On New Year’s Day in 2012, when he inspected a unit of Seoul Ryu Kyong Su Guards 105th Tank Division of the Korean People’s Army, the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un had a photograph taken arm in arm with the commanding officers of the unit. He encouragingly said he came to see the service personnel of the unit, getting all of them overwhelmed by strong emotion.

Kim Jong Un has since continued his inspection tours of KPA units throughout his ten-odd-year leadership. His sacred inspection journey is woven with lots of anecdotes about his affection for soldiers.

In March 2012 he came to see the guards who were serving on the front line at Panmunjom. Showing meticulous concern over their life, he dropped in at the kitchen, where he shook hands with each of the cooks and said that he asks them to devote themselves to the soldiers as their mothers would do and he leaves them in their hands.

Once he climbed onto Kkachil Peak, a remote post on the front line so close to the enemy that the muzzles of their rifles were visible to the naked eye. Overexcited, the service personnel burst into tears stamping their feet instead of shouting hurrah.

He said to them highly vigilant and much concerned about his safety that theirs was not a remote outpost and the Supreme Commander was always with them. Then he had a photo taken with them at the dangerous place no more than 350 metres away from the enemy. Looking up to him, the soldiers hardened their resolve to defend the front line of the country at the cost of their lives cherishing the memory of the day of glory.

There is another moving story about the inseparable kinship between the Supreme Commander and his men. It happened when he inspected the KPA units on islands, hot spots in the southernmost tip of the southwest front, braving high waves of the west sea aboard a 27hp wooden boat.

Just before departure after his inspection of Jangjae Island he ordered the commander of the company there to call “attention” lest the service personnel, loath to part from him, should jump again into the cold sea waters.

He remembered the first birthday of an officer’s son and, when he revisited the island, dropped by the officer’s home to give him a gift he had brought with him. Once he made sure that new gloves were sent to sailors who did their duty usually in the face of big waves.

All the airmen still recall with deep emotion the First Conference of Pilots of the Korean People’s Army in April 2014.

At the time Kim Jong Un took a measure to convene the gathering of all pilots with the country’s airspace left open wide. He attended the event and named a baby of a pilot couple to keep his promise with them. The participating airmen shed tears of gratitude.

Now the service personnel of the entire army are fully convinced that victory and glory are in store for them as long as they follow Kim Jong Un , and they are firmly determined to risk their youth and lives to defend him.

O Hyok Jin