Green shirt soldiers in their homeland Ngoc Khe - Ngoc Lac - Thanh Hoa

Ngoc Lac, July 18, 2015

As scheduled, every July we are busy preparing to participate in the “Green Summer” campaign. This year is no exception, when society still has many conflicting opinions about volunteer work, we are still ready to devote ourselves without hesitation or personal gain. Unlike every year when we go to the northeastern mountainous region of the country, this year our destination is Ngoc Khe commune, Ngoc Lac district, Thanh Hoa province, a locality in the Central region.

At 7:30 a.m. on July 14, 2015, 20 of us were ready with our luggage, eager to set off to join the campaign. The journey was not as long as the green summer in Ha Giang, but it was long enough for us to sing youth songs, ask each other questions, and make "predictions" for the upcoming journey.

We arrived at around noon and moved straight to the military base – a kindergarten in region 135, which was built quite solidly and spaciously by the government. Without anyone telling anyone, everyone took turns moving things down and started cleaning up the “command post”, each person had a hand and by the time we finished it was almost 1pm, and because our stomachs were growling loudly, we decided to carry out the field plan with instant noodles. The first day passed smoothly with the main work being to settle down, overcome existing difficulties, and prepare for the work in the coming days.

5:30 a.m. on July 15, 2015, the first official working day of the whole team began. According to the assignment from the previous night, 5 people stayed behind for logistics, the rest participated in cleaning around the village cultural house and helped repair the house of a policy family.