Gitogo had not heard the command because he was deaf.

Mr Williams' case has similarities to a fight waged by other military veterans over their pensions.Jim Monaghan was involved with the Equality for Veterans Association (EfVA) which also campaigned against pension decisions in the 1970s.

Military rules before April 1975 meant that in most circumstances, servicemen had to serve 22 years to be eligible for an armed forces pension in addition to the state pension.Mr Monaghan left the RAF at the end of 1974, having accrued 14 years' service, including in Singapore and the middle east.Had he left a few months later, he would have received a military pension. The rule change in 1975, like rules on pensions generally, were not retrospective.

The issue was debated in parliament in 2015, with then-Defence Minister Anna Soubry saying making changes to pension policy retrospective would break an "essential principle" and "would lead to widespread, long-term and unmanageable consequences for both this government and future governments".Mr Monaghan believes communication from the MOD was not good enough.

"Everyone was kept in the dark," he said.

"They knew nothing about [pensions] when they were young.When he first came back in 2020, he interned at a state-owned bank and asked a supervisor if there was a chance to stay on.

The supervisor didn't say it outright, but Chen got the message: "Employees should have local degrees. People like me (with overseas degrees) won't even get a response."He later realised that "there really weren't any colleagues with overseas undergraduate background in the department".

He went back to the US and did his master's at Johns Hopkins University, and now works at Chinese tech giant Baidu.But despite the degree from a prestigious American university, Mr Chen does not feel he has an edge because of the stiff competition from graduates in China.