Supreme Commander and His Men

by Embassy of the DPR Korea in Bangladesh
December 2, 2010

http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1145/supreme-commander-and-his-men

The ceaseless inspections of Kim Jong Il, supreme commander of the Korean People's Army, produce numerous moving stories of his warm love of his men.

My Sons and Daughters"

It happened when Kim Jong Il inspected a frontline outpost on Mt. Taedok on the Military Demarcation Line along which north and south of Korea are facing each other in confrontation.

That day he climbed up an observation post within a hailing distance from an enemy post. Having inquired into the enemy's situation and taken all necessary measures as appropriate, he had photographs taken with the soldiers.

The accompanying officials who had been all the time pressed with extreme tension earnestly entreated him not to go out to the frontline units, He said there and then that as he should grasp the actual conditions of the life of the frontline troops on duty, he should visit not only the frontline areas marked with barbed wire entanglements but far more dangerous places, noting that all the service personnel were his own sons and daughters.

5 cm:

One day Kim Jong Il dropped in at the bedroom of a subunit. After asking the commanding officer of the subunit about the room temperature, he looked round the beds for the soldiers, saying that the room was quite warm.

At that moment the commander told Kim Jong Il that he as planning to narrow the width of the bed a little bit, reasoning that 5 cm reduction in the width of each bed would provide more space for bedding, which he said would accommodate any reinforcements.

Kim Jong Il was immersed in thought for a while, before saying that, then, it might make no difference to persons of small build but persons of big build, who would find it narrow.

And then he urged an official of stout build among the accompanying officials to lie on a bed to give a practical demonstration. He told the official to relax his posture, himself measuring the size of the bed. "Look The bed is narrow, isn' t it?" he asked the other accompanying officials and said that they should have the soldiers feel no inconvenience even though they had to build more barracks.

Five centimetres were insignificant to the officials, but not to Kim Jong Il.

Day for the Soldiers:

Over ten years ago Kim Jong Il inspected a unit of the KPA.

While looking round the mess hail, he saw a chart hanging on the wall for a good while.

The chart, with words "Day for the Soldiers" written on the upper part, listed the names of all commissioned officers and their wives, including the commander's couple, in order of rank and by particular dates.

The officers and their wives, having set the "Day for the Soldiers," had been making it a rule for a long time to take turns to help preparing meals for their subordinate men.

Acquainting himself with this fact, Kim Jong Il, with a broad smile on his face, spoke highly of them as they were doing a very commendable thing. Afterwards, their example has been generalized throughout the whole army.

A Blank Page:

It happened when each member of a women's coast artillery subunit was given a photo album containing all of her photographs taken during a visit to Pyongyang arranged by Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il. The supreme commander had worked out their itinerary in person and sent them a cameraman.

When they opened their albums, everyone was wide-eyed to find the first page blank. There and then, they heard the following story about the page from the official who brought them the albums: Going over the album, Supreme Commander Kim Jong Il suggested leaving the first page blank, saying that the girls would get discharged as time went by and married and it would be very significant if they put their photos on marriage on the first blank page.

Moved by the story conveying the Supreme Commander's parental care for them, the women soldiers could not suppress their excitement and shouted in a choking voice, "Respected Supreme Commander!" and "Father!"

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