The camp wasn’t much more than a clearing in the middle of the jungle. Tâm later found out she was in Phuoc Tuy Province, about three hours southeast of Saigon. South Vietnam occupied its capital, Ba Ria, but nearly 5,000 Communist troops had penetrated the countryside outside the city. Most depended on the support of friendly villages scattered around the province. Tâm recalled the meals people in her village had given the guerrillas, who, like ghosts in the night, materialized out of the bush. She would soon become one of those ghosts. If she survived.
As she dismounted the truck, she counted about fifteen recruits already there. Tâm saw only one other woman. They nodded to each other. She looked around. They were in the middle of a grove of rubber trees. A closer inspection revealed half a dozen small tents pitched among the trees. The tents, whose canvas sides were the same brown as the tree bark, provided a clever camouflage.
Their instructor met them at the truck. In his early twenties at most, he was slim and compact and wore a Western-style button-down shirt and jeans. His hair was on the longish side, probably to disguise his Northern allegiance and blend in with other South Vietnamese young men.
He hurried them off the truck. “I’m Nam. At least that is the name you may use for the next two weeks. Line up over there.” He waved at something behind them. When the students, Tâm included, looked confused, he barked, “Now!”
This time he pointed to the clearing, which was edged by more rubber trees and others she couldn’t identify. Hammocks were slung on three sides. A tarp covered one of the hammocks. They moved in a sloppy formation to the spot.
“Stop!” Nam ordered. “From this point on, you move in formation. One straight line, unless we order otherwise.” The recruits assembled themselves in a line. Nam pulled out a stopwatch and timed them. “Too long. Seven seconds only. Understand?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He advanced to the hammock covered with the tarp and flung the tarp aside. In it lay at least twenty-four rifles. “How many of you have never used a rifle? Raise your hands.”
Most of the recruits raised theirs, including Tâm. “First rule: Don’t be afraid of them. They will become part of you, as familiar and intimate as your fingers and skin. That’s why it is critical to get to know your weapon: its power, its range, weight, and most of all, its unique characteristics. Your weapon is your lifeline. Your shield between life and death. You must become a better shot than your enemy.”
Each recruit was handed an assault rifle or light machine gun. Tâm didn’t know the first thing about either, but she could tell the weapons in the hammock differed from one another. Tâm was handed an AK-47. Nam said that they stockpiled weapons from a variety of places. “We have a few old Soviet SKS carbines, RPD light machine guns, Chinese guns, and even M-16s, which we took from dead Americans.” He grinned.
“Rule two: never leave anything in the field after an ambush,” Nam said. “We use everything the Americans and ARVN discard and turn it back on them. Not only weapons, but ammo, field gear, other supplies, food. Even C-ration cans.”
A young recruit laughed. “We eat the food?”
“We build explosives and stuff them in the cans to make grenades. You will prepare and demonstrate one for the group.”
The boy stopped laughing.
Nam demonstrated how to carry the rifles, how to keep them close at all times, even when they relieved themselves. “Tomorrow you will be given ammo and you’ll learn how to shoot.”
Tâm’s AK-47 was heavier than she’d expected. But she did what she was told and learned the different carry positions that would keep her and the rifle safe.
An hour later they were given a cold lunch and assigned to tents. She and the other woman, whose name was Phan Vân Chi, shared one on the edge of the grove of rubber trees. Chi was from the Highlands. Her two brothers were also Communist fighters and fought at Hue, one of the longest battles during Tết. Chi had not heard from them since the Americans retook the city.
Due to the heat, they spent the rest of the afternoon in political education. Nam and another man, who said he was part of the NLF, the political arm of the National Liberation Front, gathered at the edge of the clearing. The recruits sat on the hammocks or the ground. The NLF official, who wore glasses and looked about ten years older than Nam, lectured them about two important concepts: đấu tranh, “struggle,” and giải phóng, “liberation.” He summarized the history of the South Vietnamese Communists and how they’d expanded and grown over the years. Their success was due to their mastery of guerrilla techniques.
“You’ll learn how to be guerrilla fighters,” he said. “The NVA military, who come in from the north, fight traditional battles against the South and the Americans. But we concentrate on ambushes, sabotage, bombings, and assassinations.”
Tâm leaned forward. She had known the Communists slipped in and out of the shadows, but she hadn’t realized it was a calculated decision. She felt a little stupid at her ignorance.
“So. What do we mean by guerrilla warfare? The two most critical components are concealment and camouflage.” The instructor pointed to the tents, then the hammocks. “You must let the jungle and the bush work for you. The tents are the same color as the tree bark. The hammocks the same green as the bush. That’s camouflage. Concealment, on the other hand, is when we bury a land mine under the jungle floor and arrange leaves and foliage on top. Or we build a tiger trap. Does anyone know what that is?”
No one answered.
“It is a powerful weapon. We dig a large hole in the ground, fill it with wooden or bamboo spikes, then cover it with leaves and branches to conceal the hole. When an enemy falls into it during close combat, their limbs are impaled on the spikes. It takes considerable time to extract them—if they are still alive—without causing more damage to their body.”
He looked around at the recruits. One or two looked green. Tâm swallowed.
“If you are fighting defensively, a spider-hole trap is also useful. You dig a hole in the ground, cover it with greenery, and hide inside it. When the enemy closes in, you stab them with your bayonet.
“The point is to disrupt your surroundings as little as possible, whether you are scouting, transporting goods, or, as we’ve discussed, preparing to fight. Many times, you’ll camouflage yourself with leaves and grass to wear on your head.”
Tâm worked a hand through her hair. There was so much to know about this type of warfare.
“At the same time, however, you must know your surroundings intimately. For example, many of you will be traveling up and down the Đường Trường Sơn—what the Americans call the Hồ Chí Minh Trail—to move positions, deliver supplies, or take wounded soldiers back north. Most of the trail is aboveground but there is a network of tunnels underground. We don’t want you down in the tunnels without someone who knows them well. They are seeded with booby traps that can kill you if you don’t know what or where they are.”
“What is the purpose of the traps, if the tunnels are designed to help North Vietnam and the Communist troops?” someone asked.
“That is an excellent question.” The instructor glanced at the recruits. “Does anyone have the answer?”
No one volunteered.
“The enemy discovered the tunnels, and for the past five years they’ve been trying to destroy them. They’ve used explosives. They’ve flushed the entrances with gas and water. They use dogs to sniff us out. They spray chemicals to defoliate the land and reveal them. They’ve even set fire to the grasses in an effort to expose the tunnels. They are likely the most bombed, shelled, gassed, and devastated site in the history of warfare. But the enemy has failed. Our tunnels have survived, even expanded. So now the enemy sends men down them on suicide missions.”
“Suicide missions?” Tâm asked, surprised.
“They call them ‘tunnel rats,’ and they try to kill as many of us as they can before they are themselves killed. But we have many traps that prevent them—and their dogs—from succeeding. They are all usually killed, either by us or by the traps. That is why the people of Vietnam will defeat the enemy. We will be one people, one country, reunited.”
Tâm wiped sweat from her neck. She hoped she would be ready for all this.