The Stubborn Spirit of Korea Is Reborn

During World War I, the English poet-soldier Rupert Brooke, musing on death, asked that his grave be thought of as “some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” On Sept. 13, 1952, near the village of Panmunjom, where truce negotiations were conducted, part of me became forever Korea. I was wounded in action, my young American blood mingled with ancient soil long accustomed to human struggles.

So if it seems impertinent for me to offer advice on the tension between the two Koreas--it is my Korean blood that speaks.

I will even presume to speak for the other Korean War participants: United Nations troops, the armed forces and people of the Republic of (South) Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea and its Chinese allies. Once warrior-bold, now our old hearts yearn for peace on the still-hostile battleground where our fallen brothers and sisters cannot speak.

The war begun 50 years ago today has never been concluded. The cease-fire agreement signed July 27, 1953, was only that--a temporary armistice.

That’s why I feel greatly encouraged by the recent meeting between my brothers in blood and soil, R.O.K. President Kim Dae Jung and D.P.R.K. President Kim Jong Il, to discuss national reconciliation. They have an ideal opportunity to end the 4,000 years of internal strife and foreign conquests that have threatened Korea’s will to be whole and independent.

Were I permitted to choose a symbol for Korea’s stubborn spirit, it would be the young rice shoot. Even when repeatedly trod into the mud, it springs upright to claim its place in the sun, rapidly maturing to nourish other living things.

Rice also teaches us that everything contains the seed of its opposite. Women bear men; sons beget mothers. War flows back to peace, and destroyers become builders. Old enemies make the best comrades because they understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

So let us remember President Reagan’s words to Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Berlin: Tear down the 38th Parallel wall and allow the tide of opposites to surge freely north and south again.

That will make room to plant more rice. And our blood and soil will indeed be what the ancestors called it: land of the morning calm.