Opinion

Now, with the Day of the Shining Star drawing nearer, my family and I spend every day with significant memories of Chairman Kim Jong Il as we were bestowed unusual favour by him. 

Many people still call ours soldiers’ family. 

It was one day in November 1997 that our family became known to the whole country. At that time the Korean people were at the crossroads: whether they would remain independent guards by defending their country against the imperialists’ anti-socialist attempts or become the slaves of imperialism.

During his continuous journey of Songun revolutionary leadership, the Chairman visited a women’s coast artillery company situated on a front-line coast and unexpectedly met my daughter Kyong Sil who was serving the company. 

As he came to know that she was defending the post like her mother, who had presented a bouquet to President Kim Il Sung on his visit to the company and shown him their firing practice and live firing in March 1972, the Chairman satisfactorily had a photo taken with her. 

That day I wept very much. 

I could hardly calm myself as I remembered the moment of honour when I presented a bouquet of fragrant flowers to the President, the time when I was sorry to receive a discharge order and those days when I strove to raise my daughters well with the determination to have them serve the coastal battery without fail. 

Afterwards, during a tour of on-the-spot guidance, the Chairman met our couple and called us fighters for national defence highly appreciating our will to defend the post through generations before describing ours as a revolutionary soldiers’ family to be emulated by the whole country.  

We only fulfilled our duty as citizens of the country as our life, happiness and future depend on it. The Chairman, however, appreciated us so much. This is why we do not still forget his benevolence though decades have passed since then. 

Now our couple and children keep striving to live like in those days when we expressed our pledge of loyalty to him and like in the days of our military service. 

And I will make sure that my grandchildren grow up to firmly defend posts for national defence following the tradition of our soldiers’ family.