SEOUL-- President Yoon Suk-yeol welcomed a group of war heroes and bereaved family members to the presidential office on Thursday to demonstrate his commitment to personally taking care of them as the commander in chief.

Twenty people, including survivors of North Korea's torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in 2010, were invited to lunch with the president, as June is the month of appreciation for patriots and veterans.

The visitors were greeted by an honor guard and escorted to a room where photos of the fallen soldiers were placed on a table alongside candles and flowers.

The president shook hands with each one of them there before taking a close look at the photos. He then took them to an adjacent room for lunch.

"There is a saying that a country's national status is determined by whom it remembers," Yoon said. "National defense and rewarding patriotism are two sides of the same coin. That is why without a proper system of rewarding patriotism, there can be no such thing as strong national defense."

The president repeated his determination to create a nation where those who sacrificed themselves for the country are treated properly and not left feeling "angry."

Sitting close to him at the table was Yoon Cheong-ja, the mother of one of the 46 sailors who were killed aboard the corvette Cheonan when it was torpedoed by North Korea in March 2010.

The mother famously walked up to then President Moon Jae-in during a memorial ceremony in March 2020 to demand an answer on who carried out the attack that killed her son, as some had questioned the government's conclusion that it was the North.

Other attendees included those who fought or lost a family member in a 2002 naval skirmish with North Korea, North Korea's 2010 shelling of the border island of Yeonpyeong, and a 2015 border land mine explosion blamed on the North.

Yoon said it is the responsibility of any normal state to properly honor the services of troops and watch over their families.

"From now on, I will protect you as the commander in chief responsible for our country's national defense," he said.

Yoon affirmed the military will sternly respond to any provocations by North Korea.

When a family member called on the government to demand the North's apology, the president said there is no need to receive an apology and that if such a bombardment occurs again, the South only needs to respond by striking the origin of the attack.

He also reportedly said frontline units will be allowed to take action against attacks first and report to a higher authority later.

Source: Yonhap News Agency