Young Ran Kim
On February 7, I self-published a memoir of my family’s survival in Korea after World War II.
The Long Road to the Sixth ROK seeks to recover the long-silenced lives, buried in the ashes of the cold war. The story navigates the labyrinth of a corrupt political system, exposes secrets hidden more than half a century — secrets that allowed for not only rampant criminal activities and assassinations of beloved national leaders, but also the shocking massacre of thousands of innocent civilians. From the political to the personal, The Long Road journeys through a terrifying environment of violence to the ultimate survival of a nation, as lived by and told through my father and our family.
The Long Road tells in historical prose, the story of what had happened to my father and my family, including the effects of the US Army Military Government in Korea, the First Republic of Korea, and the Korean War. An intellectual and a conscientious educator, my father was falsely accused of being a communist and survived life-threatening torture, starvation, and homelessness. He had six children when our home was confiscated by the president’s powerful and sadistic head of security. At the time, we were unaware of that man’s real identity and his powerful connection. I admired my father for maintaining his sanity and integrity through the life-threatening trials, inspiring his children to become well-educated, good citizens. His story is one of ceaseless struggle on the part of the civilian population in South Korea, fighting for justice and democracy for over half a century until the sixth ROK (Republic of Korea).
The goal of this book is to reveal the historical consequences of miscalculated and short-sighted actions. Accurate historical facts are good reference points for present and future world leaders, especially the leaders of the United States, to develop better judgments and implement wiser long-term sustainable policies to resolve complicated geopolitical problems. All of us who live on this planet need a more peaceful world — indeed a new paradigm — where we can coexist, without slaughtering each other, by pursuing our dreams and hopes of a God-given life, free of the constant threat of war and the nuclear destruction of civilization itself.