Should BTS be exempted from military service? - from a Korean reserve man’s view.

figure 1. BTS

BTS members’ military service has been a subject of hot potato for years. During a press conference, HYBE, the group’s agency urged the national assembly to decide on whether to waive military service obligations for BTS. Now, will it really be what is fair to have them exempted? I actually want to talk about this issue with other athletes’ case as well.

To begin with, I feel the need to explain current military system and Korean history which has something to do with the special treatments. And then short solution of my own will be suggested.

Without further adu, let’s begin.

figure 2. One child is mocking without considering his future.

All able-bodied males aged between 18 and 35 in Korea have to serve in the military, and all women are exempt from conscription, even though they can apply for the service as a staff sergeant, or 하사, or a higher level combat ironically — Constitutional Court said “women are not suitable for military, mentally and physically. but some strong woman can do if they want as a managing staff like staff sergeant or above.”

figure 3. Young men are taken away their prime period.

All companies, not some of them, refuse to admit applicants who haven’t finished their duty yet as a full time worker. So all able-bodied serve the military when they are just 18, or 19, just after the Korean univ entrance test so called Korean SAT, or 수능. Because of this job market condition, Korean men can’t help but giving up and wasting their prime period.

figure 4. Total fertility rate of S.Korea

Korean’s fertility rate has been plummeting regularly for the past 10 years and it reached 0.81 at this year. Unlikely from the time when I got into univ, twelve years ago, the number of entrants plunged to 420 thousands which is diminished by 200 thousands.

figure 5. Men are getting check up for their duty (above) and conscription judgement based on it (below).

At this point, let’s briefly talk about the military service physical examination. Up to the third-degree judgement, all men join the army as active soldiers. And males who got fourth-degree commute to their troop from home or work as a community service agents who works at a government official. At this page, all men up to fourth degree are introduced to be considered to do their duty.

figure 6. Both men with the lowest BMI and men with the highest BMI were enlisted.

figure 7. Conscription Rate whose table dosen’t include ‘community sevice’ numbers

So, the military affair officials are widening the pool not only by being reducing the alternative service for engineering students or other men in their respective fields, but also by starting to conscript seemingly unable-bodied men or uneducated men. For instance, unlikely from the past, people who didn’t graduate from middle are also forced to enlist. And both a 157 cm, 26 kg man and a 174 cm 202 kg man were enlisted last year as community service agents, and a Starcraft 1 streamer who has two preschool children and got divorced, also got into it 2 years ago, and he couldn’t help but deciding to make a temporarily halt because he only got paid 500 thousand KRW(400 dollars) per month. After a few months of postponement, he got approval for making money after work during the period of working and is doing it. Besides these anecdotes, a man who had brain tumor in past, a man who suffered from severe flat foot and a man also entered military. This measure finally had roughly 95 % of Korean young men get enlisted.

figure 8. Two flat foot men, military service (left), community service (right)

In the meanwhile, the government made alternative service, so called community service, to be seen like they are thoroughly considering fairness. And they push unable-bodied males into the community service even though International Labour Organization(ILO) points out that is a forced labour.

figure 9. ODE to MY FATHER. a film helping understand the history of development.

A couple of generations before, Koreans were very poor, but were very eager to get rich to not pass down this impecuniousness to the next generation so they worked tooth and nail. The government also wanted to integrate the nation to run for one aim. Thus they gave special treatments, one of which was exemption from military as a pretext of enhancing national prestige, to athletes who won Olympic games medal or Asian games gold medal. As a result, Korean people got hopes and confidence from the results and national pride from Koreans got lifted.

Now that Korea’s GDP has been ranked on 10th for three years, nationalism got dimmed globally, and just as we don’t remember which nation got medals in what games, they never remember the fact a Korean got a medal, so giving special treatments to the winners is pointless any longer.

Even though gender equality is rising in Korea, a large group of young men feel like they are the ones that are discriminated because they believe even as patriarchy became an obsolete stuff, responsibility and mandatory still remain the same. So to speak, buying a house and bring home the bacon is always bridegroom’s role, but women are still not taking responsibility for their very basic obligation, conscription despite open for becoming a staff sergeant.

So these complaints and situations are mixed together and expressed with considerable deprivation from the young men.

From my point of view, I know people like Son Heung Min and BTS get things done and they have the lion’s share when it comes to letting global citizens be interested in Korea. But duty is duty and I pretty much agree the reasons above and I object to giving the special treatments. I will hail them when bill is revised and they can do military service a bit later like, when they are 35, or do alternative service as duty.