Hu Nai-yuan and Shih Wen-miao received an unusual kind of cake when they celebrated their birthdays recently in Taoyuan Township (桃源), Kaohsiung County.
The “cake” — made of silt and soil — was a special request by the two paratroopers, who have been working in the devastated township as part of post-Typhoon Morakot cleanup operations. Their birthday wish, meanwhile, was that survivors could rebuild their homes quickly.
Hu, 23, and Shih, 22, were born one year apart on Aug. 23, and normally would celebrate their birthdays with parties.
“This is the first time I’ve spent my birthday this way. I will not forget this for the rest of my life,” Hu said.
Other servicemen may have to celebrate special occasions in disaster areas if the military makes disaster relief one its core missions, as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has suggested.
The military’s increasing participation in disaster relief operations is a given, considering Taiwan’s vulnerability to earthquakes and typhoons, and its lack of preparation for major disasters was exposed by Morakot.
But at least the performance of rank-and-file soldiers like Hu and Shih put to rest speculation that the current generation of soldiers is too soft to handle rescue tasks, such as those they faced in Taoyuan Township.
The township was one of the eight mountainous residential areas along the Southern Cross-Island Highway cut off during the storm.
As of Aug. 26, there were still 135 military officers and privates in the town, where drinking water and electricity had not yet been restored. They were working to clear rocks and mud, bathing in streams and sleeping in a damaged elementary school.
Asked whether they were tired, the two birthday boys responded, “Not at all.”
This spirit of endurance was common among the tens of thousands of soldiers who were working in typhoon-devastated zones.
In Linbian (林邊) and Jiadong (佳冬) townships in Pingtung County, hundreds of new recruits have been struggling to clean up millions of tonnes of mud and debris left behind by Morakot-triggered flooding.
“Never before in all my 20 years have I ever had to shovel stinking mud,” a new artillery recruit said.
One of his buddies agreed.
“The smell of rotting fish remains on me even after I’ve washed six times with an aromatic soap,” he said with a sigh.
Some soldiers have developed rashes while several others have sustained injuries to their hands or legs during work. But they remain undaunted and have vowed to stay in the disaster zones until the cleanup work is complete.
“As long as we can see mud, we will not leave,” they said.
Their hard work has won the hearts and minds of survivors.
“Without the armed forces’ help, I would not have been able to clear all this mess,” said one tire shop owner, surnamed Tsai, whose premises were covered with silt and mud.
Tsai said he cannot express the gratitude he feels at seeing the soldiers operating backhoes or using shovels to move head-high piles of soft sticky earth away from his house.
Yet while survivors have been unanimous in their praise of the troops’ dedication to the post-typhoon rescue and relief work, some observers have criticized the military leadership’s response in the early stages of the disaster as slow and inept.
“The Morakot disaster exposed flaws in the military’s rescue and relief operations ... The upper levels of command responded too slowly,” said Lin Chong-pin (林中斌), a military strategist who once served as deputy head of the Mainland Affairs Council and later as deputy defense minister.
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