Memorial Day at Seoul National Cemetery

June 6 is a national holiday in Korea, when people (are supposed to) pause and reflect about the sacrifices made during the 6-25 War, as it is usually called here. Of course, June 25 is the day in 1950 when Kim Il-Sung’s soldiers, with Soviet and Chinese blessing, crossed the 38th parallel and fomented a bloody three-year conflict. He was darn near successful, but the South Koreans had allies of their own—the Americans, the Brits, the Canadians, the Turks, the Aussies, the Filipinos, the Kiwis, et al.—and essentially restored the border. So it has remained for 6 1/2 decades.

Every year, without fail

I visit Seoul National Cemetery every June 6, and this year was no different. Please come with me as I recount today’s events. I got on the Seoul subway and took Line 2 west to Line 4, then north to Dongjak Station. En route, I met an older gentleman in military attire with medals aplenty. He informed me that he had been part of the ROK’s “Vietnam Expedition.”  We were going to the same place.  I came out at the entrance of the cemetery, established by presidential decree in 1955. About 1.4 million square meters, it is the resting place of 165,000 soldiers and others who died or fought in the war, along with some other notables. In the shadow of Gwanak Mountain, it overlooks the Han River and is a scene of considerable majesty. I bought two bouquets of flowers and walked on in.

Soon my right-wing friend Yong Yoon arrived. After pausing at the main event where President Moon Jae-In spoke, we began a fairly long walk through the eastern and northern parts of the cemetery. Mr. Yoon and I finally came to the grave of Park Chung-Hee, the man who ruled South Korea from 1961 until his assassination in 1979. Park was admired by some (he engineered the country’s economic recovery) and reviled by others (he took power at the point of a gun and subverted democracy), and quite a few people felt both ways about him. Mr. Yoon, I tell you, is a Park devotee. He was the second of several speakers during a ceremony at the foot of the grave. While there, I posed with him and numerous others. I had brought a Taegukgi (the Korean flag) with me, and the people took note.

As mentioned earlier, I visit Seoul National Cemetery every June 6. Never before have I seen another foreigner at these gatherings, and I look. Each year it’s just me, although I cannot claim to have seen every person there. This time, however, I saw a handful. Still, non-Koreans are so rare as to be oddities. People appreciate foreigners, most especially Americans. They know what we did during the Korean War and continue to do to maintain the peace.

Kim Tae-Seon and Kim Hyun-Suk

Mr. Yoon, who had other obligations, was required to stay. But since there were two more graves I had to see, we parted. With help from some young volunteers, I made my way to a four-story charnel house called Chunghondang. I had a name (Kim Tae-Seon) and serial number (324331) which had been provided by Kim’s granddaughter, Paek Bomin. She is my former student, now sailing toward a Ph.D. at the University of Northern Colorado. Born in 1926 in what would later be called North Korea, Kim died in 1988. A patriotic man, he did his part in the war effort; I do not know the specifics other than that his service began in 1951 and ended in 1953. I went up to the third floor of the building and located the glass-covered box that holds his remains. I laid one of the bouquets there and quietly paid my respects.

I departed Chunghondang, tossed a handful of incense in a large burner and approached another set of young volunteers. How, I asked, do I find the grave of Kim Hyun-Suk (1915−1981)? I only knew that it was in section 17. Fortunately, that was close. One of the volunteers came with me and helped me locate her grave, where I laid the other bouquet. Kim was a fascinating person, in my view. As the war raged on, she sought to take a more active role than what was ordained for women at the time. She formed an all-female brigade, with the grudging permission of President Syngman Rhee and most of the military brass. Although they marched, trained and learned to shoot guns, they did not actually engage in combat. These hardy women conducted intelligence work around the hotbed that was Jiri Mountain. After the war, Kim, who rose to the rank of colonel, was awarded a Medal of Merit by President Dwight Eisenhower. Her brigade lasted until 1960.

Babies—we need babies

Korean women are exempt from military service, whereas all able-bodied men must serve two years. Such a policy obviously puts men at a disadvantage in terms of education and career in this very competitive society. A crude generalization is that the guys feel resentment, but the girls like the status quo just fine. “We have babies,” they say. Not very many, I say. The current rate of births per woman is 1.05, and 2.1 is necessary for a country to maintain a stable population. The Korean demographic time-bomb is ticking, louder all the time! (Japan and Taiwan, for what it’s worth, are in similar straits.) As much as I dislike the ROK’s neo-sexist military policy, I would be amenable if the women were in fact producing enough kids. I wonder what Kim Hyun-Suk would think of this matter.

It had been a hot and muggy day at Seoul National Cemetery. Lots of walking up and down hills, so a measure of effort, trouble and discomfort was required. But how much? I think, I really think about what Koreans went through in the early 1950s. Because of them, we have freedom in the southern half of the peninsula—freedom to think, speak, criticize the government, travel abroad, live our lives and so on. Those up north can only dream of such freedom.