GS Retail Launches Campaign to Promote Awareness of the Ja-il Hakdo Volunteer Army

GS Retail is launching a campaign to promote the Korean-Japanese Student Volunteer Army under the theme "Gratitude Passed on Through Memory" in collaboration with the Veterans Affairs Office to commemorate the Month of Patriots and Veterans.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] GS Retail announced on the 3rd that it will join hands with the Veterans Affairs Office to promote the Korean-Japanese Student Volunteer Army (Hakdo Uiyonggun) under the subtitle "Gratitude Delivered Through Remembrance" in honor of the Month of Patriots and Veterans.

The Hakdo Uiyonggun were 642 young students and youths who, while studying in Japan, crossed over to their homeland to defend the country by taking up arms instead of books and participated in the Korean War. They were the first KATUSA (Korean Augmentation To the United States Army) to fight in the war and are recorded as the world's first case of overseas nationals participating in a war.

This campaign will be carried out through various activities such as distributing Hakdo Uiyonggun emblem badges, attaching nameplates to national merit recipients, delivering donations to veterans' families through customer participation, and producing and broadcasting videos to raise awareness of the Hakdo Uiyonggun. The emblem badge distribution event involves producing badges based on the Hakdo Uiyonggun emblem from the Korean War and giving them to GS Retail customers. Since the 1st of this month, a total of 15,000 badges have been distributed via mobile apps to customers who purchased products such as lunchboxes at GS25, GS The Fresh, and GS Fresh Mall.

Additionally, an event is being held where customers handwrite the phrase "We remember the Korean-Japanese Student Volunteer Army who fought in the Korean War" and upload it to their personal SNS; for each post, 6,420 KRW will be donated to national merit recipients and veterans' families. A video promoting the Hakdo Uiyonggun will also be produced and broadcast on over 3,000 GSTVs inside GS25 stores and on the official YouTube channel.

A GS Retail official stated, "In honor of the Month of Patriots and Veterans, we want to continue the patriotic campaign that has been ongoing since 2018 by informing the entire nation about the Korean-Japanese Student Volunteer Army, whom we must remember." He added, "Going forward, the more than 15,000 offline platforms of GS Retail will play a pivotal role in remembering and spreading meaningful and valuable social messages."