Original subtitles

The lifeline for North Vietnam's war in

the south is a network of jungle paths

and mountain streams. The Ho Chi Min

Trail is the scene of intensive warfare.

Survival on the trail is held out as a

model for all of North Vietnam.

Everything is directed to war. North

Vietnam itself is a guerilla society.

The Ho Chi Min Trail is like a funnel.

Men and supplies pour in at the north to

emerge at the battlefields in the south.

It isn't one trail. It's a network of

jungle footpaths and dirt roads, canals,

and rivers that run generally north to

south for 1500 miles.

It is a grueling, perilous journey.

The trail begins near the coast, enters

the western highlands through a narrow

pass, then stretches south along the

mountain ridge separating Laos and

Vietnam.

A western journalist, Wilfrid Burchett,

traveled the trail.

It was improved the whole time. At the

time when I first started down, it would

have taken a good 6 months to get from

the 17th parallel down to say anywhere

close to Saigon. It went to very very

very rugged very very difficult

mountainous country and uh hair raising

sort of little swinging bamboo bridges

and there was no in those days there was

no way of getting any vehicles down. Uh

and then later later on it got better

and better and better and wandered in

and out over Vietnam and Laos and at

some points into in the northern

norththeast corner of Cambodia as well.

The trail and the Vietnam War develops

from 1959 when North Vietnam decides to

supply rebels in the South,

North Vietnamese strategist Colonel

Havano.

And it became a network of strategic

communications

to supply our armed forces in every area

of the front.

And this strategic route network

fulfilled its vital mission

in the struggle of our people against

local American war in South Vietnam. uh

oid Vietnam.

By 1964, men and materials depart from

organized assembly points along the

coast. New jungle paths provide easier

access to and through the mountains.

Part of the trail runs through neutral

Laos, so both sides at first deny there

is a ground and air war.

Official Air Force film identifies

specific targets.

Cutting the Ho Chi Min trail is seen as

the key to ending the war. Ambassador

Ellsworth Bunker.

If we cut the trail, the Vietkong I felt

would wither on the vine. The only thing

that kept it going were supplies,

weapons, ammunition from Hanoi.

Both the North Vietnamese infiltration

and the retaliatory US air strikes

increased daily.

From 1964 to 67, the air strikes tripled

from 2,000 to 7,000 each month.

By day, the pilots seldom detect

movement. They can only strafe deserted

roads and river fords.

Gunships are also called in where

communist infiltration is detected.

Phosphorous bombs and rockets are used

to strip away jungle cover.

The North Vietnamese defend the trail

with elite troops and artillery units.

25,000 North Vietnamese regulars guard

the approaches to the trail. The

communist defenses are considered too

strong to be attacked by ground forces.

Instead, the US relies on the most

concentrated air strikes in history and

an occasional commando raids.

An army of 50,000 laborers keeps troops

and trucks moving south, clearing the

bombed mountain passes and repairing the

bridges.

This strategic road network was

permanently maintained by groups of

pioneers of young pioneers, men and

women,

and of youth groups who were ready at

any time to repair the roads immediately

after every aerial bombing.

Even with the very strict surveillance

of the American planes on this road,

never was the road cut.

Despite the bombing, communist

infiltration increases yearbyear.

The US military estimate that in 1965

35,000 North Vietnamese troops moved

south.

In 1966, 89,000.

In 1967, [music]

perhaps 90,000.

In 1968,

[music] 150,000.

The trail defenders grow their own food.

Their campsites and truck repair depots

spaced every few miles under thick

jungle canopy.

There's strict military discipline on

meal times and rationing.

Each camp has a medic unit. Some have

nurses and surgeons.

At key base camps, communist cadres even

published their own news of the war.

Some American commandos couldn't

convince their superiors of the extent

of the trail organization.

I always felt that uh they disregarded

whatever uh information we gave them.

always felt that because at times that

Ho Chi Min Trail was so busy. Uh

it really was like uh the Long Island

Expressway during rush hour and anybody

that knows that such large amounts of

men and materials are moving down that

knows that and doesn't do anything about

it obviously didn't want to uh win the

war. And I'm not just saying my reports.

There was a lot of electronic

easedropping devices that were also

dropped all over that trail and the air

force knew about it. The army knew about

it, the CIA knew about it and yet

everybody tended to uh disregard that

information in terms of the enemy's

capability of uh launching a full-scale

attack.

