by Xinhua writers Ma Yunfei and Chen Jian
CHENGDU, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- At the age of 40, Chen Gang finally fulfilled his childhood dream of proudly slipping on a "military uniform", though the circumstances surrounding his achievement were not quite what his younger self had imagined.
It has been 10 days since the "soldier," dressed up in green camouflage with a yellow safety helmet and a white mask, came back from the front lines.
The slight-figured migrant worker has long regretted his rejection from the military because of his poor health when he was young.
"I've been thinking of doing something for my country since then," said Chen, who returned from Wuhan, where the novel coronavirus epidemic broke out, and is currently quarantined in his hometown in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Chen, when spending the Spring Festival holiday back in his home village in Renshou County, heard that the laboring service company in which his brother-in-law worked was dispatching migrant workers to Wuhan for the construction of the Leishenshan (Thunder God Mountain) Hospital.
Replicating Beijing's SARS treatment model in 2003, the makeshift hospital was the second of its kind in the city, after Huoshenshan (Fire God Mountain), for infected patients mostly in severe conditions. The two can accommodate 2,600 beds in total.
He decided on the spot to go with his brother-in-law as the assembly bugle sounded, calling for a rapid emergency response.
"I didn't have the chance to join the army, but I must go to the front line when my country is in difficulty," he said.
Despite his family's worries, Chen made repeated requests and was chosen for his experience of working as a plumber and wireman migrating from place to place across the country when he was a teenager.
Chen began installing water pipes and electrical wires immediately after arriving at Leishenshan in the wee hours of Feb. 4 and found that the hospital had already taken shape.
Yet before long, the work began to test the middle-aged man's physical limits, although Chen had got himself psyched up for the heavy workload before he left for Wuhan.
"We worked almost non-stop for 10 days and rested no more than four hours a day," Chen recalled. "Never taking a sip of hot water, and wolfing down every meal within five minutes became commonplace."
Everyone kept working until the point of exhaustion since there were no shifts at the construction site, and even no beds, Chen said. "You become exhausted, you spread a blanket on the hard, cold floor and wrap yourself in a quilt." He often fell asleep as soon as he laid down.
Long out of practice, Chen injured his hand on the first day, though he continued with his work after sucking on the bleeding wound and applying a simple dressing. The old hand quickly became familiar with the work one day later.
"You never forget things you learned when you were young," he said.
Chen later found that many of his workmates at Leishenshan were actually couples, brothers or father and son, just like him and his brother-in-law, coming from far-off places and speaking different dialects.
But they had a common goal. The faster the hospital was completed, the earlier that lives could be saved. Thus no one was complaining or dawdling, Chen said. "All workers had been putting pressure on themselves."
Before returning home when the construction was completed, Chen asked one of his fellow workers to take a picture of him with Leishenshan in the background, with his half-covered face too common to be recognizable. It was the only picture he had, and he kept it as a memento.
"Over all these years, I've contributed little to society," Chen said, noting that he was happy to see the hospital rising up from the ground, though it was highly risky working on the front line.
"I will have no regrets from now on," he said.
