15357
Companion Cube
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2005
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFQfcmBS9B0&feature=related
This is what a Korean CD siren sounds like, if you haven't heard it. Note the F-16 that flies overhead in the middle of the video. It's WAY loud; you cannot hear anything except for the siren and the roar of the fighter jets overhead.
We're having a nationwide full-on CD drill tomorrow, evacuations and et cetera, with CD workers handing out gas masks.
I've heard this siren for all my life, every year, and they still get me every time. It strikes fear into your very mind.
It's awful, and yet it's necessary. The drills are directly related to our lives.
I think the first time I was aware of the sirens, I was in 3rd or 4th grade in elementary school. I was old enough to be aware that something is very very wrong. Indeed, nothing is more terrifying for a 4th grader to learn in school that North Korean special forces were caught infiltrating and killed several policemen and soldiers, and then to be caught in an civil defense drill as he is returning home, as I was. As the F-16s screamed overhead, their silver fuselage glaring in the sun, and the wail of the horrifyingly loud sirens that never seemed to end, I cannot describe the sheer terror that I felt.
The 20 minutes of utter horror, I was crying in the middle of the street, unable to move, until a policewoman picked me up and carried me to safety. Of course, nothing happened that day. The sirens stopped wailing, the fighter jets stopped roaring, and everything returned to normal. But I will never forget that fear. I changed that day. I became very well aware of my own mortality.
Someone said that war is death; it is inevitable, however much you may prolong peace as you may with life. In the end, death will come. We have to be prepared, even if it means scaring the living shit out of elementary schoolchildren. The sirens are a reminder of the mortality of peace.
I’ve grew up since that day. I'm no longer the little kid crying in the street. Now I realize that peace is nothing but a delusion, a fantasy that we use to create the illusion of safety. There is no such thing as peace, but a state of affairs maintained by the precarious balance of arms that stays the hand of war. There can be no peace as long as the enemy lives.
I don't know why I wrote this. Another rant, I suppose.
This is what a Korean CD siren sounds like, if you haven't heard it. Note the F-16 that flies overhead in the middle of the video. It's WAY loud; you cannot hear anything except for the siren and the roar of the fighter jets overhead.
We're having a nationwide full-on CD drill tomorrow, evacuations and et cetera, with CD workers handing out gas masks.
I've heard this siren for all my life, every year, and they still get me every time. It strikes fear into your very mind.
It's awful, and yet it's necessary. The drills are directly related to our lives.
I think the first time I was aware of the sirens, I was in 3rd or 4th grade in elementary school. I was old enough to be aware that something is very very wrong. Indeed, nothing is more terrifying for a 4th grader to learn in school that North Korean special forces were caught infiltrating and killed several policemen and soldiers, and then to be caught in an civil defense drill as he is returning home, as I was. As the F-16s screamed overhead, their silver fuselage glaring in the sun, and the wail of the horrifyingly loud sirens that never seemed to end, I cannot describe the sheer terror that I felt.
The 20 minutes of utter horror, I was crying in the middle of the street, unable to move, until a policewoman picked me up and carried me to safety. Of course, nothing happened that day. The sirens stopped wailing, the fighter jets stopped roaring, and everything returned to normal. But I will never forget that fear. I changed that day. I became very well aware of my own mortality.
Someone said that war is death; it is inevitable, however much you may prolong peace as you may with life. In the end, death will come. We have to be prepared, even if it means scaring the living shit out of elementary schoolchildren. The sirens are a reminder of the mortality of peace.
I’ve grew up since that day. I'm no longer the little kid crying in the street. Now I realize that peace is nothing but a delusion, a fantasy that we use to create the illusion of safety. There is no such thing as peace, but a state of affairs maintained by the precarious balance of arms that stays the hand of war. There can be no peace as long as the enemy lives.
I don't know why I wrote this. Another rant, I suppose.
.
