Page 363 - Thorn In The Heart

Chinh Nguyên

After a day of the heavy fire. Ban-Me-Thuot seemed to be an
invasion by Viet-Cong. They appeared at some place in the city,
controlled the countryside and threatened the civilians in the city.

A chopper and fighter airplanes were exploded in the air by the
anti-air aircraft artillery, which they supported to landing few
companies of a 45th infantry regiment of 23th Army division into the
center of downtown Ban-Me-Thuot, and bombing on the Viet-Cong
strong holding.

Viet-Minh knocked Nguyen family's door at noon of 30/1/1968,
and called whole Nguyen's family members out of the shelter and
stood on the floor at the living room. They directed their guns to his
family members, while a leader of the group walked down into the
shelter. He checked everything on his family's properties and took all
the money that Nguyen's mom had put in each cloth bag for her
children.

After he walked out of a shelter, he looked at each Nguyen's
family member, gave a finger point to Nguyen and his brother's faces
then had a little smile of threatening.

"You..., You..., You...must tell me the truth. If you don't tell me
the truth I will kill you." In the hard voice of terror by threats, he said.

My-Hanh looked at him with her afraid eyes and said.

"Yes, I will..."

"I am civilian." In a low voice, Trung Dung replied.

In emotion, My-Thanh holds her mom's arm. She looked down
to run away from his cruel eyes and said:

"I was a student."

His put his handgun on Nguyen's front head while Nguyen was
quiet and indifferent.

363