and others recall: At 8:00 a.m. on December 15, 1977, at the Thai Hoa Palace courtyard in Hue’s Imperial City, in the presence of leaders from Binh Tri Thien Province and Hue City, the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union of Hue City solemnly held a send-off ceremony. Comrade Hoang Lanh – Provincial Party Committee member and City Party Secretary – handed the Victory Flag to Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Thai Long – Head of Regional Command of the Huong Lam NEZ area (Lam Dong) – and bid farewell to the two Pioneering Youth regiments as they left the beloved Hue for the Central Highlands. Their mission: to scout the area, clear the land, and welcome settlers to build the Huong Lam NEZ in Region 3 of Bao Loc District, in the southern part of Lam Dong Province…
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In the middle of the story, we turned to look toward the Ma Oi slope, a place forever etched in the hearts of the people from Hue of that time. "Ma Oi" is the name of a slope - not very steep but very long - that formed a boundary between the Zone 3 farm of Bao Loc District and the Huong Lam NEZ. This hill used to be known as elevation point 167. It was named "Ma Oi" at the end of 1977 when the Pioneering Youth team, which included over 300 young women from Hue, began building roads, climbing over the hilltop to clear the forest, cultivate land, and build houses in preparation for welcoming fellow Hue people to establish a new homeland. At that time, it was raining; the slope was high, the roads were muddy. They would climb up only to slide down again. Exhausted, hungry, and facing a vast, wild landscape full of bamboo, reeds, and old-growth jungle teeming with wild animals, snakes, and leeches, many of the young women couldn’t help but cry out “Ma oi!” (Oh Mom!). That cry was almost a cry for help. To forever remember those early days of hardship spent carving out paths and clearing fields, the people from Hue named the slope “Ma Oi,” a name filled with the spirit of the ancient Imperial Capital right in the middle of a faraway highland.
Struck by the impression of the name “Ma Oi” slope, we sat together and pieced together memories from those days, the cold wet winter days of 1977. After working with more than 5,000 local people to build the Buon Ho NEZ (Dak Lak), Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Thai Long, political officer of the City Command and member of the Hue City Party Committee, was ordered along with Nguyen Cuu Su, Nguyen Van Huu, and Trinh Hung Cuong and a group of Pioneering Youth to survey land in the southern part of Lam Dong Province, bordering Dong Nai Province. Their mission was to prepare for the construction of Hue City’s fifth New Economic Zone in the southern provinces. After days of trudging through forests, on November 29, 1977, the survey team reached Region 3 (a site used during the anti-American resistance), where they met several local leaders such as Mr. Vu, Mr. Ba, and Mr. Tam Bich, officials from the Lam Dong NEZ Committee. On a 1:25,000 scale map, Mr. Tam Bich circled a vast area about 40km² and said: “This area that you are reclaiming was once a revolutionary base of Zone VI. This land has been soaked with the blood of many comrades and people, and it has a long-standing tradition. Prosperity will come from the hands and minds of you comrades and the people of Hue…”
The next morning, with a compass in hand, seven comrades oriented themselves and trekked into the unfamiliar land within the 40km² circle marked on the map. Climbing a hill for a panoramic view, Nguyen Thai Long exclaimed with joy: “Our neighboring province has given us an amazing area! Look at the entire vast plain of rice spreading before us. It’s truly a lowland in the middle of the highlands. Incredible!” Comrade Su, a cautious man, only after digging 70 - 80 centimeters into the ground and still pulling up handfuls of black humus, finally confirmed: “This will be a wonderful rice-growing area.” Following the Da Lay stream deeper into the foothills, the team suddenly encountered sweet potato mounds hidden among dense cogon grass and thorny bamboo, yet still producing roots; ancient cassava stumps with trunks as thick as timber; collapsed underground shelters; and some rusted tools like water flasks, machetes, pots, and pans. These traces bore witness to the resilient, indomitable spirit of a once-glorious revolutionary base. These images stirred deep emotions in the survey team, filling them with a strong will, faith, and determination: “If our troops and people defeated the Americans here, we will surely also conquer poverty and backwardness.”
Not even a full month after the survey, on December 17, 1977, the Pioneering Youth of Hue City began their journey into this new land. Both regiments with nearly 1,800 members arrived and immediately set down their backpacks, took up machetes to clear the forest, plan residential zones, and map out farmland. Priority was given to planting season and farmland. With no homes yet, they built makeshift shelters. From dawn till dusk, everyone was out in the forest, eating and sleeping in the field. Many companies even mobilized their entire units to clear forest under the moonlight. Some young women, newly arrived, would tremble in fear and cry upon hearing the howls of gibbons or roars of tigers. But over time, they adjusted, cutting trees, clearing fields, harvesting reeds, and building homes alongside the men. Those faint of heart, living in the remote wilderness during those hard days, sometimes felt their spirits falter and feared to the point of breathlessness. Mr. Du reflected solemnly: “Those late winter days, the forest rain poured heavily. In the makeshift shelters, we were soaked like rats.” In the dark, dreary night, the soft sobs of young women mixed with the rain and the echoing songs of the young men, resounding through the old-growth forest. It was heartbreaking, our comrades! Young men and women from the city, whose education was interrupted, some who had never held a machete before; now crossing mountains, wading through streams, their limbs bloodied by leech bites, swarmed by mosquitoes like husks, suffering from contaminated water, venomous snakes, hunger, malaria, and skin infections. Their health wore down day by day. The girls’ hair fell out in clumps, swept away by the stream. Many fell while still holding their hoes and machetes, like Vo Yen The and Le Canh Thi Da Huong...
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Amid countless harsh challenges, under the leadership of the construction site's command board and the Party cell, 1,800 male and female Pioneering Youth from Hue City gradually overcame difficulties and excellently fulfilled their mission. Not a single person gave up. Not a single person collapsed in the face of hardship. All of them grew through labor. More than 500 hectares of old forest, thorny bamboo, cogon grass, and elephant grass were cleared and cleaned to be cultivated right after land preparation. I was truly moved when I reread the lines written about the Pioneering Youth of Hue back then, in an article published in the early spring of 1978 by veteran journalist Vu Thuoc in Lam Dong Newspaper: "When we arrived about a year later, those young men and women were already gone. They had moved on to the new lands calling them forward. They joyfully devoted themselves and took pride in receiving the mission of paving the way and founding new villages and hamlets. They were ready to take on and overcome all the initial harsh trials. Glory belongs to them - the pioneers!"
Not all of the Pioneering Youth returned to Hue, and many voluntarily stayed behind, taking part in establishing the local government and departments. Responding to the call of Lam Dong Province, to help build and shape the government structure and sectors in these new rural areas, over 40 cadres and members of the Pioneering Youth force from Hue City volunteered to leave urban life and remain in the sunny, windy southern Central Highlands. They remained alongside fellow Hue people who had left their homeland to resettle in a new land. Many of them later became key officials of Da Teh, Da Huoai Districts and of Lam Dong Province...
(To be continued)