I used to hear many people back in the

states saying, "Why don't we plug up the

Ho Chi Min Trail? Why don't we just bomb

the Ho Chi Min Trail?" Well, it wasn't

one trail. I mean, there were thousands

of trails. It was a network of thousands

of trails and there were thousands of

RNR spots along the way where the enemy

troops could seek refuge, build up and

uh I have to commend them. The NVA were

some super soldiers.

The troops moving south stop one day

each week at base camps. These provide

what the Americans [music] call rest and

recreation, R&R.

The most popular pastime against army

regulations is keeping diaries. As one

captured soldier said, "We wrote about

the terrain, the scenery. We wrote poems

and exchanged our diaries to read.

At the height of the war, the journey

south takes only 6 weeks, where it once

took 6 months.

Now they move by truck to assembly areas

in North Vietnam and then through jungle

passes into the mountains.

On leaving the north, they get new

clothes and equipment.

Then from the supply camps, they start

down the trail through Laos.

An assessment of them by US commander

General William West Morland.

They were very dedicated group.

The training of a North Vietnamese

soldier involved more propaganda

indoctrination and then military

training. They were tough. Their

commanders were were uh were were well

disciplined and and well trained but

they were ruthless and demanding

strict obedience uh by the men under

them the men the men in the ranks. They

had a fatalistic attitude where they

when they moved south uh many of them uh

had tattooed on their arms a statement

born in the north to die in the south.

There was a great deal of discontent in

their ranks, particularly among the very

young and um of the very old. And there

were old men and young men that were

drafted into service.

Before leaving, family visits are

allowed, but soldiers are instructed not

to tell their destination.

The tour of duty is indefinite for those

who travel south.

As the war intensifies, fewer return.

[singing]

A typical day on the trail. They rise at

3:30 a.m., march for at least 10 miles

or 10 hours a day.

They put up hammocks, dig foxholes, cook

and eat dinner, and prepare a rice ball

lunch for the following day, the last

duty before sleep.

The rice ration is a pound or two a day.

Luxury is a fish caught by tossing a

grenade into [music] a stream.

On the march, they must carry 75 to 85

pounds on their backs, their army kit,

three shirts, three pairs of trousers, a

raincoat, and a nylon tent.

A few will take up permanent duty

defending the trail.

Tens of thousands die on the trail from

the physical hazards of the journey.

Eyewitness Wilfried Bett

medical problems were were rather bad.

Uh especially malaria,

malaria, some intestinal and respiratory

thing, but mainly malaria. But they had

a very good production of medical

medicines going by that time, both

locally in South Vietnam. and they their

little jungle clinics and they had a

pretty good pharmaceutical service in u

in uh in Vietnam in North Vietnam

and everybody started out with whatever

it was necessary the anti the

prophylactic stuff against malaria of

their own production and uh one one

thing that was absolutely essential

which everybody had to carry uh I also

carried them sort of uh dice uh

dicesized cubes tubes against a snake

bite. It was a local remedy. You if you

got bitten by a snake, you broke the

thing in two, clapped

clapped it on the one half on the actual

bite and swallowed the other half. You

had to do it within 3 minutes. It was a

death adder because otherwise you would

be stripped up.

In late 1968, the US prepares for a

gradual troop withdrawal and begins an

all-out attempt to stop communist

infiltration.

Air strikes against the trail triple to

200 each day.

Bombing of the trail increases the cost

of this air war to 1 billion each year.

In total, the US loses 500 planes over

the trail.

The American High Command claims success

on the ground.

25,000 trucks are destroyed on the trail

in one 7-month period.

But it becomes clear that bombing the

trail cannot stop the North Vietnamese

war machine.

The trail by now is a sophisticated

communication system.

In in the beginning it was a you know a

very very miserable sort of uh

collection of trails. Gradually it

became a major more or less highway

accompanied with a parallel pipeline for

the big offensive in in 75. They were

getting their uh their fuel pumped down

just to wherever they they needed it. It

was absolutely was absolutely decisive

from beginning to end. By late 1968, US

intelligence reports that 10,000 trucks

are using the trail at any one time.

The trucks operate in relays traveling

40 m stretches. Each section has its own

repair crews, supply dumps, and fuel

depots.

The vehicles are kept strung out along a

grid system of vertical and horizontal

paths. When one route is bombed, the

column of trucks switches to a side

path. A labor gang immediately repairs

the bomb section.

