Colorful fireworks light up the sky as the train leaves South Korea's Munsan station, heading north for its historic voyage.

We head into the station, ready to grab reaction from the spectators to this exciting and seemingly joyous event. But instead we head straight into a small group of protesters. And they are angry.

We are quite familiar with the group, mostly made up of Korean War veterans, a staple at anti-North Korean rallies.

One protester catches me by the arm and asks where we are from. Upon learning we are CNN, he says, please tell the U.S. that we need them to come in and wage a war on North Korea. He won't tell me his story, but just that he knows how awful the North Koreans are.

Ninety-four-year-old Cho Myung-Sun sobs when he tells me it broke his heart when he saw the train pull away from the station.

"When I was young, I used to ride the train back and forth from the north to the south all the time," he says.

Cho’s home town is in the north, but he left his parents and his sister behind when the war broke out and came to the south.

He never saw or heard from his parents again. He says he assumes his parents have all passed away, but as the train left, it hit him that he may also never see his home town again as well. "I wanted to be on that train so much."

-- From CNN International Correspondent Sohn Jie-Ae