RESPECT, LOVE, PRIDE

By HUYNH TAM ~

: aba Tam Kien, 21, was a

Dien With a guerrilla unit in
a a district (28 km. south
“enemy Nang). Caught by the
x in February 1967, she
tee great courage under the
__ Savage tortures.

TU spent t ight i
bbs that night in a field
ta in the jungle. Although
“ome with fatigue, I kept

os my bed and couldn’t

bh} At on :
h € point late at night, I
‘ ee light footsteps and a little
" ng sound, In the hazy light
Candle I saw a young nurse
Pert, Bo down the underground
hg She was leaning on a
~ small and holding in her hand a
Blass ge cepan containing little
i aS Metallic objects, probab-
“| stoppe ges and needles. She

Wo in at the bedside of a

g

oh soldier and gently woke
| AS she tin 8ive him an injection.
- fishin Mped past my bed after
> chub 8, I looked at her round,
thougt face and slant eyes and
up an I recognized her. I sat
“Aren't asked her point-blank,
Worked you Tam Kien? You
ah ona Nurse with the Dien
8uerillas, didn’t you?”

ne, scitoPped and tried to place
ObVioy . Sau!” she cried softly,
Ne) ad Overcome with joy.
,00king suddenly embar-
tired She began tracing little
tip of a the ground with the
‘ticeg €r crutch. She had no-
thy thee Painful expression on
at her a I involuntarily looked
her iS ‘Naa leg. I gently asked
‘Sit down and have a talk.

Here j
Is the story Tam Kien
id Mme that might

1) to

After yas in mid-February 1967.
| blowin Teaking an enemy sweep,

and kit Up two armored cars
Were Bae seventeen GI's, we
fresh A ceed to withdraw as
‘Were 4 €rican reinforcements
{l tear ieee in. I was in the

let stry My first-aid kit. A bul-
| in Se me in the thigh. I hid
: ut was soon found by

1} Tee, americans, Lam and Khoi,
Nt to 4 my face and had me
1 prison in Hoi An.
Patriots were detained,
Ses often in the

} ABents le fashion: American

- targets ;hammer, used them as
| threy, +c" Shooting practise, or
|| afte ti €m in the nearby river
and gy; >Pine their bellies open
is Ng them with stones.

|) 1S day following my arrival,
Chamber aKen to the torture
|} king at was filled with all
‘| aig instruments; iron bars,
a1 tainers pers, pincers, con-
} be fe ull of soapy liquids to
| tril €d into the victims’ nos-
Tom wa: In the middle of the
|| ton yj,08 @ Plank-bed fitted with
i || tins y a to immobilize the vic-
khives ae Five or six butchers’

| Wooden “e lying about, next to
PY blogg lows stained with

: e int Khoi and ty> thugs
Wo a the room, foliowed by
“old Ticans, Khoi gave me @

s
™e in Ane and suddenly punched
€ face, knocking me to

Pa sledge psec’ their skulls with -

the ground. I had two front teeth
broken and my mouth was filled
with blood.

Then his confederate, Lam,
tried the “soft” technique. He
leaned over and said in a per-
suasive voice. “Talk, girl. You’re

- so young. Why give your life to

the Vietcong?”

I was nineteen. At my age,
who would not value life? But I
decided not to bow my head be-
fore the enemy, “Yes, I want to
live,* I shouted, “but not like
you, in ignominy, licking Ameri-
can boots and torturing your,
fellow-countrymen.”

Khoi seized a knife and bran-
dished it in my face. “We'll
make you talk all right, wench!
Put her to the rack, boys,” he
bellowed. His eyes were blood-
shot and his forehead beaded
with sweat.

The four of them brutally took
hold of me, stripped me of my
clothes, flung me on the plank-
bed and immobilized my wrists
and ankles with the iron rings.
One viciously squeezed my in-
jured leg, which gave me a ter-
rible pain. Khoi tossed his knife
at my feet and barked, “Where
has your unit gone? Where are
your caches? What kind of
weapons have you got? Talk!”

Again, Lam ‘tried the “soft”
technique. “Talk,” he said “and

/- we won’t beat you. These gentle-

men will even give you money.”
He looked at the Americans and
gave an obsequious laugh. The
Yanks nodded approvingly.

I spat blood at their faces and
cried, “You're wasting your
time and effort. Yankee aggres-
sors, get out!”

Khoi, mad with rage, rushed
forward, seized the knife and
gave a violent blow to my leg. A
terrible pain shot up through my
whole body. My throat choked
and my eyes filled with tears.

A doctor came in and tried to
intervene: “Why be so cruel to
a young girl,” he pleaded. “Put
her in jail if she is guilty of some
offense.” A violent blow struck

him in the chest. ‘Get out!”

shouted Khoi. Breathing hard, he
turned to me: “Will you speak?”
Again I said, “No.”

Khoi again struck my leg with
his knife. The others also joined
in. Writhing with pain, 1 felt my
leg being gradually cut off from
my body. The . torturers were

howling and their American “ad.

visers” guffawing uproariously...

