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)
