These soldier-scholars, many of whom saw action in mainland days, are the first retired servicemen to earn college degrees under a veterans' program supported by United States aid. Now still pursuing advanced studies in 12 universities and colleges on Taiwan are 153 retired officers and soldiers and many more are expected to join them next fall.
To most of the 21 graduates, the four years of college life was a long spell of hard work. Doggedly, these retired servicemen, some well near 40, labored through a pile of forbidding text books and passed one examination after another, disdaining defeat as they did on the battlefield. Clutching his diploma, a former army officer sighed: "I don't know if I have ever gone to bed before midnight during these four years." Ignoring holidays, he buried himself in the university library and covetously devoured half a shelf of reference books assigned him by his law professor.
"Frankly," said ex-Warrant Officer Shiu-chin Kong, 28, of Kwangtung, "we had to work doubly hard so that we would not be left in the rock. Most of us are no longer young, and we had left schools for so many years before we were enrolled into colleges." Yet a sense of duty, a keen awareness of this rare opportunity of college education drove them on and held their chins up through minor setbacks. At the end of the fourth year, three of them emerged with an average of A's, and 13 graduated with an average B mark.
Warrant officer Kong, a bespectacled, quiet man, is one of the three who got A grade. Kong volunteered his service to the Chinese Army in 1949 in Kwangtung, when the Communists were overrunning more than half of mainland China. Fresh from a senior high school, he and over 20 classmates took up the rifles and followed the remnants of the Army to Hainan Island. He fought in the Battle of Hainan against the Communists and was later pulled back to Taiwan. During the five years in the army, Kong served as an communication sergeant, then a platoon sergeant, and finally a company administrative officer.
When Kong was eligible for honorable discharge in 1954, he preferred college education to a job placement. According to an arrangement between the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education, retired servicemen with high school standing will be enrolled into colleges on a preferential basis. Nevertheless, Kong said he found the entrance examinations a hard ordeal. For weeks he prepared, desperately committing into memory algebra formulas, physics principles, quaint, long words, and things he hardly touched during the five years of camp life. Sweating out of the two-day matriculations, he thought he must have failed. It was with the mingled feeling of surprise and joy that he found his name among the successful candidates. "I told myself," Kong recalled, "that I must make a good use of the college years. I understood what college education would mean to us better than perhaps any youngster who had just walked out of high school."
Like 12 other retired servicemen, Kong studied law. At the Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Commerce, he concentrated on tort, contract, etc. His greatest aspiration, Kong said, is to pursue advanced studies abroad on the case law of the Anglo-American system.
Hard as their studies have been, these veterans find life at a college campus a fun-packed, rewarding experience. They took part in sports, social events and other activities. Warrant Officer Kong, who was elected secretary of his college's student body because of his administrative experience, recalled how he drove away several juvenile delinquents from the campus with his fists.
Said the small-sized ex-soldier: "I was just fearless, and those young hoodlums knew that. So when some of my fellow students were hesitating, I simply rushed ahead and told them to get out." And get out they did. Those young gangsters were trying to intrude into a party given by the student body. They have never attempted to bother the students again.
At school the ex-servicemen got along well with other students. Wherever they went, the veterans were cordially received and treated with respect. The veterans lived in the same dormitories, took meals at the same mess halls, and attended classes in the same rooms with other students. They were a part of the student body.
Life in a college impressed him with its air of purposeful study and liberalism, Warrant Officer Kong recollected. "Everywhere you see people studying assiduously. The library is always full. Then you feel an inner urge to study hard too, and to emulate them," he said.
To several of the veterans, their college life was not without its light and romantic side. While in college, they have met girls who will one day become their life-long mates.
Such a romance unfolded to Kong two years ago. Her girl friend is a 21-year-old sophomore, hailing from Shantung Province in northern China. Kong said he had no money and, as a student, hardly a prospect to speak of. Yet these conditions did not discourage the attentions she gave him. She is of a quiet sort. And they have common interests. They studied together and often went for a movie. Kong said he has no immediate plan for a marriage. She will have to finish her college education first, while he is eyeing a possible study trip abroad. "We may have to wait for a couple of years," Kong said with a shy smile.
Another retired officer, 30-year-old Captain Chen Chih-yeh encountered a different experience in college. Captain Chen, for several years a political officer, graduated from the political science department of Taiwan University. One afternoon two years ago he made his daily visit to the Central Library in the shaded botanical gardens and across the library desk he made the first acquaintance with a pretty middle-school girl.
She was then preparing for her college examinations. The smart-looking captain, though no longer in his uniform, attracted the young Hunan-born girl. Throughout that summer he helped her prepare her examination work, and they occasionally broke the monotonous studies with an excursion to the suburbs or a visit to a movie theater. When the examination results were announced, her name was missing. Her family had by then learned of their friendship and strongly disapproved it. "They wanted her to marry someone who studies natural science, not political science as I did," Captain Chen mused. To separate them, her parents found her a job in central Taiwan and sent her off.
