Seoul police are investigating how a North Korean defector who fled south ended up back in the North. Appearing tearful in a North Korean television interview, Lim Ji-hyeon told viewers she had escaped a capitalist hell.
I was going to write a sad post about how North Koreans have a really hard time integrating into South Korea, but I’ll skip that for a fun story instead.
For those who don’t know, South Korea has mandatory conscription. Soldiers practice all sorts of drills, including some in civilian areas (especially close to the Northern border). A friend of mine (Let’s call him Lee) ended up in a placement where they specialize in training other squadrons on North Korean tactics.
Lee had to learn everything from North Korean culture and politics, dialect (including vocabulary tests), military drills, and anything else that would effectively let you drop him into the North Korean army without much problem. It might have been overkill, since all he really did was act in a pseudo-North Korean squad to help train South Korean teams, but to say the least it’s fun to go drinking with Lee.
Lee’s squadron had access to North Korean weapons and replica armor, so when they did drills that’s the attire they wore instead of the traditional South Korean uniform. This went about as well as you might expect. Civilians spotted what they believed to be North Korean troops marching down from the mountains, and immediately notified every emergency service in the province. While higher-ups in the military knew their route, that feedback was far from instantaneous going back to the civilians on the ground. Good luck trying to convince people you’re a squad of South Koreans play-pretending as North Korean military when you’re literally 15km from the Northern border and marching south.
It clearly can cause some incidents, but it’s relatively low risk. Virtually nobody crosses the border (North to South or South to North), and other South Korean squads groups know of each other’s whereabouts (not that they would engage to begin with).
Most engagement incidents happen at sea or in the sky.
I was going to write a sad post about how North Koreans have a really hard time integrating into South Korea, but I’ll skip that for a fun story instead.
For those who don’t know, South Korea has mandatory conscription. Soldiers practice all sorts of drills, including some in civilian areas (especially close to the Northern border). A friend of mine (Let’s call him Lee) ended up in a placement where they specialize in training other squadrons on North Korean tactics.
Lee had to learn everything from North Korean culture and politics, dialect (including vocabulary tests), military drills, and anything else that would effectively let you drop him into the North Korean army without much problem. It might have been overkill, since all he really did was act in a pseudo-North Korean squad to help train South Korean teams, but to say the least it’s fun to go drinking with Lee.
Lee’s squadron had access to North Korean weapons and replica armor, so when they did drills that’s the attire they wore instead of the traditional South Korean uniform. This went about as well as you might expect. Civilians spotted what they believed to be North Korean troops marching down from the mountains, and immediately notified every emergency service in the province. While higher-ups in the military knew their route, that feedback was far from instantaneous going back to the civilians on the ground. Good luck trying to convince people you’re a squad of South Koreans play-pretending as North Korean military when you’re literally 15km from the Northern border and marching south.
Doesn’t that risk starting a border incident?
It clearly can cause some incidents, but it’s relatively low risk. Virtually nobody crosses the border (North to South or South to North), and other South Korean squads groups know of each other’s whereabouts (not that they would engage to begin with).
Most engagement incidents happen at sea or in the sky.