Trapped in the Korean War

"ATTENTION!" I covered my ears with my hands when I heard such a loud voice on the speaker. A soldier beside of podium shouted into the microphone. Then the soldiers marched out and stood around us. "ATTENTION!" That time another soldier came up on the podium. Our schoolyard was filled with soldiers around us. That morning, we were surrounded by armed soldiers. They were looking like wooden toy soldiers which Father brought for us from his trips abroad. They walked stiffly lifting their legs high. They put their rifles down at their side with a thud as soon as they heard 'attention'. Only the loud sound of a rifle’s clicking filled the yard. The sound of clicking from rifles and heels were as one person doing it. It was quite interesting for me. Our teachers were standing in front of us. There was dead silence and stillness in the yard when the soldiers stopped. We all became like wooden dolls in a line filling the yard. Whenever a soldier said 'salute' the soldiers changed their rifle’s position from their shoulder to the side and from the side to their shoulder. "Cha-ryot (attention), Gyong-rae! (Salute)" The Korean civilian's salute was to bow down, so we did. The soldier on the podium had many medals on his uniform chest that were very sparkly in the sunshine. He looked around slowly and then started talking firmly. "Dong-moo deul! (It means friends. Dong-moo is friend and deul is plural). We are here for you." He paused. When we were lined up in the schoolyard and we formed lines by grade from grades 1 to 6 left to right. I was in grade 4 and our class was right in front of the podium. We used to line up in the schoolyard and sit in the classroom by numbers which we were given by height starting from the shorter person and it stayed that way the whole year until we went up to next grade. My number was 11 so I was in the 6th row from the front. I could see the soldier’s angry face. I was wondering why he was angry if they came for us. The soldier continued. "We are now one country from north to south. We are one family. You will have all the details from your leaders when you go into your class rooms. Now...." He paused again to look around. Nobody moved nor made a sound and the sun was getting warmer. It seemed like they were training us to standing a long time without movement. I didn't know how long we were standing, my legs were getting tired. How I wished I could sit down. I couldn't remember what the soldier was saying any more. My mind was thinking of home. Suddenly a girl near me fell on the ground. It wasn’t a new thing that happened. Some summer mornings we had someone faint from the burning sun while we were having morning exercises. Then teachers would take him or her to the school nurse's room to keep them there until they recovered. That morning the soldier stopped the teacher who tried to help the girl. "Get up!" the solider ordered. "She can't, she fainted with the heat. We have to take her in." The female teacher begged. "Do not talk back. Pick her up to stand" He ordered roughly. "Stand straight up." He ordered again. They tried to hold her up straight but her head dropped onto the teacher’s chest then the soldier slapped the girl's face trying to wake her up. "Please, she needs to lie down in a cool place." The teacher begged with a choking voice. “Take her away.” The soldier ordered and went back to his place. I heard everything but never turned my head. I was so scared. It was as if I had become frozen in place. "ATTENTION!" A soldier shouted again because our lines were broken up to see what was going on. Everybody went back to their lines immediately. "Dong-moo deul! You have to stay alert at all times." The soldier yelled. "Do you understand?" No one answered. "Do you understand?" He shouted again when he didn't hear our answer. "Yes." We whispered. "I didn't hear you. Louder! Do you understand?” "Yes." We shouted back to him. He seemed satisfied and continued "From this moment our leader Captain Il-Sung Kim will be your leader, our country’s only leader." At the same time another soldier brought a big black and white portrait of someone and lifted it up high. "This is your leader. You have to respect him and you will recognize him whenever you see his pictures. You have to salute him wherever you see his picture. You will be watched by our people, your people and by soldiers. This is an order you must obey." He looked around for our answers each time he finished yelling at us. "Do you understand?" "Yes." We all shouted in unison. I didn’t think anybody understood what he was talking about but we shouted as loud as we could so we didn't hear his shouting again. It seemed as though he could only yell. "If we find anybody disobeying, they will be punished." "Yes." We replied as loud as we could. We had learned our lesson. We shouted back to him louder than he had. We were tired of hearing him say 'do you understand'. He made us really scared.