June 25th, 1950

Today celebrates a 58th anniversary of the Korean War, where the North Korean Army struck in the pre-dawn hours of Sunday, June 25th, 1950, by crossing the 38th parallel dividing the two Korean regimes supported mainly by Russia and the United States.

My father was two years old when the war took place. Chances are, he was probably too young to remember much about the war. My mom was 3 months old when it happened. Definitely too young to remember. One of these days, I want to talk to them about exactly what happened, and what my parents had to go through, to survive through the war.

Although the North Korean Army and Kim Il Sung was hoping for a quick victory over the Korean peninsula, his hopes evaporated when the UN decided to intervene in the matter. And in the course of the three years, over half million soldiers died defending the land, while the North Korean casualty including the Chinese army is estimated at over a million. Millions of civilians were wounded and killed, as the fight continued over the war-torn country.

Even in elementary days, I remember growing up with very strong sense of loyalty to the country, and how we all hated communism. Reviewing and re-reading through what happened during the war, made me realize why so many South Koreans abhor the communism and in general, the North Korean regime.

As the North Korean Army captured more and more South Korean cities and towns, they would systematically kill all current and former government officials and anyone that they deemed dangerous to the communists regime, and the killing only got worse as North Korean Army retreated from these captured cities, being pushed back by the coalition forces.

Sadly, the South Korean army would in turn execute thousands of alleged communist sympathizers, often without trial. And fearing possible infiltration, US army was ordered to shoot any approaching civilian refugees without question, though, this didn't last too long...

There is a saying that the Korean nation is also called Han nation, one filled with Han, which can be translated as heartache, heartburning, regret, unsatisfied desire. After all, just after being liberated from Japan Empire, Koreans ended up killing each other and millions of civilians, just to be a divided nation, even until now. And this isn't just some history hundreds of years ago, instead it's something that our parents and grandparents survived through, but to this day, they have not been able to see the two nations unite. They can only sing and hope for the reunification of the Korean peninsula, for until that day, their "Han" will never go away...

For more info, please visit the wiki at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War