Barbed wire surrounded the crowded sevenacre compound , and armed guards were ready to shoot any of the forty thousand refugees who dared try to escape . I was familiar with the compound ’ s size because I ’ d grown up on a seven-acre tract . The glaring difference was my childhood in the tract was enjoyed in the security and plenty of the U . S . and the comforts of San Bernardino , California . I was stunned that the refugee camp was an entire city of people crammed into a tiny rural space .
The unfortunate forty thousand were trying to survive on a daily ration of two spoonfuls of rice . Lack of nutrition made the people more susceptible to illnesses and diseases . They had absolutely nothing — no homeland , homes , possessions . . . and no hope . They had escaped the vicious dictator of their country , Cambodia , only to face starvation , sickness , and early death across the border in Thailand .
It was November 1979 .
Between 1975 and 1979 , thousands of Cambodians fled their homes in terror of their cruel prime minister , Pol Pot . Those were the days of the “ killing fields ,” a term popularized by the movie of the same name .
The death toll was about three million . The desperate people were hungry , sick , and grieving the many loved ones who had perished , those who were near death , and the loss of their now-forsaken homes and homeland . Weak with suffering , they had stumbled across the border for safety as if seeking a quiet place to die in hopelessness .
My team and I had learned of the conditions before arriving , but nothing could have prepared us for the reality . The camp gate swung open , and our first volunteer medical
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