A heart-breaking farewell was followed by a long silence. His letters were never answered, and he almost thought it was all over. But shortly before his graduation, she returned to Taipei to offer congratulations. Her parents have finally accepted him.
Captain Chen and Warrant Officer Kong are among the younger retired servicemen. Of the 21 college graduates, 13 are over 30 years of age. The oldest of them is Colonel Chang Kun, 38, of Anhwei Province. Colonel Chang, the highest ranking officer of the group, graduated from National Taiwan University with a bachelor of laws degree. The youngest soldier-scholar is Private First Class Keh Cheng, 24. Private Keh, the only retired serviceman who took an engineering degree, chalked up a remarkable academic record of 82.5, the best of the group. He graduated from the Taiwan Provincial Chengkung University, with chemical engineering as his major course.
Of the 21 veterans, 14 graduated from National Taiwan University, one from Taiwan Provincial Normal University, one from Taiwan Provincial Chengkung University, two from Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Commerce, two from Taiwan Provincial Agricultural College, and one from Taiwan Provincial Junior College of Agriculture.
Eleven of them were former officers; the remaining ten were of non-commissioned grades. Thirteen scholars studied law, three devoted themselves to literature, one prepared himself for educational work, three took agricultural research, and one pursued engineering courses.
Their studies were made possible by the help extended them by the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen, an office specially created under the cabinet four years ago when the Chinese government introduced the veterans resettlement program.
The office, commonly called VACRS, paid their college tuitions, dormitory bills and miscellaneous expenses. Throughout the four college years, each retired veteran received a monthly allowance of NT$185 for food and pocket money.
Said First Lieutenant Wu Keh-kang, 28, of Anhwei Province: "We are truly grateful to VACRS for its help. Several times I was awfully busy and could not go to VACRS to take my monthly allowance. The VACRS had the money sent to me personally."
In addition to monthly allowance, VACRS has set up a special scholarship fund for veterans who pass A grade. The scholarship ranges from NT$300 to NT$1,000 for each semester. For retired veterans planning to take advanced studies abroad, VACRS promises to pay their traveling expenses for the outgoing trips. The Ministry of Education will take care of the return trip for every student coming home.
Among the first to congratulate the 21 veteran-scholars was Minister without Portfolio Chiang Ching-kuo.Minister Chiang, who as chairman of VACRS is responsible for the overall veteran program, invited them to tea and presented each of them a Parker 21 as a gift.
Warmly Minister Chiang shook hands with each of them. He said their hard studies have set a good example for others in the Chinese armed forces who aspire for higher education. President Chiang Kai-shek was gratified with the high honors these retired veterans won in academic fields, Minister Chiang told them. He urged them to serve the public in their respective lines with the same indomitable spirit they displayed on the battlefield. The VACRS chief assured them of a bright future, saying that history proves many great personages were found among those who received their education the hard way.
All the 21 veterans have acquired jobs. Private First Class Chin Mien, who graduated from the Economics Department of National Taiwan University, has been working with the Bank of Communications for over a year since he was in the junior class. He will continue his bank job. Two ex-officers, Captain Chen Chih-yeh and Warrant Officer Shiu-chin Kong, are working with VACRS. Captain An Hung-ju, who took a degree from Taiwan Provincial Normal University, has been assigned as a gymnastic instructor at Taoyuan Middle School. Private First Class Hao Tai-ping, who studied government administration at Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Commerce, is teaching Chinese language at the Yingko Middle School.
These 21 veteran scholars are the first of thousands of retired servicemen who are entitled to the same privilege of college education. As most of the retired veterans are well over 40, many would naturally prefer a job resettlement. But VACRS is doing everything to encourage those who wish to pursue higher education.
In armed forces units a number of extension classes are being opened to soldiers and officers alike to help their studies. Periodically, examinations are conducted to qualify them for either junior high school graduates or senior high school graduates. The certificates issued by VACRS, recognized by the Ministry of Education, will entitle the servicemen to take part in senior high school or college entrance examinations.
So while serving with the armed forces, the soldiers and officers can prepare themselves for college education after they are honorably discharged. Of the 153 retired servicemen now receiving college education, 75 are former officers and 78 enlisted men. Thirty-one are studying at National Taiwan University, 17 at National Chengchi (political) University, 27 at Taiwan Provincial Normal University, 13 at Taiwan Provincial Chengkung University, one at Tunghai University,10 at Soochow University, five at National College of Fine Arts, 35 at Taiwan Provincial College of Law and Commerce, nine at Taiwan Provincial Agricultural College, two at Taiwan Provincial Junior College of Agriculture, one at Taiwan Provincial Maritime College, and two at Taiwan Provincial College of Technology.
Another 159 retired veterans are studying a t the Experimental Middle School at Yuanlin, and many of them are planning to go to college after their graduation.
After their invaluable service to the country in defending it against alien invaders and Communists, many of our veterans are now receiving college training to become engineers, agriculturists, educators, administrators, lawyers, artists, economists, bankers, and, above all; good citizens.