In February 1963 Kim Jong Il, accompanying Kim Il Sung, visited the frontline heights in the western sector of the front and, several times later, inspected the army units there.
On February 7, 2001, 38 years after that, he came there.
That day he inspected a women’s company.
The political instructor of the company was the daughter of a soldier whom Kim Il Sung had met on February 7, 38 years previously, while inspecting the above units.
While talking with the soldier who hailed from Changsong County Kim Il Sung had asked him his native place and age, as well as the share his family had received after the harvest before he joined the army. Years after being discharged, the man had his daughter serve in one of those units on the front line.
Kim Jong Il was very pleased to learn this fact and met the man’s daughter.
Seeing the officer saluting him, he praised with a bright smile on his face that she was defending the frontline post in her father’s place.
Then he continued to say to the officials accompanying him, “How fortuitous it is that on this day, 38 years after the leader met the young soldier who hailed from Changsong, I have met his daughter.”
It was indeed a meaningful meeting.
Wondering if it was really an incidental happening, the officials said to themselves: Kim Il Sung traversed the road of Songun all his life, and now Kim Jong Il follows it. Serving the army to defend the country has become the tradition of every family, which is peculiar to Songun Korea. That’s why the meeting is not a mere chance but an inevitable outcome.
