Thirty years ago, a man picked up an iron bar on the beach and brought it home to use as a drying rack. Now, a professor has come to his house and told him the truth, leaving him speechless.

Thirty years ago, a man picked up an iron bar on the beach and brought it home to use as a drying rack. Now, a professor has come to his house and told him the truth, leaving him speechless.

Thirty years ago, on a hot summer morning, Mr. Thai, a poor fisherman, went to the shore to find some dry firewood for cooking. The waves were lapping, and pieces of rotten wood, bottles, and scrap iron were drifting ashore. In the middle of that mess, his eyes suddenly stopped at a long, heavy iron bar, one end still slightly bent as if it had been exposed to extremely high temperatures. He picked it up, brushed off the sand, and thought to himself:  “No one will buy this for sale, so I might as well bring it home and make it into a net drying rack.”

From that day on, the iron bar quietly lay in his yard, supporting the wet fishing nets that smelled of the sea. Year after year, it became a familiar object, like a part of the roof of the poor house by the sea. His son grew up and paid little attention to it, seeing it as an old, lifeless piece of iron.

A fisherman, Mr. Thai never thought that what he found would be valuable. To him, the most precious things were the full catch of fish and the peace of his family in his small house.

Time flies like the waves of the sea. Thirty years later, Mr. Thai is now over sixty, with more white hair than black, and walks slowly. One day, a group of strangers appeared in the village, among them a middle-aged man wearing glasses and looking like a scholar. He introduced himself as Professor Hoang – an archaeologist at a major university.

Hearing that Mr. Thai had kept a “strange iron bar” for many years, Professor Hoang immediately went to find it. When he saw it, his eyes lit up, his hands trembling as he touched the rusty surface. While observing, he muttered:
– Oh my god… it’s really it. I can’t believe it…

Mr. Thai was surprised:
– It’s just an old iron bar, I picked it up on the beach when I was young. I brought it home to make a net drying rack, why did you come all the way here?

Professor Hoang looked at him, his voice filled with emotion:
– You know, this is not an ordinary iron bar. It is a piece of a weapon… one could say a piece of history. Based on the metal structure and traces on the surface, we confirm that this is the remaining piece of a cannonball fired in a naval battle decades ago.

Mr. Thai was stunned. All his life, he had only known that the sea gave fish and the waves gave wind, never thinking that this sea had been marked by fierce battles. Professor Hoang continued:
– That battle took the lives of countless soldiers. According to the records, this piece of iron belonged to a ship that sank near the sea where you picked it up. To us, it is priceless historical evidence.

The atmosphere in the house suddenly became heavy. Mr. Thai was silent, his eyes looking at the yard where the iron bar had stood silently for decades. He suddenly remembered that the day he picked it up, the sea was rough, the sky was gray, and no one paid any attention. He just considered it a piece of trash. But it turned out that for the past thirty years, his family had lived next to a witness to history, without knowing it.

Professor Hoang gently said:
– You have unintentionally preserved a treasure for the country. If it weren’t for you, this piece of iron would have rusted under the waves long ago. We would like to ask you to bring it to the museum, so that future generations can see it with their own eyes and remember the sacrifices of the past.

Mr. Thai pondered for a long time. This iron bar had become a familiar part of family life, but now he understood that it was no longer just an inanimate object. It was the memory, the blood, the tears of people who had fallen into the sea.

Finally, he nodded slightly:
– If it really means that much, I will return it to you. I just hope that when people see it, they will remember that this sea is not only for fish but also for the souls of the deceased.

When the archaeological team left, carrying the carefully wrapped iron bar, Mr. Thai’s yard suddenly became empty. He looked at that empty space and felt a sense of loss. Thirty years of attachment, now suddenly gone, as if saying goodbye to an old friend. But mixed with the emptiness was a quiet pride. He had contributed a small part to keep history intact.

That night, he sat on the porch, listening to the waves lapping. In the darkness, he whispered:
– You, those who have fallen under the sea, I do not know each of your names, but that iron bar has kept your memories for me for thirty years. Now it will tell your story to the world.

A tear rolled down his wrinkled face. The sea still roared as it always had, but in Mr. Thai’s heart, from now on, every wave carried the echoes of history, of the dead.

And he understood that sometimes things that seem inanimate and discarded contain an irreplaceable part of the nation’s memory.