Good Neighboring Day

Introduction
Good Neighboring Day (GNDay) is a project of the Good Neighboring Campaign (GNC). The purpose of GNDay is to help the many fine cadets of Youth Challenge Programs (YCP) as well as high school students gain knowledge and insight into Korean culture and history, along with an understanding of the competitiveness of the Korean people. The Program challenges young Americans by alerting them to the competition they will face not only at home but abroad. Also, by learning background information about a small country’s success stories and about foreign cultures, cadets receive an educational experience that will enhance their lives for years to come. Presently focused on Youth Challenge Programs, GNC plans to expand the program to senior-level high school students.

GNC conducted the first GNDay at the Georgia Youth Challenge Academy on October 11, 2000, with the overwhelming support of the Georgia National Guard’s Adjutant General David Poythress and his wife Elizabeth Poythress; the director of the program, Colonel Frank William; and Ms. Charlene Anderson of the adjutant general’s staff. As of November 2003, the GNDay program has operated in several National Guard’s YCP locations, including Hinesville (Fort Stewart), Ga.; Augusta (Fort Gordon), Ga.; West Point, N.Y.; Trenton (Fort Dix), N.J.; Shreveport (Camp Minden), La.; Phoenix (Queens Creek), Ariz.; and Virginia Beach (Camp Pendleton), Va., and is expanding to other states with the enthusiastic support of Mr. Joe Padilla, the national chief of the Youth Challenge Program,. GNC’s goal is to present GNDay every six months in each location so that every YCP class can benefit from it.

Youth Challenge Program
Today more than 10 million young Americans drop out of school before acquiring the skills and personal traits necessary to enable them to find employment and a better life in the future. At the same time, our nation is facing an epidemic in juvenile crime and delinquency of historic proportions. YCP is the National Guard’s six-month-long youth training program for high school dropouts, with 30 locations in 26 states. Detailed information can be found at www.ngycp.org. The Good Neighboring Campaign is eager to be a part of these cadets’ success, as their generation will one day be running our communities and our country. GNDays offer an opportunity for young Americans to experience a nation and culture aside from America’s.

Why Korea
Korea is a country of diligent and competitive people—a “miracle economy” builder—and its culture is sometimes unfamiliar to the American people. As a main part of the GNDay program, we invite a guest speaker to introduce to the cadets his or her Korean experience and interactions with the Korean people, focusing on Koreans’ productivity. Our goal is to have the cadets learn more about the world outside their borders and to prepare them for interaction with other populations. Hopefully, we can stimulate the cadets so they can prepare for both global cooperation and competition.

Event Program
A typical GNDay program runs from 9 am to 2:30 pm and includes the following activities:
• Introduction to Korea, focusing on the Korean culture and work ethic
• Korean Americans and their American experience
• Keynote speaker lecture on “What can we learn from Koreans,” followed by Q&A
• Tae kwon do demonstration and practice
• Korean lunch
• Conclusion

Guest Speakers
Past guest speakers include retired U.S. Marine Corps General and Medal of Honor recipient Ray Davis; retired Army General William Livsey; Korean Ambassador Jung-pyo Cho; retired Air Force Chief Master Sgt. A. J. Benoit; U.S. Army Major General Charles Green; Dr. John Endicott, director of International Strategy, Technology, and Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Mrs. Jean Ellis, wife of General Larry Ellis, commanding general of the U.S. Army Forces Command; Consul Paik Ju-nyun; Ms. Shinae Chun, director, Women’s Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor; Major General James Donald; and Brigade General Randal Castro.

Volunteers
As immigrants to the great country of America, members of the following Korean American communities have volunteered to serve the needs of the nation by helping present GNDays to their areas’ Youth Challenge Programs: Korean Community Presbyterian Church members Rev. In-soo Jung and Mr. Jay Eun of Atlanta, Ga.; Mok-chun Presbyterian Church members, Rev. Choong-hong Kim, Grandmaster Jong-ho Lee, Ms. Kil-soon Park, Master Kevin Bang and members of Hinesville Korean American Association of Hinesville, Ga.; Korean American Community Leaders and members, Ms. Jung-nam Kwon and Grandmaster Young-jin Choi of Augusta, Ga.; Flushing First Methodist Church members, Rev. Joong-un Kim, Rev. John Parker, Mr. Henry Kang, Mr. Dong-woo Park and Grandmaster Yeon-hwan Park of Flushing, N.Y.; Trenton Korean Presbyterian Church members, Rev. Eui-choon Hwang, Mr. Joon-ho David Yi and Grandmaster Kyung-boon Park of Trenton, N.J.; Tidewater Korean Baptist Church members, Rev. Ji-dul Doh, Rev. John Suh, Master Jee-ho Lee of Virginia Beach, Va.; Hanmi Korean Presbyterian Church members, Rev. Hong-kook Paul Moon, Master Jong-kil Kang of Phoenix, Ariz.; and Red River Korean Holiness Church members, Rev. Myung-mo Kim, Kye-sung Moon, Mr. Do-sik Chae, Master Philip Tompkin of Shreveport, La. and Mr. Seung-hyun Kim of Dallas, Tx.

