Chang Hae-young

In South Korea, 'lives in the army' is the most interesting and powerful theme of conversation in men. Men usually talk their lives in the army and tales of bravery to family, friend, or girlfriend boastfully with ignoring defense corps. However, as one of the most important social systems, the mandatory military system has problems and is not just the theme of cheap talk. I think we should examine the mandatory military service as for restrictions on young soldiers and equal application.

First, mandatory military system restricts young soldiers' personal relations with others in the society excessively, which sometimes causes serious incidents such as the desertion from the army. Mandatory military system cuts off their relationship with other people: family, friends, and sweetheart. It's very limited for them to call, as well as to meet people except for the allowed times, for example, sleeping-out day and vacations. Consequently, the young people keep suffering from isolation and loneliness, and it's more likely to be deserted by his sweetheart during the period of the mandatory military service. These facts can influence their mental health negatively and make it difficult to adapt themselves in the life of the army, and actually we have heard about examples of desertions due to these causes on the news of TV or the articles of the papers. Therefore, I think mandatory military service should handle the problems about the young soldiers' personal relations more reasonably and flexibly to prevent those predictable problems like the hurt of young soldiers' mental health and desertions from the army.

Another reason that we should think again mandatory military system is it's unequal application problems; these unequal applications of mandatory military service break the harmony between the social class and cause people to have social dissatisfaction and sense of incompatibility. We all know these terms, 'son of god' and 'son of Man' and meanings well. They satire the unfair application of mandatory military system; 'son of God' who has good parents with money, power or connections can avoid the army; 'son of Man' who has common parents goes to the army. And it's not surprising social issue any more that enterpriser, minister, Assemblyman, politician, doctor, sports star or even entertainer try to avoid the mandatory military service by using their money, power or connections. Actually, we remember the Opposition leader apologized that his son didn't go to the army with excusing for his son's disease. And on the last Saturday's paper, there was the article that 25% of high officials didn't go to the army and over 20% of their sons also were exempted from the mandatory military service mostly because of disease, whereas the 10% of average people are exempted. When regarding this report, I think the unfair application is becoming the serious problem of mandatory military system.