“You must fight! ” Hero Kang hissed again. “Forget Taekwondo. Forget everything. Fight for your life.”
The whistle sounded. I found myself back in the center of the ring. A kick came out of nowhere. And then I was flying.
Hero Kang had been fifteen years old when he joined the Manchurian Battalion. They gave him a rifle, cloth shoes, a down-filled jacket, and along with a group of new recruits, he was ordered south through the swirling Korean winter to fight the Yankee imperialists. Doc Yong told me the full story, both the official myth and the truth as best she knew it.
Hero Kang immediately fell under the guidance of Bandit Lee. His real name was Lee Ryong-un and he had led the Manchurian Battalion since the early days when they raided the Japanese Imperial Army and stole food, fuel, and medical supplies to distribute to the starving Korean communities in the hinterlands of the Manchurian wilderness. Years later, during the Korean War, Bandit Lee led a battalion of hardened foot soldiers-soldiers who faced the U.S. Army near the 38th parallel and suffered the brunt of vicious air and artillery assaults.
“The way we fight,” Bandit Lee told the man who would become Hero Kang, “is we dig in like moles during the day and at night we creep close to the Americans. So close that they can’t use their big guns or their airpower. Then we fight them with bayonets if we can, bullets if we have to.”
Many American soldiers had expected to encounter push-button warfare in Korea. Instead they’d ended up fighting in muddy trenches in freezing weather, face to face with a desperate enemy, using basically the same weapons that had been used during the Stone Age.
On Young Kang’s first nighttime raid, Bandit Lee was seriously injured. While they were creeping toward enemy lines, napalm was dropped on their advancing lines. Most of the soldiers were able to burrow into shell holes in the battlefield, but Bandit Lee was standing up, directing his men to take cover, when the first splash of napalm hit. He was burned so severely his men thought he was dead. After the assault, the Americans left their fortified positions and charged down the hill. A horrible battle ensued and it was only later, while licking their wounds, that Young Kang and the men of the Manchurian Battalion realized their leader had been captured by the Americans.
The future Hero Kang was so upset by the capture of his mentor that under the cover of heavy rainfall he slipped away from his own lines and found the Americans who were interrogating-and torturing-Bandit Lee. Young Kang attacked, killing five Americans, rescued Bandit Lee, and carried him to safety. That was the myth. And it was so impressive that it eventually earned Hero Kang North Korea’s highest military honor, Hero of the Republic, and he was allowed to meet with and shake the hand of the Great Leader himself.
According to Doc Yong, what actually happened was quite different. It was Young Kang who was captured. Behind their sandbagged positions, the Americans tortured him. His howls of pain and pleas for mercy could be heard by his comrades hunkering down at the bottom of the muddy hill. Bandit Lee organized a rescue operation, just himself and a few trusted veterans. While the rain poured down, they attacked the Americans, killing all five and rescuing Young Kang. It was on the way downhill that the planes attacked. The wave of sizzling napalm was like a tsunami from hell. All of the soldiers in the patrol were incinerated, except for Bandit Lee, who was badly burned. Young Kang was spared because Bandit Lee tossed the almost unconscious youngster into a muddy pit and fell on top of him.
The reason for the lie was that Bandit Lee was covered from head to toe with burns and later his legs had to be amputated. In his horribly mutilated condition, he could no longer lead the Manchurian Battalion. Not officially anyway. Koreans, and especially North Koreans, are superstitious about the wounded and the handicapped and they hide them away. They don’t allow them to be seen in public, and they certainly wouldn’t allow a hideously deformed man to be the leader of one of the most important battalions facing the Americans. Young Kang was chosen as Bandit Lee’s successor because he was husky and strong and had a marvelous speaking voice, and because he could carry Bandit Lee on his back. While Young Kang-Hero Kang-was given official leadership during the Korean War, Bandit Lee was the true commander, and he still maintained the position more than twenty years later.
“And this double life,” I asked, “being considered a hero but not really being one, does it bother him?”
Doc Yong nodded slowly. “Yes. He owes everything to Bandit Lee and the Manchurian Battalion. That is why he helps us. That is why he is risking his life.”
“Is that the only reason?” I asked.
“And also,” she said, “because he faces a great shame.” She paused. I waited. “In North Korea, even a hero, or the family of a hero, is not immune from the avarice of the Great Leader and the legions of party cadres who serve him. Hero Kang’s daughter was systematically brainwashed like all the other young women who grow up in this country.”
“Brainwashed?”
“Taught to believe the Joy Brigade is a place of honor when it is a place of shame.”
When my senses returned, the referee was guiding me back toward the center of the floor. Hero Kang looked worried. The soldiers on either side of the gym were standing in the bleachers, pointing and laughing. All their lives, the government and the schools taught them to hate foreigners-especially Americans and the Japanese-but for entertainment purposes, any foreigner would do. I spotted Senior Captain Rhee, her arms still crossed and a look of disgust on her face. The experts of the First Corps all stood in a line, smirking and shaking their heads.
Fifth-degree black-belt Pak glanced up into the stands at Commissar Oh. The Commissar languidly removed his cigarette and nodded. Pak looked back at me, smiling. It was the cold smile of a predator. I turned to Hero Kang. His fists were clenched, his face puffed in a spasm of anguish. Pak was about to take me out. Kang knew it, Pak knew it, everyone in the stadium knew it. Senior Captain Rhee motioned for her security men to move in closer. Hero Kang and I would be arrested and tortured.
The referee waved us together. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. It had nothing to do with the rules of this tournament, nothing to do with the martial spirit of Taekwondo, but everything to do with survival. If I could survive one kick, I would be able to take it from there.
Almost casually, Pak stepped forward, his back straight, not even crouching in the fighting position most often assumed by practitioners of the martial arts. He didn’t need to. His kicks came out so fast he was confident I couldn’t stop them. I was confident of the same thing. But stopping them wasn’t my goal. I hopped forward. Pak launched a circular front kick that swiped my forehead. It didn’t hurt me, but I pretended to stagger. The crowd was hooting. Pak followed. I backed up but stood my ground. Pak launched a vicious round kick to my midsection, which I partially blocked with my forearms, but still it forced me to bend forward. That’s when I lunged. He countered with two more roundhouses to my head and my shoulders and for a second I thought I’d black out. Somehow I fought away the darkness until I could see his eyes staring straight into mine. He wasn’t worried. As soon as we clinched, the referee-according to the rules of Taekwondo and the rules of propriety-would break us apart. We would pause for a second, the referee would wave us together, and then Pak could resume his assault.
As the referee stepped forward to break us from our clinch, I remembered the sheriff’s deputies at the Main Street Gym. I remembered them coaching me to keep my left jab straight. “Don’t get fancy,” they’d tell me. “Just reach out straight, like you’re reaching for an apple.” While Pak was standing there-dropping his guard, backing up, complying with the referee’s orders-I let him have it with a left jab. His head snapped back. My right followed.