Beyond the Battle Line:

About the Book

The autobiographical work by Dr. Luke Kim describes his life throughout the turbulent 20th and into 21st century in Korea, Japan and the United states. The book is modest in size, but rich in content. It can be divided into three periods: early life in Northernmost Korea until age 15; the second period in Seoul where he experienced the very destructive Korean War, during which he lost his mother who was kidnapped by North Korean security agents, and we never heard from her, nor any news about her ever since 1950; Then his coming to America at age 26 in 1956.

About the Author

Dr. Luke L C. Kim was born in North Korea in 1930. Kim-IL-Sung established his dictatorship Communist government in North Korea in1946, from which Dr. Kim and his family escaped to South Korea. On June 25 1950, North Korean People’s Army launched all-out invasion into South Korea, the beginning of the horrible Korean War. North Korean Army occupied Seoul in just three days and advanced to South Korea so fast that just in three months they occupied almost the entire South Korean territory except the tiny area south of Nakdong River near Busan. And then under the command of Gen, MacArthur, UN forces launched a highly successful Inchon landing, and they retook Seoul and then advanced north reaching the Yalu River, a border between North Korea and China. At this point, the 300,000 so called “Chinese Volunteer Army” unexpectedly entered into the Korean War, and began fi erce attacks on the UN forces, necessitating their complete and immediate withdrawal from North Korea. Dr. Kim participated as an interpreter of a Republic of Korea Army intelligence unit in the historical Hungnam Evacuation. During the evacuation, 100,000 UN troops, 18,000 tanks/vehicles, and 350,000 tons of military supplies, plus another 100,000 North Korean refugees seeking freedom were loaded on 200 US Navy and Merchant Marine ships, which ended sailing all of them to complete safety and especially freedom for North Korean refugees.
Later, he served the Korean Navy and following discharge from his military service, he enrolled at Seoul National University Medical School and received an MD degree in 1956. He came to the U.S. in 1956 and studied psychology at the University of Arizona receiving a PhD degree in clinical psychology in 1960. And then he began his psychiatric residency training program in Buffalo, NY and completed the 3-year psychiaric residency program in Northern California.
Dr. Kim served on the Asian American Psychiatrists Committee of the American Psychiatric Association as a member and Editor-In-Chief of its newsletter for six years. He was the founder and fi rst president of the Association of Korean American Psychiatrists (AKAP). He was a clinical faculty member at the University of California Davis School of Medicine (UCD) for 35 years. As clinical professor of psychiatry, he initiated and developed the UCD Medical School’s cultural psychiatry program to national prominence. In 2006, he and his wife Grace established the Luke and Grace Kim Endowed Professorship in Cultural Psychiatry at the Medical School. The Search Committee appointed Francis G. Lu, MD of UCSF, as the Luke and Grace Kim Endowed Professor in Cultural Psychiatry, a decision which made them very happy. Now he and Grace have retired to Seal Beach in Southern California.