There wasn’t hopelessness there. The Marines were wonderful, and their conduct was perfect. The Marines were tough in war, but believe me, they were also gentle and kind to the Vietnamese and very sensitive. The Marines wanted to do the best possible job they could, and they wanted to have the best refugee camp in America. They succeeded, God bless them all. I was so happy to be able to stay there.

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I gave sermons and brought in priests and bishops to help buoy up the refugees’ spirits. And the Marines did what they could to keep them thinking positively. The food was terrific, but it was American food and the Vietnamese had a little trouble with that. But considering the situation, it wasn’t really a serious problem. I coordinated the religious services and then tried to help them find places to settle. Organizations gave them clothing and tried to put them up in tents. It was a beautiful quarters for the Vietnamese to stay in on such short notice.

New Vietnamese kept coming to the camp, and the people I served stayed about the same in number. But the authorities wanted to clear it all out by the time the rainy season came around. Then, before Christmas, they sent the last ones out to Fort Chaffee, Ark., and then on to their own homes. All the camps were empty by Christmas.

After the camp emptied, I came to San Jose to help the new refugees here. I took care of the Vietnamese I could find around me. I took care of the poor ones that I found and got them food and a place to live. I taught English to both the adults and the children and tried to help the children in their studies at school, and I came back to the homes every night.

This was a daily routine. I went around to as many Vietnamese households as I could in San Jose and helped them. I went around and found out what the people needed and then tried to get it for them from various charitable organizations. I had once been a schoolteacher, so I always taught the kids. I took their books and went through all their work starting with the oldest child and then going to the next one and the next one and so on. I did this most of the day and night.

I knew when I worked with them that they would succeed in America. I knew they would thrive on freedom and contribute to this country and be good citizens. I watched them learn, and I helped them and thought how lucky they were to have made it here, but at the same time I could see how lucky Americans would be to have them here. I think anyone who worked with them could have seen that. You couldn’t miss it.

Then somebody wrote me that my old colleague from Vietnam, Father Bach, was in a refugee camp in Thailand and that he was a camp chief. I expressed a desire to go there and help him again. I wrote to an international refugee organization and said I’d sure like to assist them, and they wrote back, ‘You can come over and join us and help.’

So in 1979 I went to Thailand for the first time. I didn’t know for sure that I could get in and stay there, but I went anyway. I went with an organization I had joined, the Thai-Catholic refugee organization, COERR [Catholic Organization For Emergency Relief and Refugees].

When I flew into Thailand, the camp I went to was in Song Khla, which was located on the east coast of southern Thailand on the Gulf of Siam. It was a camp that Vietnamese refugees would come to if they were anywhere along the beaches–it was a boat people camp. I was the only chaplain there. Money started coming in from America, so I could give money to a great number of people who came in. They could buy things at the little market right there in the camp. And I also gave extra money to rape victims–and there were literally thousands of them, mostly young girls–and to children who had lost their parents.

About 7,000 boat people were there when I arrived, and the number soon increased to about 8,000. People kept pouring in from Vietnam. Little by little they were processed out of the camp and sent to the United States and other host countries.

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