Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The platoon of sappers from Battalion 33 commanded by Nguyen Thi Nha fought heroically … west of a frontier post and Road 20. There Nha and four of her mates died fighting on January 4, 1968. Nha was replaced by her second in command, Mai Lien. This platoon has been fighting since the early days of building Road 20 and the [women's] determination to fight enhanced the morale of the men of Line 559. Vietnamese field report submitted from the Ho Chi Minh Trail, 1968 Strategists in Washington learned from Air Force intelligence reports that hordes of “coolie” laborers worked day and night, thwarting their plans to destroy the roads that made up the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But invisible to them were thousands of teenage women volunteers whose expertise with shovels, hoes, and guns kept the Trail open. US military planners wondered why it took seven years of steady bombing to finally destroy the Thanh Hoa Railroad and Highway Bridge, a strategic link between the supply depots of the north and the battlefields in the south. They would have been surprised indeed to discover that a nineteen year old Vietnamese militia woman's superhuman actions inspired artillerymen and villagers on the ground to keep fighting. American soldiers south of the DMZ learned from hard experience that village women who appeared gentle and harmless could be armed and dangerous. But they didn't know that a woman served ... log in or subscribe to read full text