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A Vietnamese woman shoulders two six gallon pails of water for the Seabee cement mixer, where a lone Seabee, EO1 Murphy works alongside the villagers of Chu Lai to contract a new orphanage for the Catholic Church.

Building an  Orphanage for Chu Lai

Chaplin Dennis got John Murphy involved in a Catholic church building project, in the village of Chu Lai, just outside the perimeter wire.  It would mean building, from scratch, a catholic church, a school and an orphanage. LT Billy Dennis was in charge of the project, but it was Murphy who did the work on site.

     Seabees with time on their hands, if that's possible, joined Murphy occasionally to help out with mixing cement,  excavating a foundation, laying concrete blocks, installing flooring. Most of the time with no more communication between the Americas and the Vietnamese, other than a smile.

     John write an article on his work with the Vietnamese for The Transit. He's the beginning:

     “A scolding female voice cuts through the noisy racket being made by the one lunger concrete mixer. The Seabee operating machine knows instinctively what he did wrong. He spilled some of the precious water being charted in 10 gallon buckets by this tiny Vietnamese woman from the well to the construction site. The two are part of the team building an orphanage, Catholic church and a school in the village Chu Lai, just outside the perimeter of the military complex. This lone Seabee is quick to understand the Vietnamese workers good-natured impatience. Half an hour earlier, he was carrying water while the woman was shoveling sand into the mixer in 130° heat.

EO1 Murphy and a team of villagers work together to erect a two story orphanage, schools and church in the Chu Lai, just outside the wire.

When the work is done, there's time for a class in English for the village kids. John Murphy is in his element.

Seabees work right along side the Vietnamese villagers on the orphanage. "Better than sitting back at the base,." says one Seabee. "At least I'm doing something helpful."