Mr. Minh rides his motorbike to many places to help the poor

VietNamNet Bridge - Whether he is spending his money to build a better bridge rather than a bigger house for himself, turning some of his land into a cemetery for the whole village to use, or simply helping out in any of a thousand ways, 83-year-old Nguyen Hoang Minh of Loc Thanh, a commune in Loc Ninh District, Binh Phuoc Province, is held in high esteem by everyone in his village.

Life was difficult for a wounded veteran in the immediate aftermath of the war and Mr. Minh had to travel all over the place to find work and keep his family fed.
 
Finally he turned to home, reclaimed his small plot of land and set about turning it into an orchard. The garden prospered under his expert eye and Mr. Minh began making enough to give his family a better life than the one they had long known.
 
Since then, he has used his experience and money to help the poor people around him with their farming.
 
Every year since 1988, Mr. Minh has donated two tons of rice to the poor families in his commune, and given money to dozens of wounded soldiers’ families who are struggling to make ends meet.
 
In 2001, witnessing a young wife crying beside her dead husband and the miserable eyes of a small child who had lost a father because the swift-flowing stream turned into a fierce flood every rainy season, the 83 year old man decided to use some of the money and building materials he’d set aside for a new and bigger house to build a proper bridge over the stream and make the way safe for the villagers.

It took two months to build and, when the job was done, Loc Thanh had its first concrete bridge, a 15-meter long and four-meter tall structure that made crossing the stream much easier, quicker and safer.
 
A year later, he noted that many of the locals were burying the dead in their gardens or nearby farms, so he turned a hectare of his land into a cemetery for the entire village to use.
 
Also in 2002, he began a campaign to improve the cultural life of the village.
 
In spite of his age, every week Mr. Minh visits places where he stayed in the war to help out the residents there. 
 
He reckons that helping others is a soldier’s duty in peacetime too, and it’s a duty he always tries his hardest to fulfill. 
 
The old man believes benevolence and doing what’s right are more important than money, and he often reminds his children about this tenet. 

(Source: SGGP)