Educational Media Reviews Online

Even the Women Must Fight presents rare testimonials from North Vietnamese women who labored in the jungle fortifying and defending the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnamese American War. Marginalized by post-war history, five veterans of the Hanoi Volunteer Youth Company 814 share their firsthand accounts of war and combat, and the critical work removing bombs, filling craters, clearing jungle, and building bridges to keep the 12,000 miles of muddy foot trails operational as the key artery moving soldiers and supplies from the North to the South.

They spoke to Hanoi educator Phan Thanh Hao and historian Karen Turner in 2000 with pragmatism and pride, explaining their decisions to leave home at ages as young as 15 to join up to 300,000 others in youth brigades assigned to defend and reinforce the critical network of trails. A North Vietnamese colonel describes their work “with their shovels, hoes, and guns” as “securing the future of Vietnam.” They witnessed near constant U.S. airstrikes, shooting back with AK-47s, rescuing the wounded, and moving the dead only as far as the side of the road.

Complementing the oral history segments is astounding archival footage of women at work in the jungle and waging war, including the Ngu Thuy Female Artillery Company. The women’s service came at a cost, as they explain that many worked in the jungle as long as they were physically able, returning home too old or sick to marry and reentering a society too poor to support them. The story of their service was subsumed in the post-war narrative, leaving a broad picture of passive Vietnamese women buffeted by violence and upheaval.

At only 26 minutes, the film wastes not a moment and presents the interviews and archival footage along with narration taken from documents, military reports, and oral and written histories. Missing is any discussion or coverage of sexism, discrimination, or violence, which might have shed light on additional burdens faced by women in the military. The title references an old saying – “When the enemy comes close to home even the women must fight.” It imbues the film with the spirit of those women who volunteered to fight for their larger family, their country, as engineers, road builders, gunners, and coffin makers. Shedding light on a forgotten chapter of the Vietnam War, the film is a valuable record of women’s wartime contributions in their own words.

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