Anecdotes

Father of Soldiers

One day in April Juche 41 (1952) when the Fatherland Liberation War was going on, the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung inspected a unit of the Korean People’s Army. When he looked round the kitchen, he found parched and seasoned soya beans to be served to the soldiers as a side dish for their supper. He said that it would be better to make curd or sprouts with the beans than parched and seasoned beans. 

The officer of the unit said that he would soon prepare sprouters and raise sprouts.

Kim Il Sung said that the guerrillas had raised bean sprouts without sprouters during the anti-Japanese armed struggle, and taught them how to raise sprouts without sprouters. 

And one day when fierce battles were going on on and around Height 1211, an officer, upon returning from an inspection of the front line, reported to Kim Il Sung that he had found some soldiers were suffering from night blindness. 

Saying that nothing should be spared for soldiers even though the situation was very difficult owing to the war, Kim Il Sung suggested setting up frontline sanatoriums for them at an early date.

Thanks to his parental affection for his soldiers, frontline sanatoriums were established in the grim days of the war.