Vietnam War > THEN THE AMERICANS CAME > Mrs. Nguyen Thi Thiet

THE BOMBING started in Vinh Linh on February 8, 1965. In the beginning the Americans bombed the hospitals, the schools, and the military camp. At first, not many people were killed. The worst was after 1965. So many were killed, especially in 1972.

People from Quang Tri Province had been evacuated north to Vinh Linh because they thought it was safer than the South. They were wrong. Some days, twelve, thirteen, fourteen people were killed. In an area of a kilometer or two, in a single morning the Americans would drop sixty, seventy bombs.

Mostly, people lived underground. The people of Vinh Linh are farmers, and still went to the fields to work every day. But when the planes came they escaped to the tunnels right by the fields. The women and young people always carried guns with them, to shoot at planes.

I was ten years old at the time of the second bombing, in 1972. School was always held in the shelter. The children couldn't come up. I lived seven days a week underground.

Toxic chemicals and defoliants were dropped, and a lot of napalm. Many people today still have scars from napalm bombs. There were different kinds of fragmentation bombs, some the size of a fist. Even now people get killed from small, unexploded bombs. Wounded people were looked after by their families, or by the community if they had no children. The dead were buried everywhere, without coffins. Three people died in my family.

The Americans cannot repay this debt, because it's too big.

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