When I came to, a nurse was
looking after me. She was a
gentle and compassionate
woman. Each day, she washed
my wounds and changed the ban-
dages. From time to time she
would give me, on the sly, an
injection of plasma. But soon she
was replaced by a male nurse,
of the torturer kind. He treated
me in the most vicious way,
causing me the most intolerable
pain each time he “dressed” my
wounds.

After three weeks, seeing that
I had recovered some of my
strength, the thugs again sought
to extort information from me.
They subjected me to electrical
shocks or thrust clips of sharp-

nosed cartridges into my ribs. I.
clenched my teeth and called to ©

mind the heroic examples set by
Nguyen Van Troi and Tran Thi
Ly, those revolutionaries who
had faced enemy tortures so
fearlessly.

One day in the fifth week”

after my arrest, my friend the
nurse suddenly turned up. Her
anguished look was a bad pre-

‘sage. She leaned over, kissed me

on the forehead and whispered
in my ear after looking right and

left, “They want to make away (

with you, or at least to cut your
other leg so that you will no
more be able to serve the revolu-
tion.” She quietly went away
after slipping a few precious pills
into my hand.

The following day, they again
took me to the horror chamber.
The male nurse flung me on the
plank-bed and Khoi started
shouting. “We shall see if you

can still keep your mouth shut .

today,” he said threateningly.
“Talk, if you want to live.” Then
he gave me a few hard blows,
but I just stared defiantly at him
without saying a word. One of
the thugs, a gaudily dressed
rascal, walked up to the Ame-
ricans and talked to them in a
low voice. He returned after a
while and, flashing a smile, said,
“Own up, girl, and the Ameri-
cans will take care of you: They
will give you an artificial limb
that will look even finer than
your other leg . . .” He poked
with his stick at my fettered re-
maining leg and added with a
cynical laugh, “We'll find you a
husband if you rally to the just
cause of the national govern-
ment...” So, the thug was an
agent of the so-called ‘Open
Arms” program. I interrupted
him: “Save your breath! Aren’t
you ashamed to invoke a just
cause? Look at my maimed leg
and at your instruments of tor-
ture! How dare you speak of
justice and humanity? How
many people have you tortured
and killed?”

Exhausted, I lay panting on
the torture bed. The thugs were
growing restless with impatience
and anger. An American gave
me a furious glance and signal-
led to Khoi, who roared, “Kill
her!” He quickly seized a knife
and brought it down on my in-
jured leg. The others followed
suit. I fainted.

Later, in the morgue where
they had sent me thinking I was
dead, my friend the nurse and
some of her colleagues succeed-
ed in saving my life. A few days
later, the local people freed me
and took me to the liberated
area, where I was sent to a hos-
pital. When I had recovered, the
comrades in charge told me I
was exempted from all tasks.
But how could I remain idle
while the Yanks and their agents
are still there? And so I’ve vol-
unteered to serve in this hos-
pital ..e

The young nurse stopped and
smiled. She had remained the
shy and gentle girl I used to
know. As I looked at her child-
like face, my. heart was over-
whelmed by deep feelings: res-
pect, love, and pride.

A Congress of combat heroes in South Vietnam.

Nixon's postpénement of troop with-
drawals from Vietnam is alarming. The
Washington Administration is determined
to continue its war of aggression against
Vietnam. oy

lf the war is to end, not only American,
but also all allied troops must be with-
drawn from Vietnam. Vietnamese spokes-
ment state that the conditions laid down
by Washington — that Saigon must be
able to replace American troops, that the
level of hostilities be scaled down, and
that progress must be made at the Paris
Peace talks—are deceitful.

Nixon's conditions are manifestly a
hoax. While the talk goes on of scaling
down hostilities and troop withdrawal, the
air war and chemical defoliation is step-
ed up, and U.S. troops continue to arrive
in South Vietnam at the rate of 40,000 a
month. es

Saigon's puppet regime could not exist
a day without American troops. The Viet-
namese are not just going to lay down like
a "good dog'' because the American im-
perialists demand it. It isn't the refusal of
the Vietnamese to stop fighting for their
freedom that is the cause of the war.
The cause of it is American imperialist
aggression. S

Carried elsewhere on this page is a
story of horror. It will leave you with a-
sick feeling. The country of the American
revolution is doing what the nazis did 25
years ago, because the most reactionary
and militaristic forces in America are
determined to continue their dirty war.

The actions for peace and progress that
drove Lyndon B. Johnson off the American
nation's, public platforms, need to be re-
peated to drive ‘Tricky'’ Dick Nixon into
the same historical oblivion. The great
battles mounted by the peace forces of
Canada and the United States augmented
the heroic struggles of the Vietnamese
and world democratic forces, to bring
the U.S. to the Paris bargaining table.

The next wave of struggle can compel
the American imperialists to take out their
pens and sign a peace in Vietnam; a
peace that gives the South Vietnamese

the right to self-determination in peace.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 5, 1969—PAGE 7 —