By Dasl Yoon Close Dasl Yoon and Andrew Jeong Close Andrew Jeong July 4, 2020 9:00 am ET SEOUL—They were supposed to represent North Korea’s fighting elite. Dispatched to Korea’s demilitarized zone roughly three years ago, Roh Chol Min was a new recruit on the front lines. He sized up his fellow 46 soldiers in the unit and saw men like himself: tall, young and connected.
Then last week, Mr. Kim suddenly declared a suspension of military action directed at South Korea. North Korea again removed the loudspeakers and has yet to conduct further actions targeting the South. The Wall Street Journal spoke with Mr. Roh for more than 15 hours over the past year, in his first interview with Western media. His account, which couldn’t be independently confirmed, verifies and illuminates broader views by intelligence agencies, North Korean defectors and researchers.
Mr. Kim, facing Western sanctions over his nuclear program and strains posed by the coronavirus pandemic, needs unquestioned military vitality all the more now. At a Workers’ Party meeting late last year, he announced a “new strategic weapon” would be unveiled soon and encouraged his people to tighten their belts and prepare themselves for life under sanctions.
North Korean men, with few exceptions, serve for at least 10 years. They are conscripted at a young age partly to indoctrinate firm allegiance to the state. But it is a hardship that has forced some enlistees to crack. He says he dreamed of joining the North Korean military—a feeling that deepened after Mr. Kim assumed the mantle of “Supreme Leader” in late 2011.
Once Mr. Kim left, Mr. Roh stood with his fellow soldiers, fanatically chanting, “Long live General Kim!” “You do as I say. If I want to beat you, I beat you. If I tell you to die, you die,” he says the officer told him. Mr. Roh exercises in the backyard of the house. He says his physical limits were tested through tough military training, lack of food and proper medical care in the special forces.The soldiers were mobilized to move bricks day and night. Mr. Roh was only assigned to the construction project for his first three days. He didn’t get to see the cafeteria completed, as he defected after just three months at the front lines.
Money could buy an immediate promotion and help a soldier drop out of training. Mr. Roh felt devastated. He watched as the others enjoyed extra sleep and went out to local markets to buy sweet bread. He hadn’t been able to make a single call to his family and spent most of his time at the guard post.
Kudakwa65456583 What if North K was a friend of America?
卫生巾你太有才了！
Lest we forget, Kim’s 1 fan, President ShitForBrains.
Sounds fake. WSJ has been had.
The praying mantis is a beautiful and intelligent creature that will rip the head off a cockroach and ingest it's viscera. Unfortunately the female will do the same to the male during lovemaking.
A hungry army is easy to defeat, at border or in the field of combat always have a few foot-long cold cuts subs to pass out to the enemy.
How can they survived in this way over 30 years since USSR collapsed?
Are the U.S. media making up stories about North Korea again?
How much was this 'defector' paid for his testimony? We know organisations like the NED pay for this stuff.
Another progressive utopia.
Praying mantus eggs?
yeah let's believe someone who's new future depends on painting the bleakest picture imaginable
of course he would say that!
It´s True...
Sounds like Trump's world. Only oil and plastics.
Leave Trump in charge much longer... and that will be the American military too.
These defector 'stories' could all b a ruse. Didn't one detector claim Kim Jung Un was dead after he escaped during the time the world wondered what had happened to Kim?
Moral question: Would you defect and save your life and endanger or even cause the deaths of ur loved ones or continue to suffer? I hope I'd rather suffer with them unless I can take them all with me
I know things was bad when the arrogant guy said there is no covid 19 in NK. Good for you for escaping the hell, breath fresh air in the land of the living.
what to do with a nation like this?
All for the want of a chicken.
The rotten millitary that had scared the US and S Korea so much that N Korea was allowed their nuclear programs to go along for decades. Of course, China was also a clown in this process.
If the military decides to TURN on Kim and his family, Kim will be forced to FLEE THE COUNTRY, OR DIE!!! The same could be said for this country.
Hope Trump doesn't spot this otherwise the SEALS may find themselves with a new mission statement.
And yet the North Korean military survives with the support of China. WSJ, this is crass journalism. Y’all fellers can do better.
Hasn't this propaganda lost its effect? Create something new.
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