Baloney. The communist killed his family, but not him? Why? The Yi descendants were mediatized (incorporated as a lesser branch) into the Japanese royal family when Japan occupied and then annexed Korea after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. The communist did not take over until the end of WW2 in 1945 when Korea was split into North and South Korea. Pyongyang has always been in North Korea and North Korea has always been communist and in a communist state you don't have large property owners because there is no private ownership of property - that's why it is called COMMUNISM as in communes.
Furthermore, the Yi imperial family still exists today in a quasi-royalty in South Korea and many also live in the US. One even married some Italian royalty a few years back, so why was he adopted by an American family when the Yi House still exists?
As for serving in Vietnam, the US was not the only foreign military forces in the Vietnam War. The Canadian, South Korean, Australian, and even a few Taiwanese troops were fighting on the same side with the US.
If he was old enough it could be true to a certain extent(He would had to be born pre-1905). His claim that he is decedent of a imperial family probably just means that he’s from an aristocratic family. Korea had a thing about aristocracy being the only one being able to test for the government(essentially ruling) positions and such. If you are from such a family you have a book of lineage dating you back to a king.
The palace thing seem like a farfetched to me. He probably lived in an aristocratic mansion, but to a child’s mind recalling the good old days while suffering, it must have seemed like a palace.
Family execution was probably not so much the fault of lineage, but just be horrible fact that thousands of innocent just died during and after the Korean war. Probably all of the people who survived that period lost someone from the war or the post war period. Some just had it worse than others.
PS I was thinking the mansion thing if he's old enough(Once again pre-1905). If he was born in the 40s it's very unlikely that he would have lived in a great location.
We can not know exactly
How would we know honestly?
Im a martial arts student. Well really not a student anymore, im actually a high ranking black belt. But when I was a student in the late 70s and 80s I studied under this old korean in taekwondo when it was the real thing.
But his story was this. His name was Yi in soo. He claimed he was a descendant of the actually imperial YI family who ruled korea during the middle ages. He grew up in a palace in Pyongyang north korea until the communist took his home, executed his family and he lived his teen years as a orphan in Pyongyang fighting every day for food until the war broke out and he was rescued by an american soldier who adopted him. That part is true I know his family and they are american. He fought in the vietnam year, went back to korea and learned taekwon do and he was an eight degree black belt and one of the damn best fighters I ever known.
