For more than two decades, veteran soldier Wu Kuang-chun (吳廣俊) has been taking care of the graves of his companions in battle, but the 92-year-old, saying his age is starting to catch up with him, said his greatest wish is to build a monument for the deceased soldiers, instead of just putting up gravestones.
His wish was recently answered in the way of a donation by a woman who wanted to be identified only by her family name, Hsu (許).
Wu, a resident in Pingtung County’s Fangliao Township (枋寮), has handled many burials and ceremonies for veterans.
The annual subsidies allotted by the Veterans Affairs Council for burial and relocation of graves are limited, Wu said, adding that Hsu’s donation had aided him in moving the gravestones and bodies of 29 veterans into a graveyard for military personnel.
Wu recalled handling the burial ceremonies for old friends named Li Hsin (黎新) and Mo Keng-kuo (莫耕果) more than 20 years ago.
“Li passed away quite suddenly on Lunar New Year’s Eve,” Wu said, adding that his group of veterans were shocked at their friend’s passing. “We didn’t have the heart to celebrate the Lunar New Year that year, so we all chipped in with what little we had to make the ceremony the best it could be. What we did goes to show how strong our bond is with one another.”
About 10 veterans passed away after Li and Mo, many of whom did not live to see the lifting of a ban on Taiwanese veterans visiting China, where many had family members, Wu said.
The ban was not lifted by the Taiwanese government until 1987.
Wu said that having all the veterans’ graves in one spot not only means the soldiers have company in the afterlife, it also allows the veterans who survive them to offer incense and fruits in visits during the Tomb Sweeping Festival, adding that the surviving veterans also use such occasions to catch up with each other.
These tombs hold the bodies of people who have fought for their country, and even after their honorary discharge, they still contributed to the nation, Wu said, adding that it was saddening that they had only a small plot in the earth after their passing.
“Many of these deceased soldiers had not been able to meet their families across the Taiwan Strait before their deaths, and we are the only ones who maintain their graves every year,” Wu said.
“Age is catching up on me and I can’t keep this up for much longer; I hope the government can help my efforts and ensure the spirits of deceased soldiers will at least be entitled to some respect from future generations,” he said.
Fangliao Veterans’ Service Center head Yang Chang-cheng (楊長政) said many veterans had remained single and were buried alone or had their graves relocated to Taiwan.
The government had sought to reimburse families or take care of graves for soldiers who are buried away from their homeland, but funding was limited, Yang said, adding that this was the main reason the government had been unable to relocate most of the veterans’ graves in Fangliao Township.
However, Yang said that Hsu’s significant donation in light of Wu’s actions meant that the graves of the 29 were identified and relocated to the military servicemen’s cemetery in Greater Kaohsiung’s Yanchao Township (燕巢).
Yang added that the amount donated was kept secret because Hsu did not wish the exact amount to be known.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods