I am a citizen of a country experiencing war. I am a citizen of a country split in half.
I am a citizen of a country holding its peace by a single armistice.
I didn’t experience warfare during my lifetime, but I was born into a country where the effects of war still linger. Our past refused to stay in the past and broke through the safe bubble of the present. My country was mostly peaceful after the war, but there were many duties that citizens had to carry out as people of a country where peace was merely held together by a single document.
This country is South Korea, also known as the Republic of Korea.
Every month, sirens tore through the tranquil air of South Korea, and in every school, students had to partake in evacuation drills in preparation for a day when war might actually happen. Every time we do so, it reminds me of the painstaking moments South Korea is a country of truce born from a country of war.
“A country of truce is still better than a country of war,” I always tell myself.
There is also a national holiday established, 6.25, for us to take a moment to commemorate the numerous brave people who passed away, dying in honor of their country. All of those heroes are buried in South Korea’s national cemetery, their heroic deeds remembered and thanked.
I have an older cousin. She never got to see her father because on the exact day she was born, her father died for his country. This brave father is my granduncle. My granduncle was in the highest position that a soldier could possess. Since South Korea was in a state of a break between war with North Korea, all men had to go to the military for a specific amount of time. My granduncle decided to stay in the military as an occupation even after he served his time because he wanted to serve his country. One day, when it was especially foggy, my granduncle was given the choice to patrol or not because the sky wasn’t clear enough. However, he knew that he had to stay on guard in case of any danger. He got onto the helicopter. A few hours later, he passed away because his helicopter crashed into another helicopter and a single crash led to the death of two extraordinary people.
With my granduncle’s last breath, my cousin had her first. I respect and love my granduncle more than anything. Whenever I think of him, my heart squeezes and tears tumble out, leaving me feeling defenseless, I never got to saygoodbye to him because I hadn’t even gotten the chance to say hello. To remember someone you don’t know is hard, butit isn’t hard for me. Because I do know him. He’s my hero.
Whenever the family got together, they would always exchange stories of my granduncle.
There were all kinds of stories, ranging from sweet, bittersweet, and the final bitter. No matter which flavors these stories were, my heart still broke every single time. Every time I hear his story, tears fall on my cheek at what fate has broughtus. My granduncle died for peace, but the entire situation made me so angry, the opposite of that. Things could’ve been different. People wouldn’t have felt so much pain. I hated the world for these horrifying moments that were inescapable. If South Korea wasn’t in the constant threat of war, my granduncle would’ve still been alive, and my cousin would’ve been able to grow up under the love of her father. My cousin didn’t do anything wrong, but she was still robbed of all the sweet memories that could’ve been made. I was angry that we had to live in the constant fear of war while everyone else in the world didn’t.
All men in South Korea still need to go to the military when they are of age for some time as their duty to the country. My grandfather had gone, and my father had gone and all the males in my family had gone. Because South Korea was normally such a beautiful country, in daily life, I tend to forget the sadness of its past. I tend to forget that South Korea is a country divided yet still held together by truce. I tend to forget that simply I’m living in a decorative glass that North Korea shatters from time to time with their threats of missiles. Every time, the terrifying feeling of my heart pounding against my chest, my mind going numb, and the pounding in my ears returns.
Two years ago, I moved to America due to my father’s work. America, the land of the free. It presented so muchhappiness and peace. I came to America with a light heart, believing that if I wasn’t in Korea, I would be able to lift my worries about warfare. I was finally free of war.
Now I realize that I was wrong with the first gunshot in the Ukraine-Russia war and with the starting declaration of the Israel-Palestine war. Even though both of these wars initially seem like they wouldn’t concern America, they impact America. Wars are watched in such a global scope. To maintain world peace, every country is linked to each other. World peace is so easy in concept but so hard to achieve.
Looking at these struggles, I realized that pain and sadness are universal. It wasn’t just from a single country experiencing war, and I wasn’t the only one experiencing the sadness.
Letting go of my anger, I attained a universal point of view. I realized that I shouldn’t be complaining or lamenting and instead should be working towards building world peace. History is all perspective. In order to not be ethnocentric, we need to understand others. I changed my view from small to a big perspective and started volunteering around the world to achieve world peace. I never used my allowance and always donated it to people in need, gave speeches to my district about diversity, and hosted a podcast with students around the world to share different perspectives.
I wanted to make the world a better place and there is no substitute for experience. I’m taking the first step to taking action. We’re working towards world peace, and we can even do more. Even though these are small steps to changing the world, sometimes, it’s the small acts of kindness and thoughtfulness that convince others to change. Everyone has a hint of good in them, but it just depends on the amount of trust from others. We need to give in order to receive.
There are things in life that we can’t control. We’ll never get our happy ending if we don’t choose to have a happy ending. I am proud of the world that my granduncle has left me. He shaped the world in his own way, and I can also shape it in my way too. Just like my granduncle, just like the bravery everyone else has shown, I’m going to take action. Because I know that while one hand cannot protect a piece of paper from the rain when small hands gather above a single piece of paper, it blocks out the rain forever.