While the North Korean government uses soldiers both for national defense and construction projects, the country’s leaders appear to be paying little attention to providing adequate supplies to military personnel. The supply of uniforms is so poor that soldiers in the II Corps, stationed on the front lines of the crucial western front, have to mend their own uniforms.
“Some military units of the II Corps hardly receive supplies, so the soldiers are patching their winter uniforms for sentry duty and other work assignments,” a source in North Hwanghae Province told Daily NK on Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
According to the source, the soldiers of the II Corps are lucky to get new uniforms every four years instead of the two years prescribed by the logistics regulations of the Korean People’s Army. As a result, most of the corps’ soldiers have only one uniform to wear while on duty.
Some soldiers have recently been collecting uniforms from those leaving the army in the spring in exchange for money or cigarettes.
Soldiers who lack the money or cigarettes to acquire uniforms from discharged soldiers have little recourse but to patch rips in their uniforms, the source said.
While the food they are served is bad enough, young soldiers in their 20s, confronted with their scruffy appearance in the mirror, often complain that they look more like farmhands than warriors, he explained.
“What II Corps soldiers often say is that they could never fight a war like this. When troops in a front-line corps only get one uniform every four years, what more is there to say? The supply of uniforms is so bad that officers and veteran soldiers have to buy cloth in the markets and have uniforms made from it,” the source added.
North Korea has stoked tensions this year, stressing the need for total combat readiness and insisting that the military should be ready for war at any time. But the apparent reality is that the North Korean military is in such a dismal state that it cannot even provide proper uniforms for soldiers on the front lines.
North Korean civilians who see the shabby appearance of their soldiers are inclined to shake their heads and tsk-tsk at the pathetic sight.
“Civilians were shocked to see II Corps soldiers wearing worn-out uniforms while working at a construction site late last month. One noted that even farm workers are not required to mend their work clothes, and said it looked like the army could not even provide its own uniforms. Another joked that the soldiers amounted to a veritable army of beggars,” the source said.
Some civilians who saw soldiers with patches on the knees and shoulders of their uniforms opined that it would be difficult for the Korean People’s Army to go to war against a prosperous country like South Korea when it is in such a pitiful state.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Views expressed in this guest column do not necessarily reflect those of Daily NK. Please send any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
March 07, 2024 at 05:30AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)