When I heard of Kim Jong Il's death the other day I first thought of how strange North Korea is. One report said it was a "hereditary communist" state. If that is not an oxymoron, I don't know what is. Perhaps is is more appropriate to think of it as a paranoid, super-nationalist state.
I couldn't help but think of the all the American soldiers who fought in the Korean War and patrolled the border over the years. Both my father and father-in-law fought in the war. No one was ever the same after that. While I am happy that South Korea is free, it seems like unfinished business with North Korea still in an isolated deep freeze. Perhaps they will thaw out some day.
