The VC’s overran a village in Baclieu and burned all the straw huts to the ground. Old men, children, and women carrying their children fled to the City and took refuge in the Catholic church and Buddhist Pagodas. I was called upon to help the refugees. They needed food, shelter, and clothing. I opened the warehouse to the social workers to get bulgur wheat, cooking oil, powdered milk, and loaded them in my pickup for delivery to the Refugee Center. As many as five hundred people were displaced. The church and Pagodas were full.
Many Catholic families brought refugees to their homes, and so with the Buddhists. The big problem was housing for refugees.
The local officials designated the rice fields outside of the City as Refugee Center. I loaded my pickup with aluminum roofing, rebar, and cement and delivered to the place for distribution to individual refugee families to erect their own huts. I was reminded of my experience in Bayombong as refugees during WW II, but no agency helped us at all.
They needed water and water containers. Five trucks brought the water to the gas drums for cooking and drinking. The refugees dug individual latrines. I noticed that four feet underground was water. I figured out a plan to make them busy.
With shovels from the warehouse, I encouraged each family to build a fish pond. The Animal Husbandry Chief and Fishery Chief, who were my friends, announced that prizes would be awarded to the best fish ponds. The awards I gave were bags of wheat, cans of cooking oil, and powdered milk for each fish pond built.
When they found out that the Provincial Representative would award a radio, all available spaces of land, including the sidewalk near the road, were converted into fish ponds!
We had to stop them from further diggings, as the main highway was already endangered. The plan worked!
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