A barefooted soldier with love for collecting stamps
Leaving army for more than 40 years but Lam Thanh Ron still remembered the early days, when Lam Thanh Ron joined army in. In these days, he took part in revolution to seize power by with his barefoot and bamboo sticks to drive Japanese soldiers out of the country.
After the 1954 Geneva Agreements was signed in Geneva, he regrouped to the North and soon was sent back to the South. After fighting for four years, he returned to the North again due to his poor health. During this period, he met many people from different places. Each time he moved to a new place, he received letters from numerous old friends. He loved these letters and always carefully kept all the stamps.
In 1976, he returned to South with his collection of stamps featuring numerous world beauties, famous people, especially stamps with images of Uncle Ho.
Idea of creating a portrait from stamps
One day in 1960, Ron was luckily to meet Uncle Ho visiting his unit, the Department of Quarters, the Ministry of Defence.
While he was under treatment at the Hospital 42, he heard news of Uncle Ho’s death on radio. All people in the hospital were bathed in tears. He told himself to do something to show his great respect to the beloved Uncle Ho and the idea to make portrait of Uncle Ho from stamps flashed in his mind.
In 1990, he built a wooden board and had his cousin to sketch a portrait of Uncle Ho. He suddenly thought about a support for the portrait. He remembered 28 countries where Uncle Ho had gone through during the period of 30 years to seek the way for national liberation. Therefore, a map of 28 countries in frame of a rectangle was made to support for the portrait.
After two weeks of hard work, he finished the portrait of Uncle from numerous stamps. Fortunately, he received a letter from a friend from Hanoi with a stamp featuring images of Uncle Ho. This last stamp in the portrait of Uncle Ho is formally placed next to stamp with Lenin’s image.
In addition, with various spare stamps, Ron also made a beautiful map of Vietnam. On the left of the picture, there is an image of the earth and the dove while on the right, is an image of the hammer and sickle and an image of the star below. He said that he put two pictures side by side aiming to thank Uncle Ho in seeking way for national liberation for a happy life today.
Translated by Nguyen Thao