New technology is tried. Sensors are

dropped to pick up the movement of men

and vehicles leaving the trail. The exit

routes become a little easier to detect,

but finally it all comes back to the

village level. Here, reliable

information is hard to get.

Despite controversy, more defoliants are

used to destroy jungle cover in the

lands.

According to the Pentagon, by 1967, the

communist convoys deliver 60 tons of

supplies a day to the south. It is

enough to sustain the war. Food,

weapons, and ammunition are dispersed to

hundreds of small units in the

countryside.

American reliance on large-scale attacks

is criticized by special forces soldier

Dave Christian. They were fighting

trying to fight a guerilla war with

conventional methods and they were

fighting a defensive war. And so they

had all these support troops and all

these support mechanisms and uh everyone

you had signal core over there. had all

these different things that I'm sure

were needed, okay, and were probably

used in World War II, um, possibly in

Korea, but they were outdated and

outmoded in Vietnam. Mainly, you take

your your large infantry outfits, the

guys that are fighting the war. The

reason you don't come into contact is

they make so damn much noise. Walking

through the jungle, you think it was a

herd of elephants coming. And if I had a

team of gorilla fighters, 8 to 10

people, I would not engage in that large

with that large of a group.

Unable to block the trail, the American

command concentrates on the exits. The

Iron Triangle, a 40 square mile area

north of Saigon, is a major infiltration

point. General West Morland defends

large conventional operations.

War Zone C was a a heavily forested area

uh uh north and

and west of of Saigon along the

Cambodian border.

And it was uh the the Vietnamese before

we arrived would never dare go in there

because it was uh it was totally

dominated by by the enemy.

Uh the enemy had uh uh great tunnel

complexes in there. They had uh

uh their headquarters well dug in and

camouflage. Uh they had their supply

dumps there

and uh it was necessary from for the

stake for the sake of protecting the

pacification effort and for preempting

the capability of uh of of of moving

into the populated areas for us to go in

and to disrupt that. But you couldn't go

in with platoon. You couldn't go in with

with companies. You couldn't go in with

battalions. They would have been chewed

up. they would have been ambushed and

decimated

and they therefore it took a massive

troop efforts to go in there with safety

and get the job done with minimum losses

and that was done.

West Morland prefers a direct attack on

the trail but Washington rejects this.

It would require four infantry divisions

at a time when the US is seeking to

withdraw troops.

Instead, the military launched massive

operations against communist base areas,

a field commander, General William Dew.

Uh there were operations which uh were

called search and destroy. It turns out

that was an unfortunate choice of words.

What it meant back in 1964, long before

it became unpopular,

uh was simply that US units or

Vietnamese airborne units or marine

units would patrol in the jungle, not in

the cities, not in the towns in order to

try to find the main force units, search

for them, find them, fight them, and

destroy them. Later, I guess it uh

became associated with pictures of

troops searching villages and setting

them on fire and the word destroy became

a dirty word.

In a typical operation, helicopter units

make a surprise descent on suspect

villages.

We've run into

in operational areas. Villages are

considered base camps. The people are

presumed to be communist supporters and

are often forcibly evacuated to govern

camps.

For most of the war, North Vietnamese

infiltration via the Ho Chi Min Trail

enables them to control at least 60% of

South Vietnam's countryside.

India, leave the rise and bring the

documents back with you.

and uh call uh sex in

homes are searched for weapons and

documents then often burned to prevent

any use as communist sanctuaries.

US forces though having greater mobility

rely on in andout tactics seldom holding

the terrain

when American forces withdraw the straw

huts and the communists soon reappear.

Known communist villages are bulldozed

and the crop land leveled. But across

the countryside, the communists develop

underground hideouts linked to the

trail.

They regard the trail as their route to

victory.

As the Ho Chi Min Trail develops, so

does the legend of the guerilla

fighters, an image of them from soldier

Tim O'Brien. Around 12:00 at night, for

example, uh we would group up maybe we

worked we worked usually in a company of

a maybe a hundred men and roughly a half

of those would group up at midnight and

uh sometimes darken our faces. We'd

throw our helmets off because helmets

were useless. They impaired hearing at

night. They were heavy. It was hard to

march with them. We throw everything

everything aside except our rifles, our

ammunition, a canteen of water, a

claymore, and a radio essentially, and

begin zigzagging through this ghost land

we call Vietnam.

