Women played a massive, highly integrated, and decisive role in the National Liberation Front (NLF)—commonly known as the Viet Cong—and the broader communist war effort during the Vietnam War. Operating under the revolutionary framework that "when war comes, even the women must fight," female personnel accounted for a significant percentage of the insurgency's underground networks, logistical framework, and combat forces.
The engagement of women within the Viet Cong and Southern revolutionary infrastructure manifested across several critical areas:
- The "Long-Haired Army" (Tóc Dài): In South Vietnam, a mobilization of roughly one million women organized political protests, non-violent resistance, and intelligence-gathering networks against American and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. Coined by opponents and embraced by the movement, the term "Long-Haired Army" referenced women who used their civilian status to mask military operations, infiltrate urban centers, and confront enemy soldiers directly.
- Direct Combat and Guerrilla Warfare: Women served as active combatants, snipers, sappers, and scouts within local guerrilla units and main-force Viet Cong battalions. They participated in ambush operations, laid booby traps, and manned weapon emplacements. All-female guerrilla and self-defense platoons operated across various contested regions of South Vietnam.
- Intelligence and Espionage: Because rural women could move more freely through checkpoints and blended easily into the local peasantry, they served extensively as covert scouts, couriers, and spies. They mapped enemy bases, smuggled vital intelligence, and coordinated underground communication channels beneath fortified zones.
- Logistics and the Ho Chi Minh Trail: Thousands of female youth volunteers and logistical workers operated along the intricate supply networks of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They drove supply trucks, repaired heavily bombed roadways, defused unexploded ordnance under hazardous conditions, and transported weaponry and food through malaria-infested jungles.
- High-Level Leadership: Women held influential command and political positions within the NLF. A prominent example is Nguyễn Thị Định, who served as the co-founder and deputy commander of the Viet Cong's Liberation Army and was one of the most powerful military figures in South Vietnam. Additionally, figures like Madame Nguyễn Thị Bình played critical diplomatic roles representing the NLF on the international stage, including at the Paris Peace Accords.
- Medical Support and Tunnel Networks: Women formed the backbone of the battlefield medical system, working as combat nurses and surgeons inside the elaborate network of underground base camps and tunnels (such as those in Củ Chi), providing critical trauma care under constant threat of bombardment.
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