Furthermore, the Viet Cong soldiers caught a lot of fish in the river, as well as crabs and shrimps. One time, they caught so many fish that they asked the students how they could save some of the fish for the next day as they had more than they could eat that day. As students we pretended to be innocent, and we told them that they could store the fish in the water in the toilets to keep them fresh. When the soldiers left the school for their daily training, we decided to flush all the fish down the toilets. Afterwards, we were able to leave the school and go home before the soldiers returned.

The next day, we faced the fury of the Viet Cong soldiers as they questioned us about the disappearance of all the fish that they had wanted to eat that day. We tried to look surprised and shocked, and said that we had gone home and had no idea about the fish and their fate. When I got home, I told my parents, brother, and sister about the soldiers, their fish, and what we had done with them. They all laughed heartily as nobody in South Vietnam had any use for the Vietnamese soldiers because they had taken over our country, and had deprived us of our freedom. Moreover, the soldiers never found out the real story about their fish.