Um,

it was eerie. Uh, there there was almost

a mythology about Vietnam among the

soldiers that the land was populated by

ghosts. We call the Vietkong ghosts

among in my element, platoon. You know,

the ghosts are out tonight. The ghosts

will get us tonight. It wasn't very

often Charlie. It was ghosts. And that

ghostly feeling was there. It was like a

wonderland. It was like uh uh Icabad

crane riding through Sleepy Hollow at at

at you know midnight. Uh trees seemed to

be moving. Seemed to be actually lifting

off the ground, wavering, shimmying the

wonderland. We called it ghost land. We

called it. Uh there was a feeling the

Vietkong because we called them ghosts.

And because they were so ghostly you

never saw them. They'd be, you know, you

see a shot of flame as they shoot at

you. You might see a shadow very rarely,

but they seem to be capable of

incredible things. There there was

mythology that they could crawl through

barbed wire, but they were immune to

barbed wire. They they were capable of

of of of supernatural sorts of things.

So we thought, and so it seemed. And an

image of the enemy began to to grow of

an of an enemy capable of of the most

incredible sorts of deeds.

To the US, the most puzzling aspect of

the North Vietnamese is their ability to

absorb such great damage.

Despite America's vast commitment to the

war, many policymakers claimed the US

lacked basic knowledge about its enemy

and so developed the wrong strategy.

After 20 years of involvement, the US

military had few recognized [music]

intelligence experts. General Edward

Lansdale

Well, looking back at the Vietnam War,

it strikes me as very odd that uh uh we

really didn't know any of the leaders on

the other side. We meaning not only the

American people, but uh probably our

presidents and our leadership in

Washington.

From its guerilla beginnings in 1945, Ho

Chi Min's nation is shaped by men

dedicated to a communist Vietnam.

Their

faces, names, and background are largely

unknown. Yet the wartime leadership

remains essentially unchanged.

There is the political mastermind

name Lewan

born 1908 in South Vietnam.

Lewan like his colleagues becomes a

Marxist in the fight against the French.

He develops the political organization.

Leison spends years in South Vietnam

organizing the guerilla resistance

called the National Liberation Front.

He takes over as first secretary of the

Communist Party.

There's the longtime prime minister who

directs day-to-day government and

becomes Hanoi's public voice.

Name FanDong

born 1906 at Wei Central Vietnam.

Dong is highly educated, the son of a

Mandarin. He helps found the Vietmin,

the peasant movement which fights the

French.

He negotiates peace in 1954.

The agreement partitions Vietnam. He

becomes prime minister and as premier

sees Vietnam united 21 years later.

There is the military mastermind

starting with 34 volunteers. He

eventually commands a millionman army

name Bonwin [ __ ] Born 1912 in central

Vietnam.

[ __ ] is politically active from age 14.

Though poor, he studies law, then

teaches history. His wife dies in a

French jail. He joins the Vietnam.

At age 27, he plans the guerilla

strategy which defeats the French.

He has military command for 30 years.

And there is the legendary president at

first unknown even to the Vietnamese

name.

Born 1890 in central Vietnam.

The world knows him as Ho Chi Min, one

of his many aliases. At age 21, he goes

to France to seek political reforms for

Vietnam.

He spends years in Russia and China,

returning to his homeland 30 years

later.

In 1945, he proclaims independence. 30

years of war follow.

In the North, Ho creates a single-minded

society with one goal, one Vietnam. An

expert on North Vietnam, Brian Jenkins.

We're also talking about a society that

is enormously disciplined,

a society that has historically was well

disciplined. And during the course of

the war, every aspect of that society

was geared toward fighting the war. I

mean, we are not talking about a society

with free press. We're not talking about

society with open debate. We're talking

about a society where the production,

the economy,

every newspaper,

virtually every poem,

artistic activity

uh was all geared toward

uh um that war effort.

The war in the north is most intense

along infiltration routes near the

border with the south. The US bombards

this region almost daily for 8 years

diplomat.

When the enemy planes arrived, everyone

participated in the anti-aircraft

defense.

Whether it was an active defense such as

manning the guns, or whether it was a

passive defense,

one of creating conditions in which the

civil population wouldn't be harmed by

the bombing.

And after the planes left, everyone

would pick up their work, whether it was

in the factories, the fields, the city,

or the country.

To guard the border area, the population

of the Vinland region goes underground.

Year by year, they extend the tunnel

community.

According to Hanoi, the strange world of

Vinllin finally winds for hundreds of

miles, sheltering 70,000 people.

