Xin Zhiyi once wrote in a poem: "The young man is full of trouble, sitting on the southeast war without end." "In the years of war, many soldiers have experienced the hardships of marching and the cruelty of war at a very young age, but at the age when they should be carefree, they have put on their armor and stepped onto the battlefield full of flames.
In the National Archives of the United States, there is a photo of a Chinese baby soldier during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, and the little boy in the photo looks only in his early teens, but he runs with the marching team, and does not forget to make a thumbs gesture in front of the camera. The war and the pure smiling faces of children make the picture full of impact, and it seems to be able to pull people back to that turbulent era in an instant.
In 2012, when guizhou's campaign to care for anti-japanese war veterans was officially launched, Chen Youli, a veteran in his 80s, with the help of volunteers, obtained a collection of photos of China's anti-Japanese war veterans printed in the United States, including the photo of the baby soldier. As he shuddered through the old photographs, his gaze suddenly fixed on one of them, and then he couldn't help but blush. He pointed with trembling fingers at the most eye-catching photo of the baby soldier and said to the volunteer, "This is who I was then..."
It turned out that Chen Youli suffered the tragic situation of the death of his parents at the age of 10, and he could only become a beggar at a young age. After two years of begging, in 1943 he met the 200th Division of the 5th Army, which had come to recruit soldiers, and first one of the grooms in the army took pity on the little beggar and left him in the army to help let the horses eat, and then a company commander took him in as a small service soldier of the 200th Division.
Because he was too young, the soldiers took good care of him, and the dangerous things were never allowed to be done, only to do some chores in the army. Later, Chen Youli trained with the troops for another 8 months, and in 1944, the 13-year-old boy finally went to the battlefield with the troops. Although he was young, Chen Youli participated in many battles with the troops and was specifically responsible for logistics work, such as the defense of the Huitong Bridge on the Nu River, the attack on Songshan, Longling, Montenegro, and so on.
In November 1944, a U.S. army photojournalist came to Chen Youli's company, hoping to shoot the most realistic scenes of the Chinese army. Later, the youngest Chen Youli was selected to become a "little model", took this classic photo of the baby soldier, and also received two cookies as a thank you gift. Unfortunately, communication was inconvenient in that era, and American reporters left after taking photos, so Chen Youli has never seen his own photos.
After the war, Chen Youli returned to his hometown and re-lived the life of an ordinary peasant, and the small episode of the war was also forgotten by him. It wasn't until I saw this photo in the journal that the floodgates of memory were slowly opened, and the old man seemed to have returned to that war-torn era.
Although more than 70 years have passed, the old man Chen Youli still remembers the situation at that time. For example, because the hats distributed at that time were too large, he folded the old and new hats on his head, so there were two brims in the photo; one of his water bottles was his own, one was the company commander, and the company commander's kettle contained salt and pepper...
As the old man spoke, those glorious years seemed to be in front of him. No matter how many years have passed since the war, these anti-war veterans always deserve our respect, they defend our country with their lives, and they will always be the loveliest people.