Wake-up Call



 

Kyong Taek Mun

"Corporal Mun, report to the Captain's office, immediately." I felt nervous because it was quite unusual that the captain would just call in one of his men directly. When I opened his door, my captain started speaking even before I had had a chance to salute. "From this point, you have become a ninth-grade English instructor at Yeon-Pyeong High School. It is a direct order from Battalion Commander." That was such a good joke, but, why had he kept a straight face?

I was deployed to YP unit (Yeon-Pyeong unit), which was located on a small island off the west coast of South Korea, only 2.1 miles away from the North Korean border. Yeon-Pyeong High School was the only school on the tiny island. The students were mostly the children of fishermen, while a few were from military families. My mission was to teach those kids for two hours, three times a week after my daily work.

"Mr. Corporal, as you know." The principal began. "Our school lacks Government support, so not many teachers are able to work here. Therefore, every year we gently request the Battalion Commander to select a competent soldier to help us." His courteous expressions left me at a loss for words but I nodded silently. He looked at me with expectant eyes, "Mr. Corporal, there must be a profound meaning to the commander's decision." Clearly, the situation was getting complicated because I was not confident at all.

During my first lecture, I looked at my students closely one by one. I knew kids these days. They mostly were defiant, selfish and disrespectful. I would make sure that I would never let them have their own ways. My first question was what they wanted to become. They responded similarly: "I am not rich enough to have dreams." I was convinced that I just misjudged them when I met their eyes.

At that very moment, I thought back onto my old days. Ever since I could talk, I was ordinary in all respects. My teachers never told my parents that I was outstanding in any way. I was quite a strange kid, having no particular interests or talents, so therefore, I really had no dreams. As time passed, through out my high school years I treated myself as the most shabby and unfortunate kid in the world. It was so hard to disguise my grief, but it was true that I had nothing.

I was wrong. Most of the fishermen on that island made meagre incomes, thus, they could not support their childrens' education financially. So those kids, they had not once in their lives even considered attending college. It was not so true that I had nothing but too many. They saw me as a hero with a promising future, as someone who could fulfill a dream without any limitation. I felt I was struck by lightning.

I returned the college preparation workbooks to the principal and asked him if he would allow me to create my own curriculum. He told me to go ahead. The first step was not to use the grading system that was likely to destroy the students' confidence. I selected thirty storybooks written in English with only one criterion: they had to be fun. For the assignments, I had them read the stories aloud and record themselves. I gave my best effort to induce interest.

Jia is still like maybe the most memorable student in my class. I had to give an extra effort to write "English" onto her blank state because hers was absolutely blank. She started learning English from the alphabet with me, but she amazed me with her quickness and eagerness to learn. Literally, she was improved every day. Since she completed the reading of a solid eighty books, she started making fun of me that my pronunciation was not good enough. My classroom was always full of laughs.

Farewell arrived without notice. On November 23rd, 2010, North Korea bombed our island indiscriminately, so the entire unit went up in flames. We lost two marines, two civilian, and the whole island was under control include the school. The rest of civilian population was safely evacuated but we endured meaningless fights for the next two months. We fought for something far more precious.

A few months after I was discharged, I received a card from Jia's mother. She said that her family just left island life to support Jia to study abroad. She also added that I gave a hope to Jia that she had not been able to give her daughter for fifteen years. I realized after so a long time, there probably was not such a deep meaning to the commander's decision from the beginning because he was not that free to review thousands of soldiers' record. Actually, it does not matter to me. I simply know where I am going now.