Posted on 03/04/2011 6:11:48 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
N.Korean Soldiers' Wives Flee Hardship at Home
Increasing numbers of wives of North Korean soldiers are fleeing the Stalinist country despite its "songun" or military-first doctrine, Open Radio for North Korea said Thursday.
Quoting a source in Hoeryong, North Hamgyong Province, the Seoul-based shortwave station said the wives of active-duty servicemen "are bravely deciding to flee the North, leaving their husbands behind, because they find it impossible to eke out a living there."
The source claimed a broker of his acquaintance helped four women who are married to soldiers flee the North in February alone. "They suffered even more severe hardship than ordinary people," the source added.
According to the source, platoon leaders (second lieutenant) and company leaders (first lieutenant) are paid a mere 2,000 won (approximately W750 in South Korean currency, US$1=W1,120) a month. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for their wives to buy even a pair of shoes or a suit of clothes.
Lieutenant colonels and majors commanding a battalion are paid about 5,000 won, just enough to buy 1-3 kg of rice.
Despite this the regime has banned soldiers' spouses from engaging in any independent business, so the only thing they can do is tend kitchen gardens, the source added.
Besides these hardships, these women are also apparently motivated by privileged information their husbands can provide, especially by news about South Korea and China from traders who visit military units.
The take home pay is the equivalent of 1-3 kg of rice a month for a platoon leader? Wow.
I misread. Majors are paid that. Yowsers.
Can you imagine Female freepers being marry to skinny NK soldier come on
LOL!
Can you imagine Female freepers being marry to skinny NK soldier come on
LOL!
A reread of the post will reveal that the salary of a Battalion Commander will buy a couple of Kg of rice.
That being said the NK Army is the best bet for a citizen to get food each day. That is THE reason for their loyality to the Kim mentally Ill Sung.
See post 5.
Then again, maybe we should bomb N. Korea back into the stone age. Oh, wait a minute...
5.56mm
If war breaks out, use potato guns to shoot cheeseburgers at the NK soldiers. That will halt their attacks.
Seriously, if NK ever invades SK, I believe the NK soldiers will so shocked by the wealth they encounter in the South that their attacks will evaporate into looting.
ROTFL!
I heard some saying that things can go even further. NK soldiers can gorge themselves with too much food, getting sick. That will halt their march toward Seoul. It was a joke, but there is some truth to that.:-)
I remember reading about the looting the last time,
the enlisted took food and drink, the officers took
everything else and shipped it back north.
Slowed down the advance to a standstill.
LOL!
I have said in the past that any attack should be simultaneous with an airdrop of food behind NK lines. Which would the soldier reach for? The gun or the the food?
A major is paid $5 a month, one McDonald’s hambuger store could bankrupt the country in a week.
A Walmart would stop a division.
Imagine you are a NK soldier, & you've established a good firing position between the grocery aisles. You've got a minute before the SKs counterattack, so you take a deep breath & look around.
The shock is enormous. There is food everywhere. Wonderful candy, bread, vegetables, & MEAT. You haven't had meat in months. There are 10 different soft drinks & hundreds of them on the shelves. You've never had a soft drink. Every shelf is stacked to the ceiling with goods! It must be Disneyland, or Heaven!
Shoot, I get much the same feeling in Walmart sometimes, though not as intense. It would have to have a profound effect on the NK soldiers.
When I was in my psychiatric residency in Honolulu about 25 years ago, we had a visiting professor come to us for a few months from Beijing. Shortly after her arrival, and after getting settled into her (plush, to her) apartment, one of our residents took her to the supermarket to get some food. She was quickly overwhelmed, and broke down in tears in the produce department, and it took over an hour for her to reconstitute enough to leave the store. She just sat there where she collapsed on the floor, crying as she looked around at all the gorgeous, plentiful, varieties of produce.
Interesting also: she was famous in China for her work on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. She brought with her a film of her most documented and severe student. A showing was arranged with us residents shortly after her arrival. The film started, with a “before” segment, and depicted a classroom of the most well-behaved childern any of us had ever seen. The professor said, “And of course you can see my patient.” We all just stared at the classroom: not a one of us could see the ADHD kid, but we felt too awkward to say anything. Finally a brave soul admitted he just didn’t see the out of control behavior, and asked if she would be so kind as to point the child out to us. Her reply? “Surely you must notice him - he is the one several seats back on the left who taps his pencil every once in a while.” Needless to say, she learned a lot about how we do ADHD in the US while she was there!
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