The door was locked. There were no houses nearby, so he broke the lock with an axe handle he found on the ground. Just inside the door, he discovered three ears of dried corn and devoured them. The corn made him aware of how hungry he was. Helped by the moonlight, he searched the shed for something else to eat. Instead, he spotted an old pair of cotton shoes and a worn military uniform. Uniforms are everywhere in North Korea, the world’s most militarized society. Conscription is almost universal. Men serve ten years, women seven. With more than a million troops on active duty, about five per cent of the country’s population is in uniform, compared with about half a per cent in the United States. An additional five million people serve in the army reserve for much of their adult lives. The army is ‘the people, the state and the party’, says the government, which no longer describes itself as a communist state. Its guiding principle, according to the constitution, is ‘military first’.
