Story #1: I was serving as G3 (Operations Officer) of the 7^th Infantry Division at Fort Magsaysay in the year 2000 when Balikatan Exercise was held there. After a day of a hot and humid maneuver, a group of Filipino and American soldiers gathered in one of the tents. A Filipino officer brought out a few cases of San Miguel Beers. One of the American officers said, “Hey these are very warm. Beers are best when they are ice-cold. We need ice!” The Filipino officer who offered the beers said, “Wait, I will let somebody get some ice!” Then, a Filipino corporal volunteered to get ice from the barrio. He hurriedly left on a military jeep. After 30 minutes, he was back carrying a sack. The American officer was already so anxious to drink his beer – cold; and he, himself, was the one who opened the sack. However, he was so disappointed for what he saw. You can see it on his face. The American said, “I told you to get ice. Why did you bring rice?” (He assumed that the corporal might be in the artillery and hard of hearing) but the corporal hurriedly set aside the “rice” inside the sack using both hands and a big block of ice appeared! All of the Filipinos in the group started to burst laughing . . .

Unknown to the visitors, ice in the province, particularly in Nueva Ecija, which is the rice granary of the country, are delivered directly from ice plants to sari-sari stores inside emptied sack of rice, where ice are covered with rice husks (discarded skin of rice grains) – delaying the ice from melting quickly.

Story #2: On one of the lull and lazy afternoons during the Balikatan at Fort Magsasay, a couple of American G.I.’s hailed a tricycle outside the gates of the Fort and told the driver to bring them to the nearest resort, to cool off from the very hot humid weather. As we know, there are several resorts along the main road coming from the Fort. However, the ride was taking the Americans more than one hour already without reaching their destination. The Americans asked the driver how many more minutes? The driver said, “Wait!” After another hour, the tricycle stopped, and the driver showed the Americans the large sign of the resort showing: “NERY’S RESORT” haha