Young soldier carries on flood-fighting spirit in the military
For Fu Haihong, it seems to be his destiny to fight floods.
Twenty-two years ago, when Fu's mother was seven months pregnant with him, their home, along with the houses of many other families in Sipu village in East China's Jiangxi province, was inundated by floods.
It was PLA soldiers, sent to fight the floods in the region, who transported his mother to safety using a dinghy.
Fu was born after the floods receded. To help the boy remember the gratitude to his rescuers throughout his life, his parents named him "Haihong" - in Chinese "hai" means "sea" and "hong" means "flood".
That year, catastrophic floods across the country killed more than 3,000 people, and destroyed almost 5 million homes.
In 2016, 18-year-old Fu joined the People's Liberation Army. He was proud to find that the battalion he served in was the one honored as a "hero battalion" for fighting the 1998 floods.
"My parents often repeated to me the story of how the PLA soldiers saved my mother. And they encouraged me to help people in need after I grew up, just like the PLA soldiers did for us."
This year, as the strongest floods since 1998 rage in many areas along the Yangtze River, Asia's longest river, Fu and his comrades-in-arms were deployed to combat the floods on the frontline in Yongxiu county of Jiujiang city.
Their mission is to guarantee the safety of a 9-kilometer-long embankment called Guodongwei, a barrier that protects three nearby villages from flooding. The embankment also crosses the Beijing-Kowloon rail line, a national artery railway that connects Beijing and Hong Kong.
When Fu and his fellow soldiers arrived at the embankment, more than 300 hectares of farmland had been submerged by floodwaters.
"I am also from the countryside. Seeing so many fields flooded, my heart hurt," Fu said.
Fu and other soldiers patrol the embankment every day. They need to closely check each inch of earth to spot a potential leak on the dike.
After a heavy rainfall on July 20, Fu recalled, the soldiers found a leak on the embankment. They immediately started to use sandbags to block it.
"Each sandbag weighed over 20 kilograms. After carrying a dozen bags, my hands and feet felt weak and tired," Fu recalled. "And it was raining, I was totally drenched."
Fu said most days are sunny and the strong sunshine has left a lot of the soldiers sunburned.
"And the high humidity has caused many people to have eczema, leaving them itchy and achy. But no one slacked off in their duty", Fu said.
Despite all the hardship, Fu said all their efforts are worthwhile.
"The locals greet us with heartfelt kindness," said him. "Several local aunts from a nearby village visited our campsite one morning, bringing us zongzi (glutinous rice dumplings) they made overnight. When we ate them, we felt warm in the heart," Fu said.
source http://eng.chinamil.com.cn/view/2020-07/29/content_9867220.htm
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