Veteran supports mothers of soldiers martyred in floods, earthquake

A seminar on the good deeds of the country’s “most beautiful veterans” was held at the Great Hall of the People last month. One of the veterans, Wang Guiwu, 59, recalled how he became almost like a son to 16 mothers of martyred soldiers in the past two decades.

Wang, who served in the PLA air force before being discharged in 1980, is now an entrepreneur in North China’s Tianjin Municipality. In 1998, he was deeply moved after watching a report about 10 soldiers who had sacrificed their lives fighting the floods that year. “The soldiers sacrificed their lives for our country, and I wanted to support their parents,” Wang said.

Wang then contacted the 10 mothers in various provinces and spent 120,000 yuan ($17,500) purchasing endowment insurance for them so that they could receive a monthly allowance after 60.

For the last 20 years, Wang has visited all of these mothers during the Spring Festival period with gifts. Wang also calls them on their birthdays and sends them 500 yuan.

In 2008, Wang visited and promised to take care of the mothers of six soldiers who died in earthquake relief efforts in Wenchuan, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Since then, Wang has looked after these mothers in the same way as he does his own.

In order to provide these mothers better living conditions, Wang remodeled one of his company’s office buildings in Tianjin into eight apartments.

On August 1, 2018, seven mothers and one father of martyred soldiers moved into the new apartments. After fulfilling his commitments over the past two decades, Wang now has a new goal, which is to provide free residence for more parents of martyrs in Tianjin.