The 80-year-old man
stands at the gates of Henan Provincial Military Hospital in China where
he has lived in retirement for years, dressed in an olive green army
uniform and soldier's cap, carrying a long wooden stick that he taps
against the pavement as he walks.
"Thank you," he cheerfully repeats to hospital guests -- in Korean.
Duan is a Chinese veteran who fought and bled for North Korea in the Korean War.
Sixty years ago, U.S. and
Chinese-led armies battled each other to a bloody standstill in a
conflict between North and South Korea that left millions dead. In 1953,
both sides signed a truce that has left the Korean Peninsula
dangerously divided to this day. Last March, during an orchestrated
campaign of international saber-rattling, the communist regime in North
In 1951, Duan was only 18
years old when he volunteered to join the Chinese People's Liberation
Army. That same year, Duan was deployed to help defend Korean communists
from Western-backed troops on the Korean Peninsula, shortly after China
emerged from its own deadly civil war.
"The people of Korea were suffering," Duan says.
"We were watching the
Korean people and we had all gone through war. You look at China, the
revolution, the struggle against the Japanese, many people had died,"
Duan continues, recalling preceding years of turmoil in China.
"Seeing the people of
Korea farming the land and being killed by enemy planes ... what were
they to do if they could not farm? The planes would just come and bomb
them to death. We had to help protect the people of Korea."
Today, Duan leads
visitors down a dark corridor, past framed black-and-white photos of
Chinese army heroes, to a tidy room in the hospital he calls home.
Aside from a nephew, Duan saiys he had no living relatives.
His neighbors are also
elderly veterans dressed in military fatigues. They chat outside the
hospital ward, seated on park benches.
The uniforms are a
source of pride for the retired military residents, but also apparently a
hospital safety measure in case one of them wanders too far outside the
grounds and into the city.
"They're worried that
the veterans that came from the countryside will get lost, so when they
come here they make them wear uniforms to keep them safe," Duan says.
Much of what Duan
recalls from the Korean War years seems to revolve around digging
trenches, which he says provided essential protection from American
warplanes.
"Digging trenches is not
easy ... It's not soil, it's rock," he says, adding that they used
their bayonets to break up the rocks.
Though Chinese military
units were accompanied by Korean translators, Duan says Chinese and
Koreans soldiers were not allowed to fraternize.
However, another Chinese Korean War veteran says he did have face-to-face encounters with U.S. soldiers.
Former infantry soldier
You Jie Xiang says his mission was to guard American prisoners of war
held far back from the front lines.
"Handling the captives was very dangerous," You says. "They might kick you so I had to tell them to stay on their knees."
Duan says he remained in Korea until 1953, when he was severely wounded in battle.
During his two year
deployment, one of Duan's missions was to charge up a mountain carrying
explosives towards well entrenched Western-backed troops.
"They're shooting guns
at you," he says, holding his walking stick up to his shoulder like a
rifle and making shooting noises. "We had to bring up the explosives and
bomb them, using explosives and flaming oil."
Duan was wounded at
least twice. He rolls back a sleeve to show scars from severe burns
resulting from what he said was an airstrike.
And in the privacy of
the medical ward, he insists on dropping his pants and lifting his shirt
to show deep scars in his abdomen left by bullets that struck him
during a battle on a mountain. Duan says he was shipped home after this
injury, which left him maimed and unable to reproduce.
The sight of the elderly
war veterans in their baggy uniforms contrasts sharply with the vision
of modern China that has grown up around them.
The years of starvation
and conflict seem like distant history, in a country that is now the
world's second largest economy, as well as home to billionaires,
gleaming sky-scrapers, luxury shopping malls and brand new airports.
The veterans at the
Henan Provincial Military Hospital say China's newest generation know
little of the hardships they suffered in Korea.
"Young people? Of course
they don't know," says You, the former infantry soldier who once
escorted imprisoned American GIs. "These wars took place decades ago.
All the young people have no idea."
Asked whether Koreans understood the sacrifice Chinese troops had made, the veteran shakes his head "no."
"What do the Koreans know?" You asks himself out loud. "They know what the Korean (government) tells the Korean people."
This modern-day ambivalence towards North Korea is echoed by some Chinese intellectuals.
Recently, Deng Yuwen
openly challenged the Chinese government's alliance with North Korea in
writing. Partly as a result, he lost his job as deputy editor of the
Study Times, a journal published by the Communist Party.
"The current
laissez-faire attitude the U.S. and China have towards North Korea is
comparable to that of (former British Prime Minister Neville)
Chamberlain towards Germany before World War II," Deng said, in a recent
interview with CNN.
If Pyongyang continues
threatening its Asian neighbors, Deng argued, Beijing should take steps
to reign in the regime, like freezing North Korean accounts in Chinese
banks.
"The unpredictability of North Korea's policies prove its nature is dangerous," Deng said.
Veterans who risked
their lives for North Korea more than half a century ago have little to
say about the current government in Pyongyang.
But they do not seem to hold a grudge against their former American enemies.
When asked by an
American reporter whether he had any message for the U.S., Duan responds
by saying, "the Americans are peaceful people."
Next to him, several of his fellow veterans nod in agreement.
"I think the Americans did not want to go to war (in Korea). War is death."
Asked whether he feared
war might once again break out on the Korean Peninsula, Duan expresses
confidence that the Chinese government would prevent hostilities from
erupting.
"The central government
will handle it. It is guided by the ideas of Mao Zedong," he says,
referring to the founder of Communist China.
"Big countries don't want war and we're against war and this is what we've been taught."
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