Good Neighboring Campaign
Good Neighboring Campaign is to encourage immigrants from Asia to become active Americans. GNC provides with educational and other materials so they can more easily become involved in community activities and contribute the ethnic values for betterment of America. Information can be found at the Web site www.GoodNeighboring.org.


Good Neighbor Campaign: Cadets See
Korean Culture During YCA Visit

Plan For Life: Sunny Park goes over the “plan for life” he created for himself after coming to America as a youth with his family. (Georgia National Guard photo by Sgt. Roy Henry)

Story by Sgt. Roy Henry
Georgia National Guard
Public Affairs Office

One of the lessons instructors with the Youth Challenge program hope their cadets
learn is how diversity makes
the world go around. That lesson and the one that anything is possible if a
person tries was emphasized, Tuesday, May 22, when
Atlanta businessman and
native South Korean, Sunny Park and members of his
Good Neighbor Campaign
visited the YCA campus at
Fort Stewart near Savannah.

“The first is to give these youngsters a taste of a culture and a way of life that many of them may not get to experience," he said. "The Good Neighbor Campaign works in this way to bring Asians and Americans closer together through understanding and interaction.

“My other purpose is to encourage them and show them how to achieve success in their lives through hard work and planning,” Park explained. “I want to show them that the road to success is open to them, but that they must work for it and that the ‘easy’ way to the top is not the best way.”

After arriving at Fort Stewart's Wright Army Airfield and a short trip to one of the post's neighborhood community centers, Park spent time before his presentation talking and laughing with the YCA cadets.

As the event progressed, the cadets were shown video about Korea, its people and their life style.

Park talked about his native South Korea for several minutes, then turned the conversation over to Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Fox. Fox, command sergeant major for 2nd battalion, 7th Infantry, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart spent two years with the U.S. Eight Army in Korea.

While Fox seemed to impress the cadets their looks of intense interest changed to "oohs" and "aahs" as they watched a multi-media presentation about the ties between Korea and the martial arts discipline Tae Kwondo. Later in the day, despite the threat of rain, the YCA staff and cadets watched while members of Grand Master Lee's Tae Kwondo and Fitness Center in Savannah offered up a demonstration of choreographed self-defense moves.

At lunch in the YCA dining facility, cadets, staff and visiting dignitaries were treated to traditional Korean dishes such as Bulgokee, marinated beef dish served with rice; Jap-chae, potato noodles marinated with sesame seed and Korean sauce; and Kimchi, pungent pickled cabbage and radish served with Korean spices, all prepared by members of the Good Neighbor Campaign and Atlanta's Korea-American Business Women's Association. It was also the chance for many of the YCA cadets to try their hand at using chopsticks.

"The food is great," said cadet Nichole Davis. "I'm just not sure I like the Kimchi" too hot for my taste.

"Yeah," said fellow cadet Jaione Eunice as she fumbled a bit with her chopsticks. "The only thing I have trouble with is using the chopsticks. I still haven't figured out how to pickup the rice with them."

While the food and the fellowship seemed to accomplish Park's first reason for being at the Fort Stewart campus, it is his desire to share his life experience with the cadets that seemed to the real motivator for the day. He began four years ago of brining his message of hard work, diligent studying and goal setting to the Fort Stewart and other YCA campuses across the country.

Park, a native South Korean, immigrated to the U.S. in 1974 with no more than $200 in his pockets, he said. Having little money, no job and speaking broken English, however, didn't stop him from achieving his goal of living the American dream, Park explained. Today, he said, this high school dropout is owner of a nationwide janitorial service that employees about 2,700 workers and the owner of an investments and real estate investment firm.

"You have to have a life plan, and you must remember that reaching your goals is a process that must taken one step at a time," he said as he looked out from the floor into the faces of the cadets seated around him.

"It's much like climbing the stairwell of a 10-story building 'progress is made one floor at a time," he told the cadets. "Get-there-quick schemes and the rise to instant success don't offer the same results as having a plan, having patients, having confidence and having a good work ethic and dedication."

Command Sgt. Maj. Julian Kellman, top senior enlisted Soldier of Fort Stewart's 3rd Infantry Division, and Maj. Gen. William Webster Jr., the 3rd ID's commander.

Being exposed to a new culture and hearing how one man, who came to the U.S. with nearly nothing, achieved success in his life seemed to received well by the cadets.

Cadet Aisha Evans said Park's presentation really hit home with her.

"I had little knowledge of how the people of Korea lived and how of a dedicated and hard working people they really are," she said. "And hearing how Mr. Park became such a success after he came to this country has only served to make me rethink my life and change the direction in which I plan to travel."

Fellow cadet Robert Anderson agreed, saying that he planned to put Park's "life-plan" to work right after he graduates from the YCA program. After all, he said, he has to achieve that goal first and then move on to new and better things.