From North Korea to America Through Three Wars

In her memoir, From North Korea to America through Three Wars: A Nurse’s Journey, Sung Yoo writes “There was no enemy in front of death, just human life.”¹ She comes to this profound realization after reading the final pages of Homer’s Iliad. This revelation did not come from a war-weary soldier deployed to a faraway combat zone. It came from a thirty-eight-year-old nurse and mother of three from New Jersey.

In hindsight, my surprise was unwarranted. As her memoir’s title states, Sung Yoo came to her understanding of life and death after living through multiple wars. She chronicles her life in four movements: her birth and childhood during the Japanese occupation of Korea during World War II, her escape and survival with her family south through the Korean demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the age of ten, her work as a nurse in Korea that included a tour in combat conditions in Vietnam in 1968, and her finding a permanent home in America where she culminated her career as an internationally recognized expert in nursing (she was a guest presenter at the International Council of Nursing in 2015). Sung Yoo writes in a matter-of-fact tone that is interrupted by bolts of emotion and insight that imitate life itself in all its disjointedness and unpredictability.

Sung Yoo is remarkably candid in her introspection. She confesses her selfishness at times and even describes her brushes with suicidal ideation. Although Sung Yoo does an admirable job of quickly familiarizing readers with Korean culture to provide context to her narration, those who are previously unfamiliar with it may find certain passages jarring, particularly those that describe ageism and sexism. She uses her memoir as a call to action for aspiring nurses to seek deep meaning in their profession through a combination of curiosity and continuing education, particularly in the humanities. However, the memoir spoke to me, a former soldier, as a story of an internally displaced person (IDP) who grows through adversity. Her story is instructive to those in the security community thinking about the impacts of large-scale combat operations on vulnerable civilian populations. Additionally, her memoir is a case study that can supplement education on spirituality as a component of Holistic Health and Fitness, as described in Field Manual 7-22.

Two years after Sung Yoo crossed the DMZ, she remembered thinking “my hope simply began to depend on America. I, without any question, wanted to thank America.”² It can be inferred that she had a largely positive perception of the American military during her youth, which was confirmed later in her adulthood during the Vietnam War. It is also reasonable to imagine that her memoir would be quite different had she witnessed atrocities so commonly associated with IDPs in large-scale combat operations. We need not look far into the past to see the plight of IDPs in our modern world—the current war in Ukraine has led to massive displacement and suffering of her citizens. Sung Yoo’s memoir informs us that ethical and magnanimous interactions between combatants and civilians can have ripple effects that stir generations. They certainly influenced Sung Yoo to pursue a life of service and devotion to community.

Spiritual readiness can be a challenging domain of Holistic Health and Fitness for organizations to develop. Field Manual 7-22 states “spirituality is often described as a sense of connection that gives meaning and purpose to a person’s life.”³ Sung Yoo’s memoir can enhance a unit’s reading regimen, particularly as a study of discovering such connections. As a self-confessed atheist, Sung Yoo had never once considered that perhaps she was not alone in her arduous journey. After settling in America and with the wars behind her, Sung Yoo found time to reflect and marvel at the unlikelihood of her incredible life. She concluded that there had to be a higher power involved in her life that helped her navigate all the obstacles thrown in her way.

In conjunction with her budding spirituality, Sung Yoo discovered her love for classic literature. She read voraciously, naming the Iliad, War and Peace, and Oliver Twist among the books that had a memorable impact on her. She also discovered the legacy of Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing. Most interestingly, Sung Yoo attributes her love of literature to her connection with time itself. Sung Yoo noted the parallels between herself and Nightingale, who also embarked on a quest to treat the sick and wounded in a foreign land more than a century earlier in 1854 in Crimea. This connection with history and the exploration of the origin of her profession greatly raised Sung Yoo’s feeling of being part of something larger than herself. Her example can be beneficial to military members seeking inspiration to connect with the past to stimulate their futures.

From North Korea to America Through Three Wars: A Nurse’s Journey is an engaging tale of resilience and hope that dwell inside people, enabling them to live through extraordinary circumstances. Sung Yoo paints a vivid chronology of her life filled with heartache, resilience, and triumph. She reminds us of the shared humanity and tensions that exist between nurses, who are sanctioned to preserve life, and soldiers, who are sanctioned to extinguish it.

Notes

1. . Sung C. Yoo, From North Korea to America Through Three Wars: A Nurse’s Journey (McFarland, 2025), 112.
2. Yoo, From North Korea to America through Three Wars, 49.
3. Field Manual 7-22, Holistic Health and Fitness (US Government Printing Office, October 2020), 10-1.