I don’t want to talk much about what it was like being in the army because on the one hand there just isn’t much to talk about, and on the other, from my point of view, it would be completely pointless. What I mean is that, well, the whole experience just didn’t match up to my expectations. I was unhappy most of the time, and it was incredibly gruelling, but not in a physical way. First, I should say that I wasn’t accepted into the officer corps, but rather a ‘special detachment’. As I understood things, at the time, graduates of Hanoi University were given the rank of executive officer, or company commander, or at worst, platoon leader. Even though I hadn’t technically graduated, it was only the diploma that I didn’t have, and I thought that compared to everyone else who had gone to university – well, I didn’t think there was much of a difference between them and me; I thought I would be given the command of a platoon at least. But the army was a stickler for the rules and without a diploma – well, things didn’t turn out as I had hoped. A farmer from just outside Hanoi – people said he was the grandson of some military commander – couldn’t help but rub it in.

‘Yes, it is true, but the problem is that you don’t have a diploma, and you’ve no experience of working for the government. According to the rules, I can only assign you to a “special detachment”, and that is really too good for the likes of you.’

Naturally, it being ‘too good for the likes of me’ didn’t make me feel particularly pleased about this assignment.