North Korea

Talk, talk, and talk. The newspapers and the TV talking heads are all at it again. The despot jerk that was the leader of one of the most depressed countries the world has ever known has dropped dead, they say from an apparent heart attack. I doubt if anyone could ever treat his fellow citizens more despicably.

North Korea rots, while South Korea during the course of the last fifty-nine years has become one of the world’s global leaders. The north shrivels, while the south educates. What this communist regime, like all others, has always stood for is exemplified by bareness and depravity.

I witnessed first hand, as a young soldier a truth I had previously found too harsh to be believed. But the truth was just that. The barbaric presence of the communist leaders weighs so heavily on the shoulders of the North Korean people; their plight remains so miring, escape and freedom has become a virtual impossibility. The North Korean leaders have systematically removed all modern devices from the day-to-day lives of their people. While the south bathes in lights provided by electricity and its children have become privy to every computerized method of study known to man, the north, figuratively and materially has remained in the dark. But on the other hand, many argue, you don’t miss what you’ve never had. While almost everyone in South Korea duplicates the cell phone use of most modern societies, the families, as well as the business people, except those of the government are rarely if ever privy to a land line telephone. The beat is relentless; what is television, what is a washing machine, what does the word vaccine mean?

And by the way, how in the world can a people exist without actors? They have no Screen Actors Guild, no A.F.T.R.A, no agents, or personal managers. “Let’s go out and have a frozen yogurt ”; forget about it.

North Koreans wouldn’t dream of doing a Wall Street type of sit in. Americans, unlike our president, aren’t brought up to bow to despots. North Koreans, on the other hand make it a point to bow to everyone. Oh, I forgot, they do have one good thing; they don’t worry about having an Internal Revenue audit. Since the government owns everything, higher taxes aren’t a problem. They can’t promote a new congressional bill adding more taxation to the rich, because they emptied their pail years ago; kind of what we see happening in most of Europe today. Except for the military, and their president, who becomes president similarly to any family inheritance, their playing field is level; all are poor.

On July 27, 1953 at 9PM, at a semi horrid location to exist, the Korean Conflict, (that’s what it was called) came to a less than an auspicious ending. As a soldier none of us trusted what our leaders had to say. It wasn’t distrust because we felt our commanders were liars; our distrust was caused by a disbelief that this miserable war had really come to an end. We all thought it was too good to come true.

My purpose for writing this paper is straightforward, offered as a clarification for some of the deceit being fed to the American public. I pray the impact of my words does more than merely sneak up on you. By that I mean I pray those who can stay with me for a moment or two, might come away with a feeling our country is more than average. Please let it sink in. I’m not God, but please trust my verbal integrity as if it were the gospel.

If it were not for the United States Of America, the country of South Korea would not exist as we know it today: a country, much like ours, which shines, and promotes the growth of its citizens. South Korea is a capitalist society. North Korea is a communist dictatorship. And again, if it were not for the United States of America, the country and the people of South Korea would be held under the same tyrannical leadership as their brethren to the north. The students of Korea are now ranked third in the world in science and mathematics. While the north builds their army and bombs with an enormous capability to destroy, the capital city of Seoul, just twenty-five miles to the south enjoys the fruit of their existence as a capitalistic society.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO MY READERS:

• When WWII ended, the Japanese were forced to relinquish their dictatorial possession of the Korean Peninsula.
• In 1945 the United Sates and the Soviet Union divided Korea, separating north and south at the thirty-eighth parallel. Ultimately the Russians gave way to the Chinese communists.
• Spurred on by the Chinese, the North Korean army attacked and invaded the south. The United States came to the aid of the south, ultimately destroying the destructive capabilities of the northern army. It was then that the Chinese entered the conflict.
• Fifty thousand Americans were lost as a result of the Korean Conflict.
• South Korea is a free and thriving country as a result of the Korean Conflict.

In order of occupancy; first it was a kingdom (the Japanese), then the Russian communists (also known as Socialists), and today the North Korean Communists, (also known as Socialists).

A quick recap reveals, and perhaps an even more rapid-fire history lesson clearly shows the plain facts. The people of South Korea in less than sixty years surpassed the tyrannical despotic leaders who mercilessly deprived their own citizens from any semblance of human dignity.

I suppose I am being naïve. Certainly everyone in our (still) free society is entitled to his or her own verbal stance. What it boils down to is my lack of patience and understanding for those who see the United States as a world detractor. Sir Winston Churchill expounded on his fervent belief that without the courage and determination of the Unites States of America, not only would Great Britain have fallen, but also Adolph Hitler, originally organized under the guise of socialism, would have seized all of Europe as well. Churchill along with many other great historians pointed out, the socialist, communist, dictatorships of the world all practiced the same credo, “divide and conquer, isolate the normal divisions between people, and foster blame on those being isolated as the cause factor for the current denigration that they, the socialists had brought upon their own people.” Race, creed, and color were all the ammunition necessary in order to divide the countries of Europe. Take God out of the mix and you have lock, stock, and barrel the grist for the formation and solid foundation of every nation in the history of world civilization that failed, void of magnanimity.

Keep in mind, what Churchill said, was the supposition of the necessity of a right wing and a left in order to gain and sustain flight. Weakness will never be able to maintain prolonged or aggressive flight. He (Churchill) pointed to the United States as a centrist country. Many confuse being a centrist with being a coward. Nothing could be further from the truth; between the wings, find the body of the bird, no matter how large or small.

In closing, I do have a single simple request to make. If any of you out there know of an incident in the history of this world we live in today where any civilization can remotely match the success the United States of America has experienced in the same short number of years we have existed, please pass it along.