I am a war veteran of the 1950s. Our Party respects us war veterans not only as death-defying defenders of the country but also as laudable revolutionary elders. The State invites us as delegates to the National Conference of War Veterans and the celebrations of the victory in the war and takes warm care of us.

Whenever I receive the news about benevolent measures the State takes for us one after another, I look back upon my bygone years.

I was born a son of a farm servant in Hamju County township, South Hamgyong Province in 1933. I had to eke out a scanty livelihood, subjected to every kind of humiliation and insult by a landlord. It was only after President Kim Il Sung won back Korea deprived of by the Japanese imperialists could we lead a new happy life. My parents did farming to their heart’s content on the land distributed gratis to them, and I studied hard at a school.

Though my country was liberated, the imperialists resorted to ceaseless aggressive moves and intervention to trample upon my country. The Korean war broke out due to them on June 25, 1950.

As I could not repeat my slavery like in the past I joined the Korean People’s Army.

We KPA soldiers made brilliant achievements in battles, true to such strategic and tactical policies as prompt counterattack to beat back the enemy’s surprise attack, daring encirclement operations, tunnel tactics and aircraft-hunting team movement advanced by Kim Il Sung. I fought as a sniper on Height 1026 and the area around Samgak Peak, applying various combat actions such as joint operations with an anti-aircraft artillery battery and allurement tactics. I was awarded the title of the DPRK Hero for killing or wounding 172 enemy soldiers for eight months.

We defeated the aggressors and won a brilliant victory in the hard-fought three-year-long Fatherland Liberation War to defend the destiny of the country and the nation. We shouted hurrah at the top of our voice with a great pleasure of being victors who were led by the iron-willed brilliant commander in the military parade to celebrate the victory in the war.

After the war I graduated from Kim Il Sung University and worked at a State organ, devoting myself to building up the might of the independent national economy. When a hair-trigger situation was created on the Korean peninsula owing to the enemy’s ceaseless moves to isolate and stifle our country, we could firmly defend the destiny of our country under the leadership of Chairman Kim Jong Il, the then KPA Supreme Commander.

I still vividly remember the day of military parade in celebration of the 70th founding anniversary of the DPRK in 2018. The valiant images of KPA service personnel who marched past the square, shouting hurrah at the top of their voice at the sight of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un on the platform, reminded me of the brave soldiers who took part in the military parade in 1953.

Their triumphant shouts represented the cheers of the Korean people who have held another peerlessly great man Kim Jong Un in the highest esteem, as well as a declaration of victors who have always emerged victorious in the struggle for defending socialism.

So, I always say to the rising generation that our country will record only victory in its annals under the leadership of brilliant commander Kim Jong Un.

Kim Pong Gwan, war veteran resident in neighborhood unit No. 10, Kaeson-dong, Moranbong District, Pyongyang