Fire on the Page

By Rachael Boeve on 04 August 2006

Army intelligence specialist Fred Whitehurst was tasked with combing battlefields during the Vietnam War to find documents valuable to military intelligence.¹ During a routine burning of captured personal documents in June 1970, his translator handed him a small notebook and said, “Don’t burn this one Fred, it already has fire in it.”²

The notebook contained the wartime diary of Dr. Dang Thuy Tram, a Vietnamese woman from a wealthy family of doctors who volunteered in 1967 to serve the Vietcong in a battlefield hospital.³ A second diary written by Tram also made its way into Whitehurst’s hands on June 23, 1970, only a day after Tram’s death.⁴

When he read the translation of the diaries, Whitehurst was haunted by Tram’s thoughts. “She was my enemy,” he wrote, “but her words would break your heart.”⁵ The eloquent and compelling voice in the diaries led him to make a personal search for the woman’s family so that he could return the diaries. His efforts were fruitless for 35 years, until he donated the diaries to the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University in 2005. Officials at the center located Tram’s mother within months and invited her to see the diaries in person.⁶

Tram’s mother agreed to publish the diaries, and, in less than a year, they sold 300,000 copies in Vietnam—a country in which the average print run is 2,000 copies.⁷ Though Tram modestly described herself as “a normal cadre, a girl who forgot her happiness to go south and to fight with the Southerners on the battlefield,”⁸ she has become nothing short of a national hero, emblematic of the Vietnamese spirit and culture.

Tram’s diaries represent more than one woman’s account of the Vietnam War; they communicate the Vietnamese values that shaped the rhetoric of the Communist Party and inspired a generation to fight for their country’s liberation. Still, the diaries are not a bland regurgitation of Communist ideology, but an intensely human, and often uniquely feminine account of life amidst the cruel realities of war. The diaries reveal a virtuous, intelligent, and gentle woman. However, they also demonstrate how Tram’s efforts to create a better life for her people became entangled with the ideology of the Communist Party.

Many scholars agree that Vietnam’s leader, Ho Chi Minh, like other communists in his generation, cloaked his ideological aspirations in nationalistic terms to gain support for the creation of a socialist state in Vietnam. However, few people realize that Communism’s success in Vietnam also depended on the deeply spiritual nature of the Vietnamese people. This spirituality becomes apparent in Tram’s diaries through her quasi-religious descriptions of the Communist Party. These descriptions are a timely reminder of the devotion that leaders command when they are able to tap into traditional indigenous virtues and spirituality. In Tram’s case, communist ideology was fused to traditional communal ethics in these ways:

Honor

The diaries not only confirm the strong nationalistic impulse of the Vietnamese, but also reveal a firm belief in the righteousness and power of the Revolution, which appealed to this honor-based society: “I suddenly understand how people can sacrifice their entire lives to be true to the Revolution . . . because the Revolution trains them to become very high and beautiful and ties them together making them stronger than anything else in the world. What is more honorable than to live in the family of the Revolution?”⁹ The Party’s appeal to Vietnamese honor was strengthened by including rhetoric of “family.” The Vietnamese identify themselves by their place within a family unit, and many practice the Veneration of Ancestors (the worship of ancestors as a constant guiding presence within the family.)¹⁰ These beliefs gave Party language added immediacy and authenticity among the Vietnamese.

Sacrifice

Tram’s writing exemplifies the Vietnamese peoples’ desire to further the good of their nation, even at personal expense. A quote included at the beginning of her first journal demonstrates this: “Life is a person’s most precious thing. We only live once. How can we live so as not to regret wasting the months and years, so that when our eyes close and our hand falls, we can say ‘All our life, all our strength, we have offered to the highest and most beautiful career in the world, the struggle to liberate our people.’”¹¹ This emphasis on sacrifice drove Tram’s reflections throughout the three-year span of the diaries and often took on the character of religious martyrdom.

Self-denial

When she lost a friend or a soldier in the war, Tram strengthened her devotion by repeating her mantra, “One must go through big storms in life, but one must never bend his head in the face of the storms.”¹² In a manner similar to the ascetic practices of some religions, Tram reminded herself to act happy and smile despite experiencing loneliness and pain because she represented the Party and should uphold its values.

Pursuit of Justice

Tram’s devotion to the Party was similar to religious devotion in her association of justice and righteousness with Party ideas. She wrote, “Our mission is to struggle for Right, and if you struggle then you have to use strength. You have to think, and sometimes you have to give up personal interests; sometimes all of your life must be sacrificed for victory.”¹³

Truth and Exclusivity

Tram referred to the ideas of the Party as an exclusive moral truth that must be defended. She believed that socialism, more than any other worldview, could create a spirit of friendship among members. She reflected, “Why can all the revolutionaries care for each other that way, deep and wide as the ocean, a kind of emotion like silver waves . . . a clean and pure love, very true?”¹⁴ Tram combined socialism with a strong nationalism. She believed that Vietnam had a special brand of communism, one perfected by the enduring and cheerful spirit of her people. “The Revolution is so wonderful in this land: the sorrow and the mourning are nowhere else the same, and the lively happiness of it cannot be compared to anywhere else.”¹⁵

Utopian Vision

Tram’s participation in the Party transcended mere political aspirations; she believed that the principles of the Revolution could guide her in bringing forth a more perfect society. After a particularly brutal day in the field hospital, she often encouraged herself by remembering these ideas, “Thuy, by strength, by belief in justice, by your personal idea of life you can continue in this hard life.” She hoped that one day the new ethics of the Party would swallow up the prejudices and failures of society and the Vietnamese would live with “loving hearts and bright spirits.”¹⁶

Love

Perhaps Tram’s most extraordinary attribute was her ability to maintain a compassionate outlook in the midst of the war. Her feelings for an especially brave patient reflect the love that she regularly gave and received: “I care for you with a wild and deep love: the love of a medical doctor for her patient, the love of an elder sister for her young sick brother.”¹⁷ Tram’s value for each individual persisted despite constant reports of death and destruction. Her uncommon ability to embrace the essence of another person without reservation enabled her to mourn for each casualty according to her interactions with them as unique individuals.

The virtues that Tram championed in her journals were also exemplified in her death. She was killed by U.S. soldiers as she single-handedly evacuated her patients and nurses.¹⁸ Though troops asked Tram to surrender repeatedly, she refused to relinquish her position while others were escaping.¹⁹ This heroic but tragic act was the final culmination of Tram’s devotion to her people and the Party.

Taken by themselves, the communal ethics of honor, sacrifice, self-denial, justice, truth, hope, and love read like an all-star list of moral virtues common to the world’s oldest faith traditions. The frightening example in Tram’s life was the fusion of these values with Communist ideology, a combination that led Tram and millions of other Vietnamese to destruction. Leaders throughout history have capitalized on traditional indigenous virtues and spirituality to mobilize followers, often for poor use.

However, religious fervor also has potential to further social well-being. Strong communal ties infused with a spiritual motivation to sacrifice for the sake of others can have powerful social benefits. Coupled to revolutionary ideology they are clearly dangerous, but given space to flourish, such virtues can only enrich societies. As secular Western scholars bemoan the political abuses of spirituality, they would do well not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Last updated 12 January 2009