[Vietnam] A Cry For Help

[J.Hyde]

Odinson

Despite Vietnam and The United States' tumultuous history, stemming mostly from the Vietnam War, America was still permitted to host an embassy on Vietnamese soil. Situated at 7 Láng Hạ, Chợ Dừa, Ba Đình in Hanoi. In fact, the U.S. Ambassador had even been given a personal residence situated in Tong Dan Street, a splendid building that dated back to the French Colonial Period in 1921.

It was this colonial period building that would be graced with the presence of an unknown Vietnamese individual, who upon passing by the front gate to the estate, surreptitiously left a package beside it before briskly walking away.

 

[Odinson]

One of the security personnel for the Ambassador's Residence immediately noticed the package being placed near the front gate and radioed it in to security command at the building. A Diplomatic Security Agent stepped outside with a radio, and examined a package from a distance. Instead of approaching the package, she decided it would be safer to have the ambassador brought down into the safe room of the building. While this was going on, the Diplomatic Security Service at the building made a call to Hanoi police and requested that a bomb-squad unit be dispatched to investigate the package left near the front gate of the building. Once the ambassador was in the safe room of the building, the home was put into lockdown, and armed DSS agents locked and secured all doors and windows of the building.
J.Hyde

 

[J.Hyde]

Odinson

The Vietnam People's Police were quick to leap into action upon receiving the call from the American embassy. Within minutes, officers that were in the vicinity on foot-patrol had already descended upon the scene enmasse and begun clearing the street. They were soon bolstered by response cars, who set up a cordon a fair distance away from the package, while a request was put in to the local People's Army garrison for bomb disposal personnel to muster and make their way to the scene.

With the street secured, all that was needed were the ordnance disposal experts, who were on their way. Police officers kept their distance while watching the package that was sat near the front gate. 10 minutes later, a Vietnamese armoured personnel carrier arrived and dropped off a group of civilian bomb disposal experts, that had been tasked with the clearing of the thousands upon thousands of bombs that America had dropped upon Vietnamese soil during The Vietnam War, which had failed to detonate. Mutilation or death by unexploded ordnance was a common fate for many, a continuing legacy of the conflict that had concluded 22 years earlier.

The group immediately began conferring after taking a cursory look at the situation. It was an entirely new situation that they'd never experienced before. Their work had involved them dealing with explosives that were abandoned in the rural areas of Vietnam, making it a simple task of just orchestrating a controlled detonation of the ordnance where it was found. In this situation, detonating the package would undoubtedly cause damage to the surrounding buildings, which included the U.S. Ambassador's residence. As such, this task required an element of delicacy that they'd never needed before. With the group hitting deadlock with how to proceed, one of the all-female team volunteered to approach the bomb and inspect it more closely, so that more information could be gleaned for the formulation of a plan.

After collecting a bunch of rudimentary tools, the young woman, who's uniform consisted of overalls and an unwieldy sunhat, instead of a proper bombproof suit, approached the package and laid down in front of it, while placing her tools beside it. Firstly, she looked over the package closely. The corners were exceptionally pronounced, indicating that the contents were bulky, yet regular in shape, akin to a solid box that had been wrapped like a present. With beads of sweat beginning to form on her forehead, the unprepared disposal expert gingerly poked the package with a pencil to gauge how solid it was. The breaking of the pencils tip showed that it was a very hard object, which puzzled her deeply.

Why would an explosive be contained within such a hefty container like this? Her face contorted into a bemused frown as she picked up a knife and, after holding the box steady with her free hand, made an incision in the shape of a U, so she could peel back a section of the packaging paper and catch a glimpse of what was inside. To her amazement, what was revealed was not an explosive device, but the spine of a book. Confused, she tore the package open a little more until, slowly but surely, the contents were full visible. The contents were, strangely enough, two thick paperback books wrapped together with cello tape. With her courage growing, the young woman picked herself up off the floor and, without any regard for her safety, picked up the bound tomes and turned them over in her hands so she could look at them. They were, according to the covers, both copies of the official history of Vietnam.

After giving the books a rigorous shake to see if they contained a nasty surprise within, she turned towards the crowd of police officers, and her colleagues, and shouted that there was no bomb. As the Vietnamese breathed a sigh of relief, the brave EOD expert walked over to the front gate of the house it had been delivered to and rang the bell.

 

[Odinson]

It took less than a minute for one of the Diplomatic Security Service agents to answer the door. She had crystal blue eyes, brilliantly blonde hair, and simply could not look more American - probably at least from a Vietnamese perspective. That would make it all the more shocking when she opened the front door and said to the bomb-disposal woman, in Vietnamese, "Is everything okay?"

