[imText1]This week, 190 U.S. and French Korean War veterans are visiting South Korea to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. However, among them can be seen one black-haired Korean woman. What is her story?
She is Byeon Jeong Won, the person who translated Jo Jung Rae’s epic novel, “The Taebaek Mountains” into French and received “Les Mots d’Or,” a prestigious French language literary award, for her accurate work.
Mrs. Byeon, who resides in France, is visiting South Korea on the invitation of a French war veterans association. She is a regular supporter of veterans’ affairs in France, much of which is because her brother, late ROK Army Lieutenant Colonel Byeon Kyu Young, is a decorated South Korean war hero. He received the Gold Star Eulji Order of Military Merit for his service during the Korean War, and his portrait even hangs in the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul.
Mrs. Byeon’s brother, Lieutenant Colonel Byeon was a platoon commander with the 19th Regiment of the 6th Division of the ROK Army.
On September 4th, 1950, the 6th Division was holding back the North Korean invasion north of Sinnyeong in North Gyeongsang Province. The 19th Regiment, which included special forces trained in destroying enemy tanks, assigned the mission of destroying a group of eight North Korean People’s Army tanks to the then Major Byeon.
Major Byeon selected five soldiers from 1st Company for the mission and armed them with one 3.5” rocket launcher, two hand grenades, two sticks of TNT and a rifle. Then, they waited.
When the eight hidden enemy tanks moved out, Major Byeon destroyed both the lead tank and the two tanks at the rear with the rocket launcher. Then, he climbed onto the 3rd tank and threw a grenade inside, capturing five North Korean soldiers including a second lieutenant.
Due to this distinguished act of bravery, Major Byeon received a single rank special promotion, 500,000 won and, most importantly, the Gold Star Eulji Order of Military Merit.
Lieutenant Colonel Byeon, who boosted the morale of the entire military with his bravery and the boldness of his strategy, received a prestigious medal and is known rightly as a war hero. But, in Mrs. Byeon’s memory, he was simply a wounded soldier living a nightmare caused by the war.
Mrs. Byeon, who was born in 1950, does not remember much about the war itself, but the image she remembers of her brother from when she was growing up was that of him screaming and drenched in sweat due to nightmares.
Interviewed by The Daily NK, she recalls, “I looked askance at my brother then, thinking ‘what is wrong with him, he is weird’. I did not want to know or hear stories of the War. I did not want to see my brother either, because it pained me.”
Asked, then, about her reasons for visiting South Korea now, Mrs. Byeon pours out her heart; “I wanted to make peace with my brother.”
She has lived in France for more than 30 years, but at the time of her arrival there she started to think that she wanted to learn more about the war and about her brother. That is why she started to translate “The Taebaek Mountains”. It is a book about the Korean War and its effect on a small community at the southern tip of the Taebaek Mountains, a book which paints an empathetic portrait of the time. The book helped her greatly in understanding her sibling.
Now, when asked how she feels upon seeing her brother’s portrait, Mrs. Byeon grins and says, “I’m so proud; I feel great about my brother.”
It seems the scar left on the family by the horror of war has finally has been healed at last, after 60 years.
