On April 19, the 92-year-old anti-war veteran Zhuang Yuanfang (left), accompanied by family and friends, came to Dongkeng Village. After 75 years, he saw his brother in the Lord and also his old comrade and college, He Shuncong. Two senior people met in tears and tightly linked their fingers to each other.
Both Zhuang Yuanfang and He Shuncong are from Pinghe County, Fujian Province. They are both devout Christians. Zhuang Yuanfang was born in 1921 and is an honorary deacon of the well-known Pinghe Wuzhai Xinmei Gospel Village Church. Born in 1926, He Shuncong was once a believer in Dongkeng Village. His house is next to the chapel. They are classmates.
In the autumn of 1944, they responded to the call of the National Government and voted to participate in the Youth Army, giving up their professionalism. Recalling the process of the military in the past, the two old soldiers are still very excited. In the same year, with other over 130 young people from Pinghe, after passing the medical examination, they went to Wuping County through Yongding County. In Shifang Town, Wuping County, they were incorporated into the 209 division of the Youth Army. Among which, Zhuang Yuanfang was incorporated into the machine gun division, and He Shuncong was incorporated into the division's direct labor barracks.
After the troops arrived in Yong' an, Fujian, Zhuang Yuanfang and He Shuncong were redistributed to different units, and the two were then separated. In 1945, Zhuang Yuanfang's division moved to Fuzhou to participate in the Fuzhou population census. He studied Japanese at nights and planned to join the vision of conquering Taiwan across the sea. Afterward realistically there were not enough ships, the division soon went to Zhejiang to take a ship from Shanghai to Xiamen. He Shuncong was transferred to Sichuan, Ankang and other places with the army. In 1949, he went to the army in Enshi, Hubei Province for an uprising. Later, he carried a severance pass with the signature of General Peng Dehuai and went back to his hometown with thousands of difficulties. Before the civil war in 1946, the two veterans retired and returned to their hometowns, teaching in two primary schools, offering literacy education for the masses at nights, and becoming colleagues in the peace education front.
At last, these two senior people were singing the "Knowledge Youth Anti-Japanese Song" in front of the media cameras.
- Translated by Ze Wang
