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In Pothonggang District, Pyongyang, there lives a clan known to all residents of the district and amazing and inspiring new acquaintances to have respect for it.

It is the clan of Choe Yong Ik with 19 enlistment certificates of the Korean People's Army.

The certificates belong to Choe Yong Ik, his brothers and their children. Nine of them are now in military service.

Explaining the reason why his clan has so many enlistment certificates of the KPA, Choe Yong Ik told the following story of his mother’s childhood which she had told them since their childhood.

The parents of Choe’s mother Kim Pong Nyo worked as servants of a landlord before Korea’s liberation. Although they worked so for more than ten years with a desire to provide their children even with sufficient thin gruel, they failed to fulfil that simple desire and died with four children left behind. Out of great anger, Kim’s elder brother ran away from home. In place of him, she had to work as a servant of the landlord in order to provide for her little brothers. She, who was subjected to inhuman maltreatment, could begin to enjoy a true and fulfilling life as a human being only after national liberation. She went to school together with her younger brothers and the four siblings including her elder brother lived happily in one house. Five years later, however, she and her younger brothers had to undergo the trials of war. Her elder brother joined the army and she had to look after the younger brothers again. But she did not feel lonely at that time thanks to the great care and benefits of the country which looked after them like their own parents should do and enabled them to keep studying despite ceaseless bombings by the enemy.

Then one day she got a notice of her elder brother’s death in battle. According to Choe, his mother often said that only then could she understand what the elder brother sacrificed himself for.

As they grew up listening to the mother’s story about her past and the maternal uncle who had not returned home, Choe and his younger brothers were the first to join the army after finishing middle school and their offspring have followed in their footsteps, increasing the number of such enlistment certificates to 19.

Choe regards the certificates as the unusual wealth of his clan. 

“Whenever I hear the news about recent bloodshed in different countries of the world and the relevant refugees, I look at the enlistment certificates on the wall. They will further increase in number in my clan in the future,” Choe said.