​

Meanwhile, inside the embassy, a secure message had already been sent directly to the Secretary of State, and the Department of State, back in Washington that there was a possible bomb outside the front of the Ambassador's residence in Hanoi. The State Department ordered that the U.S. embassy in Hanoi also be temporarily put on lockdown and for the Marines at the embassy to prepare for any kind of attack. The ambassador and his family remained in a panic room of the residence while the DSS agent conversed with the Vietnamese bomb-disposal expert.
J.Hyde

 

[J.Hyde]

Odinson

The young woman flinched at the fluent Vietnamese being spoken to her. As far as she was concerned, The Americans were the bad guys that had attempted to snuff out Vietnamese independence 22 years ago with violence and the Southern Vietnamese puppet government.

"E-Everything is okay, Bà Người Mỹ (Miss American)." She stammered back before presenting the wrapped up books in the palms of her hands. "There was no explosive. Merely two copies of Vietnam's history."

 

[Odinson]

"I'm Agent Anne Taylor," she said with a slight smile as she stepped outside and closed the door behind her. She radioed to another DSS agent inside the home (in English) and then returned to speaking Vietnamese with the woman. She took the two books which were she offered, and briefly examined them to make sure that they were nothing more than books.

"Thank you very much for your help," she said as she held the books in her hands.
"We are going to set up a small command tent out here on the grounds to make sure that there is nothing wrong with the books, and then we will hand them over to the ambassador," she said. Agent Taylor would hand over the books to another DSS agent and would walk over to the rest of the Vietnamese police to respectfully thank them for their help and speedy response. After that, things would return to normal.

However, a small white tent would be erected on the grounds of the ambassador's house. Several DSS agents carefully examined the books. Agent Taylor and a few others were literate in Vietnamese, so they could read and examine the books. They would take note of the name of the books, the authors, as well as anything that someone else may have written on or inside of the books.
J.Hyde

 

[J.Hyde]

Odinson

With her job done, the young bomb disposal expert took a step back and bowed towards Agent Taylor.

"I am honoured to have been of service, Bà Anne (Miss Anne)," She replied. "My name is Lâm Mai Anh. I hope you enjoy your stay in Vietnam."

Mai then backed away a little before turning and heading back to her colleagues. The rest of the emergency services began packing up and heading back on patrol or back to base after graciously accepting the gratitude displayed to them by Agent Taylor.

---

Meanwhile, the two tomes, after the tape that bound them together had been removed, revealed that there was a handwritten note sandwiched between them. Scrawled across the paper was a simple message written in Vietnamese:

"Save them before they disappear!"

The books were, for all intents and purposes, the same book. They both bore the same title, which indicated that they were in-depth summaries of Vietnam's history dating back as far as historically possible. The authors named were omitted, instead showing that they had been authored and printed by The Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo , The Ministry of Education and Training. Upon opening the books, the contents pages simultaneously acted as a timeline of the region that would become Vietnam, with some overlap with the other areas of Indochina occupied by Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.

Closer inspection of the inscription printed on the back of the front cover indicated that while these two books were the same, they had been printed at different times. The older of the pair had been printed in 1996, while the other was a new copy printed in the current year, 1997. Meanwhile, the two's contents pages had various parts circled in red pen, accompanied by scribbled notes and/or exclamation marks and question marks. Specifically, three sections of the older book, which spoke of the former civilisations of The Khmer Empire, Champa, and references to the người Thượng, also known as Highlanders or Montagnards, had been omitted entirely from the newer copy, the place where they should have been circled and a scribbled note penned next to it, which read; "History gone, followed by the people."

Investigation of the older text and its pages regarding the missing chapters would speak of a very rich history that dated back to the Bronze Age.

The Montagnards, which had distinguished themselves in The Vietnam War by assisting The Americans and South Vietnamese in defending the now gone Republic of Vietnam from communist insurgents, was a French term that referred to what The Vietnamese called Highlanders, a group of 6 tribes that were ethnically and culturally distinct from the majority Kinh/Vietnamese population. They had existed within the geographical region known as The Central Highlands since The Bronze Age.

The Khmer Empire existed from 802 AD until 1431 AD. Its territorial expanse included much of what would be Southern Vietnam, and a significant population of Khmer ethnic peoples still existed in Vietnam under Communist rule. However, due to their geographical location, which was far to the south of Cambodia's main modern territorial lands, they had gained the name of Khmer Krom, which translated to Lower Khmer.

Meanwhile, Champa referred to a loose collection of independent tribes that had lived close to the central/southern Vietnamese coastline from 192 AD until 1832, when they were conquered by The Vietnamese, however their lineage could be traced back to as far as 400 BC. While they were independent in terms of the various polities that had created Champa, they were united through their ethnic heritage as Chams, or Cham People.

In contrast to the older version, the new version, when compared, had zero mention of these, and other ethnic groups and their history in Vietnam. For all intents and purposes, the official history of Vietnam had been totally cleansed of any ethnic diversity. It was now all Kinh history.