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General turns peacemaker

By May Zhou | China Daily | Updated: 2019-05-09 08:29
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Retired US army major general Bernard Loeffke still has the Chinese military helmet he wore when he jumped with Chinese paratroopers in 1984. [PHOTO BY MAY ZHOU/CHINA DAILY]

"This has been the most checked parachute of my whole life. They checked it 10 times. Usually you only check twice. I said I know why: If something happens to me, all of you will be executed. And they laughed."

He said that the jump and the time he spent with the Chinese paratroopers created a bond between them that was difficult to replicate.

"I am now a Chinese brother paratrooper," Loeffke says.

More than 30 years later, the general still possesses the Chinese military helmet he wore when he made the jump in China.

While stationed in Beijing, Loeffke helped US runner Stan Cottrell set up a run from the Great Wall to the southernmost part of China. Three years later in 1985, Cottrell ran 5,793 kilometers across the United States with three Chinese runners.

Loeffke and 1,000 US paratroopers joined the run in Washington DC and took part in the following celebrations.

In 2006, he traveled to China for the 11th time, taking with him his 17-year-old son, Marc. Together they taught English to Chinese students.

He later persuaded his daughter Kristina to teach theater in China for a short period so that she could form a bond with China.

In 2012, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the White House Fellows, Loeffke published the book, China, Our Enemy? A General's Story, in which he documented his experiences in China. He even used a picture of Lei Feng, a popular Chinese role model of the 1950s, on the cover.

"An up-and-coming nation like China is bound to have friction with the United States, but it does not have to be an enemy. We need to establish a strong relationship to prevent war," he says in his book.

In 2012, he also set up a Friendship Fund at the US Military Academy at West Point to send cadets to China for three weeks every summer.

"I give $10,000 each year to send West Point cadets to China. They go to communities to teach preventive medicine to elementary schools. They came back totally impressed. They said that the children are so beautiful. They love the children who say, 'You are my first American friend'. It builds an unmistakable bond," Loeffke says.

So far, about 40 West Point cadets have gone through the program. He is also working with a retired Chinese general to send West Point cadets to Shandong as volunteers.

Loeffke is also a guest lecturer at the Confucius Institute at Miami Dade College in Florida, where he engages with students to discuss the importance of building strong ties with China.

In the past few years, Loeffke has been working with the nonprofit organization Food for the Poor to build simple houses for people in Latin America. So far, he has built more than 30 houses in four villages.

Loeffke says his building project is a good way to demonstrate how the US and China can work together to offer some help to the needy. "I want to build a ring of China, a string of homes around the Caribbean Sea," he says.

A Chinese student who raised money for the program in Beijing to buy fishing boats equipped with GPS for people in need hopes that more Chinese volunteers will participate.

"My dream is a simple one - spend money around the world to help others. My dream is to have China and the US work together for the good of the world. We have to get out of this habit of just thinking about one country - we have to think of the world as a whole," Loeffke says.

The general says many people have asked him about current US-China relations. "There is no tension when it's people to people... If we worry about the relationship one-on-one and one at a time, the world will get fixed. What we need to do is to continue the relationship," he says.

Contact the writer at mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com

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