Veterans Committee Removes Smear Against the Late General Paik Sun-yup at Burial Site
It is great to see that this final smear from the Korean left against the late General Paik has finally been removed:
This file photo, taken July 5, 2023, shows a statue of the late Gen. Paik Sun-yup being unveiled at a ceremony in the southern county of Chilgok, 215 kilometers southeast of Seoul. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s veterans ministry said Monday it has deleted a state burial record describing Korean War hero Gen. Paik Sun-yup as a pro-Japanese figure, saying that such an expression was written with no legal grounds.
The ministry said it has decided to remove a phrase identifying Paik as a person who engaged in pro-Japanese and anti-national activities in the late general’s online burial record on the Daejeon National Cemetery’s website, a term that strikes a sour note due to Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
The description had been in place since his burial in 2020 at the cemetery in Daejeon, 139 kilometers south of Seoul, as a presidential committee put him on a list of pro-Japanese figures in 2009, citing his military service for Manchukuo, a puppet state for Imperial Japan, during Tokyo’s colonial rule.
Paik served in the pro-Japan Gando Special Force under the Manchukuo Imperial Army from 1943 to 1945, which was tasked with suppressing anti-Japanese forces. When he was alive, Paik denied that he actually fought against Korean independence forces.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but General Paik denied ever hunting down Korean guerrillas during his service in the Manchukuo Imperial Army. Additionally this truth-finding committee that made these claims against Paik was operated by the Korean left to go after conservatives and the U.S. military during the Roh Moo-hyun years. ROK Heads may remember this was the same group who attacked the U.S. military for the fraudulent massacre at No Gun Ri that they could find no physical evidence to support. Any findings from this group are bias and should be suspect.
These clowns made it difficult to even find a place for General Paik to be buried after his death. He is arguably the greatest ROK military hero from the Korean War that ensured South Korea remained a free nation. It is almost as if these Korean leftists are disappointed that General Paik helped lead the successful defense of the country.
Why is it a smear if it’s merely stating facts and the truth?
Fact #1: He did serve in the Japanese army, fighting for Japan. Even if his claims that he didn’t hunt down Korean fighters is true, he still fought for Japan against the interest of occupied Korea. If someone joined the CCP army, can we really say he’s not a pro-China CCP person working in the interest of China’s Xi Jin Ping?
Fact #2: Not everything is black and white all the time. You can be the greatest general in the Korean War, a hero, but you can also be the one who joined the enemy prior to being a hero. This is what is called the truth and reality. It doesn’t diminish his accomplishments but also doesn’t change the fact that he also worked for the enemy prior.
What is the point of hiding the truth that should be looked at objectively?
The Japanese could have and would have exterminated a city or two if the Koreans had gotten too rowdy. It was in the interest of Koreans to keep other Koreans from being too rebellious. Such is the complexity of being at complete mercy of a fanatical and much stronger military power. Is it pro-Japanese in such circumstances to try to keep other Koreans from successfully revolting, or is it pro-Korean to keep other Koreans from successfully revolting? It gets really murky. It could be both. What exactly is in the interest of Koreans? I would say survival is what matters most, and when subject to people willing to delete cities from the map, not getting deleted takes priority over independence.
Merely stating historical facts without context is how one begins to weaponize them for current day narrative creation.
Alas, but I have only one upvote to give.
Let’s see, coming out of a military academy with a current hot war raging my choices are: 1. Become a Second Lieutenant in a neighboring area hunting down communist or should I be kind and say Manchurian rebels 2. Become a forced labor coolie on Iwo Jima, Saipan or Peleliu and face near certain death getting there or during the invasions. 3. Head for the hills as an insurgent, risk getting caught and have my entire clan and village slaughtered. I think it’s an easy choice.
The answer is easy. I would have chosen #3 – fight for my country against a brutal occupier that was oppressing my own people. I sure would not have done #1 which is to fight against your nation-state and help the same forces that are oppressing your own people. Isn’t it the truth to say Paik joined the Japanese military for his own advancement and for his own career/benefits? Is this not true? Should we just falsify the history and say that he never joined the Japanese military? Does that make you happy?
Using Korean Man’s logic I guess we should put on the Washington Monument that George Washington was a British collaborator since he served in the British Army before becoming a General in the Colonial Army.
” I would have chosen #3 – fight for my country against a brutal occupier that was oppressing my own people.”
Where did this burst of Korean patriotism come from?
Looks like the boss came to town and said, “They are on to us. You dimwits need to say something nice about Korea now and then.”
The new attitude is clearly a product of a bit of reeducation.
Though that sentence applies to a chinaman as well.
Whatever the case… it is much easier to talk about how you would join the resistance than actually join the resistance.
So most people rationalize they are more valuable fighting the system from within.
But they do no fighting because it is easier to adapt than resist.
The American government has fine tuned the perameters to ensure this progression.
The last group of “fighters”, who showed up without arms to an “armed insurrection”, not to overthrow the government, but to get transparancy, are all doing serious jail time for “parading” and trusspassing and other nonsense.
Well said GI Korea, Korean man wants to emulate Kim Il sung, forgetting that when things got tough, Kim ran off to the sanctuary of the Soviet Union with his family. I doubt most Korean patriots were ever offered that option
Before the overthrow of Britain, the Americans themselves were of the British people, they were part of the British empire which massacred the natives. So I would not call him a collaborator, but a general who carried out a rebellion, or a military coup, or a treason.
Quite different from the situation with Paik. Korea was an already sovereign country with its own cultural and linguistic identity, different from Japan when Japan took over Korea. This is unlike the British colonists who themselves were British before they rebelled against their British governance.
Can you carry out a mature conversation without throwing around slurs?
Wrong again Korean man, many of the colonist were not English, in what is now New York they were Dutch and Walloon Huguenot whom the English forced themselves on. Plus the early Irish, Scots, Welsh and catholic French none of whom owed any real allegiance to the English monarchy.
Japanese occupation all started with poor choices made by Koreans.
The Dutch, Irish, Scots, White European, weren’t in their own lands. They were all the same – colonizing a new land. The power in charge of the colony was Britain. Washington’s family was traced back to the 12th century North East England. He was of English extraction – speaking the same language with the same culture, as well the same background as the government that he served (and betrayed).
“which massacred the natives”
You had to throw that in there as if it is abnormal… or even some sort of insult.
Korean history is 5000 years of massacring the natives.
oh, yes my mistake. They loved the natives and helped them to build their country. You’re right.
Our chinabot-du-jour shows once more that he’s not Korean… But now he sounds like a 325#, 5’4″ Portland tranny with pink hair, male-pattern baldness, and a Pendleton shirt to cover his Bud Light physique…
“White Monkey” syndrome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGysweQEGyE
“oh, yes my mistake. They loved the natives and helped them to build their country. You’re right.”
You have made another mistake.
They didn’t love the natives.
Depending on how you look at it, they did help them build their country… America.
I am mostly right.
…but…
Maybe you are right about all of that and I am wrong. So let’s give a heartfelt apology for yesterday’s stealing of land and take steps to keep it from every happening again.
Can we come to an agreement on that?
Good.
First Step: We are going to kill all the Mexican illegal aliens displacing us on our traditional lands, destroying our culture, and introducing disease.
This will keep the sins of the past from being repeated.
Do you want to hear about my plan to stop funding intraslavic tribal conflict and support Europe in their quest to keep their sacred land from being stolen by middle eastern and north African invaders?
How about helping the Chinese take back their traditional lands from the Taiwanese?