Vinllin is upheld as an example of

national sacrifice. People are

encouraged to serve here.

Between bombing raids, the peasants

cultivate livestock and crops.

Trenches crisscross the fields.

The tunnels are organized like a city.

There are nurseries, hospitals,

recreation areas.

[crying]

Most of the population has never known

peace.

The entire society revolves around the

war. Journalist Wilfred Bchett.

It was compulsory for the kids to wear

green camouflage when they went to

school. Roughly whatever the vegetation

was in the area. But I remember once

driving soon uh and to my great

astonishment a whole field of maze

suddenly got to its feet and charged

across the road. And these were all

these were the local peasant militia.

The priority is to keep open supply

routes. Women militia are drafted to

defend them.

Women played a very considerable role

the early day in the my first visits. I

would say about half of the local

village uh self-defense units and

probably more were in fact women who

actually you know knew how to handle

rifles and grenades and whatever it was.

In the north, the women had very largely

taken over from the men in the in

agricultural production. You saw women

everywhere working in the fields and

doing jobs which previously women never

never handled at all. Plowing and

harrowing and that sort of thing.

Our army was by nature a popular army.

It was composed of three categories. the

local militia, the regional units, and

the units of the regular army.

An ordinary fighter in the regular army

was normally 20 to 25 years old.

The majority of them had secondary

school education

and they had the possibility of

continuing their studies in night

classes if conditions permitted it.

entertainment,

relaxation.

That was the business of the cultural

section of the army and we attached a

great deal of importance to it for our

fighters.

There was a cultural team that offered

dances, singing, music.

They even organized basketball teams,

volleyball teams. Teams of athletes

would compete against one another. The

army versus the civil defense.

General Jeff's military hero is

Napoleon. I've lost some battles, but

never lost a war, says Jeff. Effectively

his army is the entire population.

Whether in or out of uniform, everyone

is assigned war duties.

The leadership sets an example of

self-discipline. The prime minister

lives in the servants quarters of the

former colonial governor. Party chief

Lewan receives a salary of $10 a month,

the same as all other government

officials. Ho Chi Min constantly tells

them, "Stick together." They do.

In terms of their personal life, our

leaders were very much united because

they struggled under the same

conditions. They'd been in the same

prisons. They fought together

shoulderto-shoulder.

That's why the experience of the common

struggle united them,

not only in ideology, but in a life of

revolutionary struggle. We delete

Ho Chi Min regards his role as a teacher

who could achieve greatest results

through personal contact. And what he

taught was patience.

During 8 years of bombing, towns in the

border provinces are destroyed.

Namin, North Vietnam's third largest

city. It is a transportation and textile

center. frequently bombed.

The damage is widely publicized.

Visitors taken to the city 50 mi south

of Hanoi find churches, homes, schools

destroyed.

Most of the 90,000 population is

evacuated.

But they adjust, says Havano.

That is why in spite of the very savage,

very barbaric bombings of the enemy

planes,

life had to continue.

[music]

are relocated in mountain caves. Some

move three or four times as a result of

the bombing.

A typical Hanoi machine tool factory is

broken down into 50 separate workshops

scattered outside the city.

Work continues in three shifts to

maintain the war in the south.

Individual hardships continue for 30

years.

Food is about subsistence level.

In 1967, the monthly ration per person

is one pound of meat and 8 lb of rice.

In a year, each person is allowed 5

yards of cloth, enough for one shirt and

one pair of trousers, the standard dress

for men and women.

Some workers are relocated hundreds of

miles from their homes.

As a result, some children are separated

from their parents for years. This has

happened before in Vietnam.

The evacuated areas were first used in

10th century wars. They lived now where

their ancestors fought.

The students wear the red kirchief of

the communist youth movement. The lesson

combines a thousand-year history of

Vietnamese nationalism with Marxism.

Communist affairs expert Brian Jenkins.

without being deterministic about saying

that one is trapped by history to repeat

history. There were to be sure powerful

historical forces in Indochina um that

did have a major impact on the course of

events there. As an historian, I would

tend to go back several centuries and

and to say that I could come up with

with the

patterns that had recurred over five and

600 years.

They successfully attached themselves to

these powerful traditions. They made

history work for them.

And uh psychologically and politically

this put the the South Vietnamese and

uh the Americans as foreign intruders

very very much at a at a disadvantage.

They were able to uh take advantage of

this powerful tradition of resistance in

some cases when it's talking about the

resistance to ch Chinese rule for

centuries.

