“It pains me deeply to see my homeland divided by political polarization, with people constantly working against one another.”
Se Jong Ha, 92, who served as one of the early soldiers in the Korean Augmentation to the United States Army, or KATUSA, reflected on the horrors of the Korean War and expressed deep concern over South Korea’s political divisions in a June 19 interview with The Korea Daily.
He takes pride in seeing the Republic of Korea — whose freedom was defended with blood during the war — rise into a global economic and cultural powerhouse. But he worries that persistent political and ideological conflict is holding the country back from achieving even more.
Born in Seoul in 1934, Ha attended Boseong Middle and High School and was just 16 when the Korean War broke out.
“I lived through Japanese colonial rule until I was in the fifth grade and heard about the Greater East Asia War, but I had no idea how horrific an actual war could be,” Ha recalled.
After hearing President Syngman Rhee address the nation by radio, Ha initially believed the crisis would soon be brought under control.
Within days, however, the war had reached his own front yard.
War came to his doorstep
In the early morning hours of June 27, 1950, Ha and his family were sleeping at their home in Myeongnyun-dong, Seoul, when they were jolted awake by a deafening roar.
“When I looked outside, dozens of North Korean tanks and military motorcycles were moving past our house in formation,” Ha said. “Then one of the tanks suddenly fired toward our home, and bullets and fragments came pouring into the house.”
His family was caught in the barrage.
“My parents and grandfather were struck by fragments, and my grandmother suffered a severe gunshot wound to her forehead,” Ha said. “She eventually died after Seoul was recaptured.”
“That was when I learned, in the most painful way possible, what it really meant for a person to die.”
With the war unfolding around them, Ha’s family fled through Dongdaemun to Ttukseom. During the massive retreat that followed China’s intervention, they later traveled through Daegu before eventually reaching Busan.
It was in Busan, as a refugee, that Ha was drawn into military service.
“Because it was wartime, draft notices were not always delivered properly,” Ha said. “Military police and police officers would stop young men at random on the streets, check their identification and determine whether they were eligible for service.”
Ha was 16 when he was stopped. He was told to register as a student soldier once he turned 17.
The following year, while registering for military service, one answer changed the course of his life.
He said he could speak English.
After taking a written English exam and undergoing an oral interview, Ha was assigned to the communications headquarters of the U.S. Eighth Army in Busan as a KATUSA soldier.
Serving as a bridge during wartime
From May 1951 until the armistice was signed in 1953, Ha served with KATUSA.
His primary duty was interpreting in rear areas, serving as a bridge among American troops, South Korean soldiers and Korean civilians.
His assignments took him wherever administrative and humanitarian support was needed. He interpreted during flour distributions, assistance programs for orphanages, transportation operations for foreign troops arriving through Busan Harbor and administrative work at military hospitals.
“War was not fought only on the front lines,” Ha said.
The humanitarian and logistical struggle behind the battlefield, he recalled, was also part of the war.
One American officer Ha met during his KATUSA service ultimately changed the course of his life.
Capt. Sullivan once looked across Korea’s mountains, stripped bare by war, and advised Ha to go to the United States to study forestry so that he could help rebuild the country after the conflict.
At the time, Korean students hoping to study in the United States generally needed a financial sponsor. Sullivan offered to become Ha’s sponsor himself.
Ha then passed a series of highly competitive examinations administered by South Korea’s education and foreign affairs authorities and the U.S. Embassy before finally obtaining a visa to study in the United States.
From rebuilding forests to rebuilding an economy
Ha enrolled at Northern Arizona University intending to study forestry.
But he eventually changed his major to industrial economics.
“I realized there was a limit to what studying only grass and trees could do for a country where people were starving,” Ha said. “I thought learning about the broader economy would allow me to make a more practical contribution to Korea’s economic recovery.”
After graduating in 1960, Ha prepared to return to South Korea.
His plans changed after the May 16 military coup in 1961. He postponed his return and continued on to graduate school, a decision that ultimately led him to build a life in the United States.
In 1962, he graduated from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona.
He was then recruited by global advertising agency McCann-Erickson, where he worked for a decade and eventually rose to a senior position overseeing international promotional strategy.
Ha later launched a trading business exporting American products to South Korea, becoming part of the early bridge connecting the two countries’ expanding economic relationship.
“A country beyond anything I could have imagined”
Ha describes modern South Korea as a country whose transformation would have been almost unimaginable based on the Korea he knew during the war.
Its remarkable economic and cultural rise fills him with pride.
But he believes the country must never lose sight of what the Korean War ultimately represented.
The suffering of the war, he said, should not be treated simply as a distant historical tragedy. It should be understood as the immense price paid to preserve the system of freedom and democracy South Koreans enjoy today.
Ha said South Korea could achieve even more if it overcomes the political and ideological divisions that continue to fracture society.
“If Korea can overcome political and ideological conflict and become stronger from within, I believe the Republic of Korea can become an even greater country than it is today,” he said.
“Remembering the Korean War does not mean remaining trapped in the past.”
“It is a solemn responsibility to protect the freedom and democracy we enjoy today and to prepare for a better future.”
For Ha, the lesson of the Korean War is therefore not simply about remembrance.
It is about what future generations choose to do with the freedom that survived it.
