[Opinion] The Red Scarf

“The Red Scarfers are men of the skies/ the men of the skies are the Red Scarfers/ With the red scarf around my neck/ Flowing with the clouds I flow together…” The movie Red Scarf that I watched as an elementary school student at a temporary theater in the countryside was memorable. Afterwards, while going to or returning from school, or when playing, I would sing enthusiastically to its theme song “Red Scarf.” Kim Sung-il, Chief of the General Staff of the South Korean air force, appeared on the newspaper showing a thumbs-up wearing the uniform of a fighter plane pilot with a red scarf.

Kim participated by personally driving a domestic ultrasound advanced trainer plane T-50 at the ambush training in the skies over the western seas, acting as an imaginary enemy. Though sometimes “conducted flights” were done when the chief of staff drives a fighter plan personally for inspection, it is rare for his position to participate in an ambush training. Receiving an emergency direction for interception by radar base, the MCRC, our forces took hold of the situation by shooting missiles at the “enemy plane” of Kim, 14 minutes into its pursuit. Afterwards his voice rang in our army’s plane, the KF-16 fighter plane. “Good job. I am very proud of you.”

Not one moment should be taken lightly in air defense. North Korea has placed more than 40 percent of its air force near the demarcation line. Should it push through with a surprise raid, Seoul may be devastated within five minutes. Thus it is often the case that a scramble tactic is employed, where when two North Korean fighter planes are deployed, the South Korean air force responds with two of its own. It resembles the blocking technique in a volleyball game, which blocks the predicted direction of attack from the opposing team.

Our air force is 105 percent to North Korea, and is assessed to be slightly superior. But when a race for speed occurs, the air is much more vulnerable than the land or sea. In particular, with the dissolution of the Korea-US joint forces and the retrieval of command in wartime operations, the first US forces to leave would be the air force. With war, the US promises to add 690,000 soldiers, the large proportion of which would be the air force, but we cannot guarantee whether the promise would be fulfilled. Watching “Red Scarf” Kim, we feel secure, but also worried.

Editorial writer Yook Jung-soo, sooya@donga.com