February 8 Recorded in the History of Army Building

Today, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, an independent powerful state envied by the world, is further demonstrating its might as it has the Korean People's Army, its revolutionary armed forces and the strongest revolutionary army in the world.

The Korean people who are greeting the army day with the pride of being citizens of a powerful country are recollecting with deep emotion the significant day 77 years ago when President Kim Il Sung founded the Korean People's Army, the first regular revolutionary armed forces of the country.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un said:

"After the country's liberation the great Comrade Kim Il Sung made founding a powerful regular army a prerequisite for developing the country into an independent, sovereign state. Having stepped up the cause of army building by dint of his outstanding ideas and energetic leadership, he founded the Korean People's Army, the revolutionary regular armed forces of a Juche type, in less than three years."

It was the morning of historic February 8, 1948 when the President would proclaim the birth of the regular revolutionary armed forces to the whole world.

While making preparations for leaving for the plaza in front of Pyongyang Railway Station where the ceremony for proclaiming the birth of the Korean People's Army would take place, President Kim Il Sung said to the anti-Japanese war heroine Kim Jong Suk that today was a historic day of great significance and recalled with deep emotion:

It seems only yesterday that I proclaimed the founding of the Anti-Japanese People's Guerrilla Army wearing the military uniform made by my mother in her sickbed, but 16 years have already passed since then. In the period we shed much blood and surmounted a great deal of hardships. But as we prepared the backbone of the revolutionary armed forces and gained rich experience while waging the anti-Japanese armed struggle, we could wind up preparations for founding the People's Army in time even in the difficult and complicated situation.

And he suggested that the whole family go to the venue of the military parade and see the grand event of the Korean People's Army which would defend the dignity and honour of the nation by force of arms, and headed for the venue along with Comrade Kim Jong Suk and young general Kim Jong Il.

When he mounted at 10:00 the platform of the parade built at the plaza in front of Pyongyang Railway Station, where the units of the Korean People's Army were lining up, parade columns burst into deafening cheers of "Hurrah!" as they welcomed him with thunderous applause. He waved back to the paraders, before seeing to it that the military parade started.

He reviewed the parade units and made a meaningful speech on the occasion of the birth of the regular revolutionary armed forces.

In his speech President Kim Il Sung solemnly proclaimed the founding of the Korean People's Army, the first regular armed forces of the people in the history of Korea and warmly waved back to the enthusiastically cheering paraders and other people. And he said that the Korean people, who had been subjected to all manner of persecution and suppression under the bayonets of the Japanese imperialists, took power into their own hands after liberation, set out to create a new life and came to have their own army.

He continued: When the Japanese imperialists trampled underfoot our country and killed our people at random, we yearned for our own army, lamenting the fact that we had no army of our own. This desire has finally been fulfilled today.

He referred to the urgency and significance of building regular armed forces and the character, duty and traditions of the Korean People's Army and the tasks facing it to fulfil its sacred mission. He concluded his speech with a stirring appeal to everyone to march vigorously forward, with an unshakable faith in victory and an ever-greater national pride, for the establishment of a Democratic People's Republic of Korea and for new victories.

When he finished his speech, stormy applause and cheers rocked the earth again.

The cheers of "Hurrah!" that resounded over the sky of February were an eruption of boundless reverence and gratitude of all the Korean people to President Kim Il Sung, an ever-victorious and iron-willed brilliant commander, who provided the Juche-oriented regular revolutionary armed forces by accomplishing the historic cause of army building.

Like the cheers of "Hurrah" that erupted 77 years ago, the same cheers by the Korean people including service personnel are still ringing out far and wide today in reflection of their great pride of holding the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un, another peerlessly great man, in high esteem at the top post of the Korean revolution.