Nguyen Thi Hoe and Nguyen Cong Huyen
Nguyen Thi Hoe and Nguyen Cong Huyen are rice farmers in Tien Son District in Ha Bac Province outside of Ha Noi. Hoe is one of the more than 6,000 Vietnamese women designated as a "Heroic Mother of Those Martyred in Defending National Independence." She lost three sons to the war effort. Hoe and Huyen's sons -- ages 27, 23 and 19 -- were all killed in 1968.
When their first son joined the Army in 1959, Huyen was pleased because Huyen himself had taken part in the war of resistance against the French. Their second son joined in 1967, but when the third son wanted to volunteer that same year, Huyen was reluctant. The son insisted, so Huyen did not object. After receiving news that the son had been killed, the local authorities waited nine months to tell Hoe and Huyen, fearing the couple would be devastated. With a note of sorrow and bitterness, Huyen told us, "We knew we could not keep our sons home when the country was being invaded by foreign imperialists. But when we received news that our third son had been killed in battle, we were shocked, because we had already lost two sons."
Hoe and Huyen do not know where two of their sons are buried, a painful reminder of war in a society that venerates their dead. Since they could not bring all three sons back to their ancestoral homeland for burial, they felt it would be unfair to thus honor only one son. They decided to leave their eldest son buried in a cemetery for martyrs in Quang Binh, the province where he was killed.