it sooner or later anyway. Sick people also reported for re-education, assured by the government that there would be doctors and medical facilities in the schools and that the patients would be well treated. However, the re-education camp lasted sometimes more than 10 years for some higher ranks ARVN generals and officers. Camps Indoctrination and forced confessions During the early phase of re-education, lasting from a few weeks to a few months, inmates were subjected to intensive political indoctrination. Subjects' studies included the exploitation by American imperialism of workers in other countries, the glory of labor, the inevitable victory of Vietnam, led by the Communist Party, over the U.S., and the generosity of the new government toward the "rebels" (those who fought on the other side during the war). Another feature emphasized during the early stage of re-education, but continued throughout one's imprisonment, was the confession of one's alleged misdeeds in the past. All prisoners in the camps were required to write confessions, no matter how trivial their alleged crimes might have been. Some prisoners of former ARVN generals wrote confessions about several battle and military campaign tactics before 1975. Mail clerks, for example, were told that they were guilty of aiding the "puppet war machinery" through circulating the mail, while religious chaplains were found guilty of providing spiritual comfort and encouragement to enemy troops. Labor In the re-education camps much emphasis was placed on "productive labor." Such labor was described by SRV spokesman Hoang Son as "absolutely necessary" for re-education because "under the former government, they (the prisoners) represented the upper strata of society and got rich under U.S. patronage. They could scorn the working people. Now the former social order has been turned upside down, and after they have finished their stay in camps they have to earn their living by their own labour and live in a society where work is held in honor." The labor was mostly hard physical work, some of it very dangerous, such as mine field sweeping. No technical equipment was provided for this work, and as a result, many prisoners were killed or wounded in mine field explosions. Other work included cutting trees, planting corn and root crops, clearing the jungle, digging wells, latrines and garbage pits, and constructing barracks within the camp and fences around it. The inmates were generally organized into platoons and work units, where they competed with each