All civilians must contribute to the

war. Clearing highways and rail lines

becomes a specialist task.

An estimated 500,000 civilians, mostly

women, are mobilized as repair gangs,

traveling wherever needed.

By 1968, Hanoi claims that 80% of all

towns and cities of the north have been

bombed.

Hanoi has not been bombed. During the

1960s, the [music] US fears that

destroying Hanoi might bring the Soviet

Union or China into the war.

But thousands of concrete cylinders are

placed every few yards on each street as

air raid cover.

Half a million people, onethird of its

population, are kept in Hanoi in fixed

industries and government jobs.

Everyday life had to continue. Above

all, production had to continue

and even intensify.

Because if we hadn't increased

production, how could we have kept

ourselves supplied to continue the war?

In the urban centers to save the life of

the civil population, we dug

[clears throat] trenches everywhere.

The shovel becomes the tool of national

survival. A 16-hour workday is normal

for decades.

The chief strategy is to outweight the

enemy.

The money North Vietnam spends on the

war is unknown, but the war does demand

tremendous economic sacrifice.

In government stores, there are long

cues for cigarettes called DMU.

Luxury is a mosquito net. In the

late60s, food rations increase with

Soviet aid. Even then, officials tell

visitors, "We are terribly hungry."

But at all times, traditional Vietnamese

culture is maintained.

And I can even say that we didn't lack

for recreation either.

There were performances. There were

cultural evenings for the people. And

when the night alarms sounded, we'd

disperse. When the planes were gone,

then the shows would begin again.

And that was life during the bombings.

North Vietnam is regarded by American

policy makers as a puppet state, first

of China, then of the Soviet Union. But

Hanoi tells the people they are fighting

for independence.

[bell]

The North in turn cannot [music]

understand US motivations.

Hanoi does not recognize South Vietnam

as a legitimate country. The war for one

Vietnam is presented as a national

crusade.

US policymakers underestimate the

nationalist appeal of Hanoi's leaders,

says historian Brian Jenkins. I think

when we talk about the North Vietnamese

leadership, we are talking about

dedicated Marxists, but dedicated

Marxists who who nonetheless

are as traditional as the ancient

Confucian Mandarins that ran that

country centuries ago. Uh in fact it's

intriguing that some of the leadership

uh traces its origin in terms of its own

families not to proletarian

uh backgrounds but rather to uh advisors

to the emperors to court mandrins in

some cases. Uh no, it clearly the uh the

Marxism while legitimate and true uh to

those leaders was very very very much

something which one put on top of a

Vietnamese nationalism.

After peace with America is celebrated,

Hanoi still anticipates a drawn out

fight to attain reunification.

Patience is regarded as both the

greatest virtue and weapon. By this

time, some of Hanoi's leaders have

already been fighting for 50 years. If

one looks at Vietnamese history and and

the communists certainly did, uh they

were able to bite off half centuries in

the in a gulp, whereas we think of 5

years or 10 years as being a long time.

uh Hochi men's boast that they were

willing to fight uh 10 years, 20 years,

30 years or longer if necessary uh was

not an idol boast but rather really

reflected a Vietnamese perception of

history. It made probably little

difference to them whether their whether

ultimately they would achieve their ends

uh in the year 1969,

1970, 1975.

It could just as easily have been the

year 2000.

Vietnam 194575

three decades two wars one objective

I haven't seen anything to indicate that

at any time during the entire Vietnam

war even the height of the bombing at

any time that there was um

any threat to the stability of that

leadership

nor in fact even any major debate within

that leadership as to goals.

What united them and what still unites

them is our environment.

The ardent patriotism, the true

patriotism,

the profound love of independence and

liberty that goes hand in hand with love

of socialism.

Prime Minister Fam Von Dong answers the

question raised over 30 years.

Why are you like you are? Why are the

Vietnamese like they are? What's in you?

What makes you tick? and he laughed and

said, "Well, you know, um, what is our

history? There's nothing else in our

history except struggle. Struggle

against foreign invaders, always more

powerful than our soul. Struggle against

nature. We've had nowhere else to go. We

had to stay where we were and fight

things out where we were." And this the

result of this after 2,000 odd years, he

said, is that it's created a very stable

nervous system in our people. We never

panic and whatever new situation arises

up people say oh well there it goes

again that this he repeated this three

times there is nothing else in our

history except struggle

[music]

Heat.

Heat. [music]

[music]