“Kyododae” (Reserve Forces) is one of the most important systems in support of the North Korean regime and was established in 1963 with discharged soldiers who were 17~45 year old men and 17~30 year old single women. Total participation is around 1.73 million individuals: 920 thousand soldiers in regional Kyododae, 250 thousand in workplace Kyododae, 480 thousand in university’ Kyododae, and 90 thousand in the marine Kyododae.
There are around 120 Kyodo-divisions commanded by the rear corps of the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces and around 80 Kyodo-brigades whose commanders and weapons crews are on active duty. They are equipped with the same armaments as the regular corps and operate with identical formations.
Although I graduated from university 12 years ago, I can clearly remember the 6 months of Kyododae training as the toughest time of my campus life. Two 6-month training periods were available; either the summer session (May~October) or the winter session (November~April) was compulsory if you wanted to graduate. Failure to train for reasons of sickness or private matters would delay graduation by a year. I enrolled in the winter session of November, 1993 and trained with an anti-aircraft machine gun battery in a coastal city of Hamkyung province.
November is an extremely busy season as North Korea prepares for winter by stockpiling firewood and Kimchi (pickled cabbage). We received a week’s basic training in the theory and functioning of anti-aircraft machine guns and shooting practice. After training, our commander instructed us to take daytime naps in order to be rested for later preparation and acquisition of Kimchi materials. During the months of November and December, military training was set aside for training in large volume theft.
At 11 PM each evening, the commander ordered Kyododae-trainees to steal cabbages and radishes from nearby collaborative farms until sunrise. During this period we stole huge amounts of produce and, after making the Kimchi, we set about stealing firewood. We slept during the day and at night went deep into the mountains, cutting big trees and carrying them back to the training camp. We had to preserve the trees around our camp so going to a far mountain disguised our theft as that of another camp. December was a very long month for us. We expected renewed military training as the New Year started, but that was not the case. Around January 10th we were sent to military officers’ houses where we chopped and stacked firewood. This “training” took around 15 days and we were then assigned new tasks.
We were forced to remove feces, trash, and other filth from every nook and corner of the battalion headquarters. Of the six months we spent there, approximately 10 days were devoted to military training. The balance of our efforts in that difficult environment involved hard labor that made several trainees sick.
Lying in bed, I found numerous wall scribblings that noted: “90 days left”, “70 days left” or “240 hours left” written by prior trainees who anxiously awaited the day of discharge from the Kyododae training.
Given my experience, I can only imagine how tough Kyododae training was after the March of Tribulation (mass starvation period in the 1990s). No doubt current winter session Kyodo trainees are marking time on the wall as they approach discharge day.
