Young soldiers search for mines on the Vietnam-China border.

HA GIANG - Trung's hands are blistered, he always steps carefully because under the soil of Minh Tan (Vi Xuyen) there could be mines, "relics" left over from the war on the northern border.

In early summer 2023, 22-year-old private San Van Trung was given a knife, a shovel and an iron rod by his platoon leader, tools that would accompany him until his discharge in early 2025. After three months of new recruit training, Trung and 11 of his teammates were called up to take on the task of clearing bombs and mines left over from the war on the northern border. The young men in their twenties were taught safety rules when clearing explosives, distinguishing between types of mines and how to neutralize some types.

Private San Van Trung enlisted in February 2023 and in June participated in clearing mines left over from the war in the Minh Tan border area, Vi Xuyen district, Ha Giang province. Photo: Giang Huy

Trung, a Chinese ethnic, grew up in Chi Ca commune, Xin Man border district, has quick feet like a squirrel, is used to farming, so he was chosen to be one of the pioneers to clear the land. He belongs to the 19th Engineering Company, Ha Giang Provincial Military Command, one of six military units participating in the clearance of bombs, mines, and explosives left over from the war to serve the search and collection of martyrs' remains, and to clear the land for production.

After the 10-year war to protect the northern border (1979-1989), Ha Giang still has 77,900 hectares of land contaminated with bombs and mines, 7,500 hectares of which are densely populated. Vi Xuyen alone, which suffered about 2 million artillery shells from the other side of the border from 1984-1989, no one can count how many mines and mortar shells are left.

Through field surveys to create a clearance map, the border of Minh Tan commune was determined to be level one, meaning that each hectare of land still had more than 100 mines; some points were level two - about 60-80 mines, all of which were at an especially dangerous level. Assigned to clear over 150 hectares of land in 2023-2024, the engineers of Company 19 have now cleared over half of the area.

Engineers planted flags and marked the location where underground explosive signals were detected. Photo: Hoang Phong

Trung’s hands were full of calluses after eight months of holding a 2-meter-long wooden knife. It wasn’t as simple as “cutting however you want” in the fields; every step he took on the ground had to follow safety rules. Doing something wrong could cost him and his teammates their blood.

After clearing the reeds, Trung gently poked the iron rod into the soil layer to check. "To avoid poking the mine cap and causing injury, the rod and shovel must not be stuck straight into the ground but must be tilted 30-40 degrees," said the private about the lesson he had learned by heart. Seeing it was safe, Trung used the shovel to dig until the 30cm thick layer of humus was gone, creating a small hole, called a foot-digging. The engineer behind him placed his foot in the right hole and moved the mine detector around. If the signal sounded, the red flag was planted.

The danger of the job is gradually making the young man approach a part of the reality of the war on the northern border, something that when he was a child he only heard through the stories of his grandparents, who used to be the frontline laborers carrying rice for the soldiers to protect the border land of Chi Ca. At the age of 15, Trung saw the first traces of war through the deep hole in the cliff caused by artillery shells when he and his father went to build a project in the commune.

Lieutenant Pham Duc Truong, Engineer Platoon Leader 3, inspects the explosives warehouse after clearance of Engineer Company 19, January 2024. Photo: Giang Huy

The closer to the border, the denser the mine density and the easier to find M79, K58, 625A, 625B... Many plastic shells, lying in the ground for more than 40 years, when dug up still look like new. This type of mine mainly reduces fighting ability, causing the enemy to lose legs and arms, or even lose their lives.

The engineers' steps were more cautious as they approached the fortifications and trenches covered with barbed wire, where both sides planted mines to protect their positions during the fighting. The explosives that could not be brought back to the warehouse were handled by the engineering team on the spot. Most of the remaining mines were neutralized and brought back to the warehouse to be destroyed.

San Van Trung often encounters fragments of mortar shells, the type that no longer has lethal power. Whenever encountering mines, the task of removing the fuse is always undertaken by engineering officers like Lieutenant Pham Duc Truong, leader of Engineering Platoon 3. The 25-year-old lieutenant, from Phu Tho, has personally detonated most types of mines after 8 months of clearing in Vi Xuyen. The first time he held a real mine, Truong's hands trembled a bit, but now when he sees it, "his mind automatically knows how to detonate it."

One of the mines that officers never allow soldiers to touch is the K69. The mine has an iron shell, is optimally moisture-proof even when buried deep underground, and is detonated by a pressure of over 5 kg or a 2 kg wire with a lethal radius of over 10 m. The mine is made in China and is usually launched at waist level and then explodes, so it is also called a "flying frog". This type reduces combat power, causing soldiers to not sacrifice themselves immediately but to suffer pain and blood loss, and teammates do not know where to get first aid.

The first day before leaving the camp to the former battlefield, Truong lit an incense stick with a cigarette next to a large rock, praying in his mind, "May the souls of our uncles and aunts bless us to be safe." Truong believed, "Our soldiers fought here, and even sacrificed their lives, to defend every inch of land. We, the children and grandchildren, will clean up so that the collection team can find and bring our uncles and aunts back home."

"The work can be fast or slow depending on the weather and terrain, but safety must always be number one," the engineer lieutenant, who looks older than his 25 years, said about the task that does not allow soldiers to be careless even with one step. Each group always has an officer in charge to closely monitor, but each soldier selected for the formation is familiar with discipline so there is no need for much reminding.

Mines and explosives after clearance were gathered in one place by the 19th Engineering Company, awaiting a decision on destruction. Photo: Giang Huy

Entering winter, the clearance progress slowed down due to thick fog, the temperature dropped to 1-2 degrees Celsius. The engineers huddled in their tents, playing chess and arm wrestling to kill time.

"We were impatient, but we couldn't argue with the weather because of the thick fog and unsafe visibility," explained Major Pham Xuan Ngoc, Captain of the 19th Engineer Company. In this land, the summers were hot and the winters were foggy, so the time for concentrated clearance often lasted from April to early December. When the fog cleared, the troops marched back into the minefields. On days when they went to far-off fields and climbed cliffs, the soldiers carried food and water for lunch to continue working in the afternoon.

Ten years ago, Ngoc, 26 years old, first led an engineer platoon carrying military equipment, rice, and food, walking for half a day to Ma Hoang Phin village, Minh Tan commune, located close to the border. The soldiers camped a distance from the ironwood tree at the end of the village and spent more than half a year clearing the land for mines to build a border patrol road.

Returning to Minh Tan in 2023, the concrete road had transformed the border village to the point that Major Ngoc could hardly recognize it until he saw the ironwood tree standing alone by the roadside. Concrete houses gradually replaced palm-roofed houses, and the cassava garden had become a grocery store. But the ground was still littered with bombs and mines waiting to be discovered.

This time, the task was more difficult for Major Ngoc, who was in charge of a hundred-man engineering company clearing 150 hectares of land. To him, the work now had more meaning than a task assigned by his superiors. Once it was cleared, "the remains of the fallen would be found and brought back soon, the living would have land to produce, and they could go to the fields and forests without worrying about tripping over mines."

For Lieutenant Truong, when he first graduated from the Engineering Officer School, he never thought that one day he would have to clear each mine left at the border. The young generation born in the late 80s and early 90s, for many reasons, did not know much about the war at the northern border through books. "Now that we have cleared mines, later when our children join the army, they will not have to do this anymore," he said.

Hoang Phuong - Vnexpress.net

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