Shoelace and Mental “Lace”
One day after liberation, the anti-Japanese war heroine Kim Jong Suk met a guardsman.
When he primped himself and paid a courteous salute, she acknowledged it, telling him in an affectionate voice that his shoelace was undone.
Only then, he came to realize that the lace on one of his shoes was left untied.
When he lowered his head to tie it up with a deep blush, she warned him that shoes are like wings for a soldier, and that as a bird without wings cannot fly, so a soldier with shoes on against the rules can neither fulfill the guard duty nor perfect the appearance of a soldier of a regular army.
Then, she stressed that he should regard it as a matter of the loose mental “lace” of a guardsman, not a mere matter of an untied shoelace, and that he should be alert in his military service at all times and in all places.
Blaming himself, who failed to obey military regulations with a moment of slackness, he made a firm resolution to be an example of obeying the regulations and a genuine guardsman who would never allow even a moment of relaxation of his mental grip.
