Meet the Founder - Part 4

Army Life

As we saw in the last issue, near the end of World War II, General Choi was forced to join the Japanese Army. Like most of the other young Korean conscripts, he knew he had almost no chance of coming back alive, because Japan was definitely losing their part of the war,and the Koreans were always put in the most dangerous battles.

Choi Hong Hi was determined to come back alive, and he was prepared to do almost anything to succeed. He also hated the way junior soldiers were treated like slaves by their seniors. He refused to be treated badly and let his karate skills do his talking for him. He was able to avoid the worst of the bullying this way, but there was one thing he couldn’t avoid... looking after the horses.The horses were treated much better than the soldiers; they got better food, nicer beds and soldiers to clean up all their little (and not so little) messes. Choi Hong Hi thought he was pretty clever with the horses, because he could make them do what he wanted all the time. When he was showing off in front of some officers, one horse taught him a lesson though. Even though it was usually very obedient, it kicked him and broke some of his ribs! The General said the horse was getting his revenge on him. Ouch!

The only good thing about the army was that it got a whole lot of very unhappy young Korean men together. They decided that something had to be done, and together made a plan to help Korea to be free forever from the cruel Japanese rule. More about that in the next issue...

... to Part 5

Text from Taekwon-Do and I, The Memoirs of Choi Hong Hi, the founder of Taekwon-Do