Ha was a nurse in a clinic in Quang Tri City She was the only girl from the hamlet of Tan An Von Giap ever to escape a rural life Her father wanting to save her from a life of toil in the fields arranged for her to live with relatives in Quang Tri City and get an education She frequently rode her bicycle the twenty kilometers to visit family back in the hamlet While there she tended to the medical needs of those in the hamlet that included Viet Cong fighters and lately fighters from the Northern ArmyHa was not political by nature but that changed when government soldiers arrived with trucks and bulldozers to remove all the people and raze the hamlet of Tan An Von Giap They announced that the people were being moved to a refugee camp They could only take what they could carry Their homes their fields their animals all were to be abandoned Those who protested were beaten with truncheons and herded into trucks But the greatest sorrow was abandoning the graves of their honored ancestors Tending those graves was a large part of their spiritual life and their daily ritual For the people of Tan An Von Giap their world turned upside down suddenly and without warningWith no land to work or animals to tend Has father tried making a little money selling cigarettes to passing truck traffic on Highway 9 outside the camp A soldier from the camp arrived at the clinic with news that her father had been hit by a truck and killed on the highway Ha rushed to the refugee camp to bury her...
