The ex-Special Forces officer and the hostage rescue of a friend

Gene Yu grew up in the United States, the son of Taiwanese parents, feeling like he didn't truly fit in. Although he was bullied at school, he found purpose in his teens when he joined the prestigious West Point Military Academy. He eventually became an officer in the Green Berets – a highly specialised branch of the US Army's Special Forces. After four combat tours Gene decided to leave the military and seek a new path; in 2013 that came in the unexpected form of a phone call from his mum. She told him about an old friend of hers, whose sister, Evelyn Chang, had been taken hostage in Eastern Malaysia. Gene immediately wanted to help and felt he had the skills to do so. He suspected her captors belonged to Abu Sayyaf, a small but very violent jihadist group based in the southern Philippines – a group Gene knew a lot about after being posted there several years before. He made up his mind to help Evelyn and travelled to Manila where he asked his military contacts for help. Evelyn was finally freed after 35 days by a combined team of Filipino Scout Rangers and operatives from NICA, the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency in the Philippines. Gene has written a book about the rescue and about his life called The Second Shot. 

At the age of 83 Sergio Chamy went undercover at a nursing home for the elderly in Chile to find out whether one of the residents was having her possessions stolen. What he discovered there did not involve criminality, but instead a desperate loneliness and hopelessness among the residents. The whole operation was filmed and released as a documentary called The Mole Agent which was nominated for an Oscar in 2021. It inspired a national conversation in Chile about the sadness often experienced by the elderly. Jane Chambers spoke to Sergio and his daughter Dalal. This interview was first broadcast in August 2021.

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(Photo: Gene Yu receiving a Bronze Star Award. Credit: Gene Yu)