The volunteer state

TAKE IT for what it’s worth, but North Korea’s official news agency—that is, the government—claimed that nearly 5 million people have “volunteered” for the military in recent days to help fight off an American invasion that just isn’t coming. This is remarkable for a couple of reasons:

First, every person in North Korea is already supposed to “volunteer” for the Army after reaching adulthood. Women serve for seven years, men for 10. Unless of course you’re a wannabe nuclear scientist, then you get a college exemption until you graduate. Then you serve.

And there’s a difference between volunteering for service and actually serving your time. Word from those who study Lil’ Kim’s kingdom say many of the poor souls who go to the recruiting centers are sent back home. They’re too malnourished to be taken into the military.

Which reminds us of the story of the several North Korean fishermen whose boat was blown off-course by a storm years back. They ended up in South Korea. Their Korean cousins promptly took the rescued men to the hospital for observation. But the North Korean fishermen made observations of their own after seeing the nurses in the hospital: One said aloud to the others that he could never marry a Korean woman from the South. They’re too big. South Korean women. Too big. Even the soldiers in North Korea, who are fed better than anybody except the pudgy elite, are said to live off two potatoes a day. A recent investigation and documentary implies the Korean army is starving, and not close to being ready for any kind of action.

The world should be afraid, very afraid, of the people at the top in Pyongyang with their nervous hands on nuclear weapons. But it becomes apparent every day that when it comes to the North Korean military, and the people who supply it, the country is eating its seed corn.