On July 6, 2003, when he received the medal honoring his
patriotic services issued by the US President George W. Bush from
Asian Republican leader Dr. John B. Tsu, Bohu Pan (Pinyin
transliteration of his Chinese name) said with a smile: "The Bush
Administration might want to commend my 25 years' painstaking
efforts in community services." The medal winner is a Chinese
American who has been engaged in Chinese American veterans' affairs
in recent years. He vowed to dig into history to uncover the heroic
and gallant deeds performed by Chinese GIs and to inscribe those
oblivion names on a monument.
The Chinese-language US newspaper World Daily reported
that veteran GI Bohu Pan, who served in the Vietnam War (1955-75),
took the post of the officer of the Chinese Branch of The American
Legion seven months ago. Established in 1931, the Chinese Branch is
the largest organization of Chinese American veterans in northern
California. The organization so far has 110 members aging 26-92.
Once an establishment for strengthening bonds and exchanging ideas
among veterans of Chinese origin, the organization has been
functioning in a much wider range since Pan took over.
Pan said the earliest Chinese in the US army on record appeared
in the American Civil War (1861-65), with 40 Chinese served for the
Union and two for the Confederacy. According to the record
obtained, 90 Chinese GIs died in WWI and WWII while serving in the
US army. Pan said the names of these Chinese American KIAs will be
inscribed on a monument to be embedded in the rock wall established
in the St. Mary's Square, by the towering statue of Dr. Sun
Yat-Sen, father of the Chinese democratic revolution, set in the
late 1930s.
But this is only part of Pan's plan for this year. He has
submitted a proposal on the establishment of a Chinese American
GIs' memorial museum in the Veterans War Memorial Building, a
donation from the United Nations, in San Francisco. Pan plans to
establish there dossiers of every Chinese GI who fought and died
for the United States on battlegrounds.
The planned memorial museum will house a special section of
"History of Japanese Aggression in China," to commemorate the 35
million Chinese killed by Japanese troops and expose the brutal
crimes the Japanese soldiers committed in the war.
Pan said he will set up a foundation to support the museum
project and the first phase of the project will cost approximately
US$250,000. Pan called for Chinese all over the world to make
contributions to the foundation.
(Voice of China Times, July 15, 2003, translated for
china.org.cn by Chen Chao, August 2, 2003)