Ninh Xuan Dinh was enlisted in 1965.  In 1967 he was demobilized.  From then on he suffered chronic pains.  He died in 1993.  His wife, Nguyen Thi Nguyet was born in 1940.  Before Dinh joined the army, the couple had a healthy daughter, who now has healthy children.  After 1967, the couple gave birth to a son, Ninh Xuan Thong.  Thong couldn't walk and speak until he was ten years old.  He married Nguyen Thi Hoa.  In 1987 the young couple gave birth to their first child, Ninh Thi Nga, who is handicapped.  She has been bed ridden for 16 years now.  In 1989 the couple gave birth to the second child, Ninh Xuan Lap, who is mentally retarded.  In 1998 they gave birth to another son, Ninh Xuan Huan who has so far displayed no symptom of dysfunction.  But Mr. Thong has started to show the first symptoms of sickness.  The Military Hospital 108 has diagnosed that he suffers from inborn cerebral damage.  Beside farming, Hoa also earns money from the craft of pearl inlaying.  Every morning, Mrs. Nguyen takes a basket to rice paddies to catch shrimps, crabs, and snails to sell.  Hoa said bitterly about her mother-in-law, "She has raised three sick and deformed generations.  She has spent 20 years taking care of her husband, 30 years for her children and now her grand children with over 20 diseases.  She doesn't know any happy moments in her life..."

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