PP 206-207 of Norman Vincent Peale's "Enthusiasm Makes The Difference":
Peale says that he was told that a dozen students came to South
Vietnamese Premier Ky (who was Premier in the mid 1960s) and said "Turn
over a province to us, let us administer it". He was started at their
audacity, but found that they had dreams and practical plans to go with
it, so gave them a province of 30,000 people. Said province was a
depraved section and a hotbed for Communist espionage. The students dug
into the mud, repaired bulldozers, helped farmers with their livestock,
drained swamps, cleaned up sewer systems, and built 600 homes, a
hospital, and 17 health centers. Inside of a year, they had closed up
the Communist leak, cleaned up the entire surroundings, and made it a
place of health. Ky wished that he could do with the entire country
what the students did with one province. Does anyone know more about
the above story than what Peale said? (Peale neglected to identify the
province, nor did he say why the students weren't directed to administer
the entire nation!).

"Tim Bruening" <tsbru... at (no spam) pop.dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote in message

news:4AD97CA0.C7E54889 at (no spam) pop.dcn.davis.ca.us...



PP 206-207 of Norman Vincent Peale's "Enthusiasm Makes The Difference":
Peale says that he was told that a dozen students came to South
Vietnamese Premier Ky (who was Premier in the mid 1960s) and said "Turn
over a province to us, let us administer it". He was started at their
audacity, but found that they had dreams and practical plans to go with
it, so gave them a province of 30,000 people. Said province was a
depraved section and a hotbed for Communist espionage. The students dug
into the mud, repaired bulldozers, helped farmers with their livestock,
drained swamps, cleaned up sewer systems, and built 600 homes, a
hospital, and 17 health centers. Inside of a year, they had closed up
the Communist leak, cleaned up the entire surroundings, and made it a
place of health. Ky wished that he could do with the entire country
what the students did with one province. Does anyone know more about
the above story than what Peale said? (Peale neglected to identify the
province, nor did he say why the students weren't directed to administer
the entire nation!).

We have reasons to doubt the veracity of this.

1. A province of only 30,000 people would be very unusual in
Vietnam, which had in the 1980s 53 million people in 37
provinces (most over 1M population, the smallest 322,000
according to my Statesman's Year Book.)

2. We are invited to believe a dozen newcomers, few or none
of them experienced in building trades, completed within a
year construction of 600 houses and 18 health centres. (In the
French or US building industries, no group of 12 people could
be expected to do this let alone while simultaneously draining
swamps and cleaning up sewage systems.)