How Korean Military Conscription Affects Students At WashU

In 1948, the Republic of Korea instituted a system of mandatory military service. Since then, despite whirlwind changes to its political economy and society, conscription has remained a universal obligation for all South Korean males. Every male, from scions of wealthy business executives to the offspring of rural farmers, will spend at least two years of their life after they turn 18 serving in the military. A Korean citizen has some leeway in deciding when to undertake their service requirements, but most do it during or immediately after their college years. I sat down with three Korean international students at Wash U, two of whom have yet to begin their service, to find out their thoughts on Korea’s mandatory service and how conscription has affected them.

To put it simply: it’s complicated. The first thing to note is that assignments for mandatory military service of course include the main uniformed military branches (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines). But it also includes a few other, technically non-military routes, such as being a firefighter, police officer, or a public service worker. Conscripts are essentially unpaid during their two years of service, with wages amounting to about $200 a month on average.

Min is a junior, studying computer science and math. At the end of Spring 2014, he finished up his freshman year. That summer, he returned to Korea to complete his mandatory service, which consisted of around a month of military training and then two years of service as an enlisted soldier in the ROK Army. One of the greatest difficulties of his time in the Army was being separated from his family and friends. There was little to no contact outside the base permitted, and travel was restricted to a handful of holidays.
[su_pullquote]Min said that although his service was grueling, it ended up being an intensely valuable experience. Perhaps due to the specialized nature of his work, he was given real responsibilities and opportunities for growth.[/su_pullquote]Thanks to his strong English proficiency, Min was chosen to work as a translator in an administrative position of his unit. He said that although his service was grueling, it ended up being an intensely valuable experience. Perhaps due to the specialized nature of his work, he was given real responsibilities and opportunities for growth.

Min’s experience contrasts with the general perception that conscripts are given the least rewarding work in the military. A U.S. Navy officer stationed in South Korea, who requested anonymity, wrote to me that most of the conscripts in the ROK Navy who he had interacted with were janitors or custodians. Although two years is a hefty length of time, there is a termination date for a conscript’s service period and little expectation that they will continue on as a regular soldier. He surmised that conscripts were given menial, unskilled labor responsibilities because their officers believed there would be little payoff in training them extensively.
Not so for Min, and other conscripts who are selected for jobs that match their skillsets.

One positive aspect of his service that Min cited was its universality: everyone, regardless of their background or lineage, must serve. His unit was a bit of a melting pot, and one of the best friends that Min made during his service was someone from a rural district in the south of the country; someone who Min, originally from Seoul, would never in a hundred years have met otherwise.

[su_pullquote]Socioeconomic labels, normally such a prevalent and overhanging aspect of daily society in Korea, fade to the background as the pressures of meritocratic military service take over.[/su_pullquote]Taken to a stronger level, experiences like Min’s can be rolled into a larger argument in favor of conscription. In a way, conscription operates as a grand equalizer among male citizens. Socioeconomic labels, normally such a prevalent and overhanging aspect of daily society in Korea, fade to the background as the pressures of meritocratic military service take over. It is almost a utopian image—refreshing and wholesome in a world when connections, circumstance, and familial status usually seem unfairly influential.

This argument has some weight, even in the United States. Some American intellectuals have voiced their concerns over the declining number of civic spaces— places where individuals from every background can mingle. The military is one of those few civic spaces in America where, ostensibly, the prejudices and social labels that plague regular life can vanish. A college graduate from Manhattan and an enlisted soldier from a rural county could both conceivably rub elbows in Officer Candidate School, a foxhole, or at parade rest. Universal conscription could reinforce patriotism, engender a service mentality among citizens, and provide an adhesive for national cohesion through shared experience.

Yet, Min readily admitted that his experience was an idiosyncratic one and not representative of what most conscripts can expect during their two-year service period. And underneath the monolithic label of “mandatory service”, a positive experience is not universally expected.

Sangwook, a freshman who will be beginning his service this fall, had a different perspective. Due to a medical complication, he is ineligible for service in the uniformed branches of the military. Instead, he will be employed as a public service worker, which is one of several non-military routes that Korean males can carry out their mandatory service.

Public service entails a wide variety of work, from assisting in an office for a company deemed essential to the country’s function to being a sewage worker. Sangwook will only receive details of his assignment later in the summer. Service, for him, means suspending his college experience and leaving behind the friends he’s made at Wash U for essentially a two-year volunteering obligation. I can only imagine how difficult it can be to return after service is done. I was told that it is common for returning Korean students to have a difficult time their first semester back at Wash U, as they have to rewire their brains after a two-year interruption. And what is the personal effect of picking your studies back up and knowing that everyone else who was in your incoming class is graduating or already graduated?

There is also a difference of perception based on what someone does during their service. Put simply, public service work lacks the prestige and social capital that service in the uniformed military entails. Public service workers can usually go home at the end of their workday, as opposed to military conscripts who are confined to their base. And although public service workers also must undergo the notoriously grueling month-long training period that all conscripts go through, there is a clear impression that public service work is an “easy way out”.

One of the students who I spoke with, who requested anonymity, said that if a group of Koreans were hanging together and started exchanging details about their service, someone who was assigned to public service would likely stay quiet, else they be ribbed for having it easy. This student said that before he took his physical exams to judge his eligibility, he was interested in applying for the branches that seemed “tougher”, like the Marines. But like Sangwook, an unforeseen medical complication ended those prospects. He, too, will be deployed as a public service worker and not in the uniformed branches of the military.

There is a value attached to wearing a uniform, and a value attached to the kind of work achieved whilst wearing that uniform. It’s a reminder that there might some truth to the trite adage that a man in uniform is attractive; a uniform is an ambiguous, but not necessarily accurate, certification of the wearer’s personal qualities. For the thousands of Korean males who are simply medically unfit for uniformed service, they get none of that prestige which a military conscript can boast of, even though they are spending the same amount of time giving back to the country. And since public service workers have more liberties than military conscripts, the perception is that they won’t suffer the same level of emotional strain that a military conscript would experience by living on a base. Thus, they are saved from some of the worst aspects military service can entail. In turn, they are denied the ameliorating pat on the back that comes from accomplishing something everyone can agree was difficult.

Even though service in Korea is mandatory and universal, its male population is not homogenous. A big benefit to the United States’ volunteer-based military is that those who do choose to serve are actively choosing their own future in some form, regardless of their circumstances. In Korea, conscripts are being obliged upon for two years for an experience which they would have not chosen on their own. For Korean Wash U students who choose to undertake their service requirements in the middle of their college experience, they are losing the sense of independence that university life has encouraged. Personal agency seemingly has no place in a conscript’s life.

The Korean students who I interviewed who had not completed their mandatory service had similar attitudes. Not eagerly anticipating their service, but not resentful or critical of the institution. Service is something that everyone must complete, and they were more than willing to get it over with before they can continue with their preset life plans.

But I asked Min, who has already completed his service, if he had any advice for incoming conscripts. His response showed me that it is still possible to recover a small sense of agency through attempting to scour what is an unwelcome experience for something positive.
“It’s something that’s necessary. But you can learn a lot from it,” Min said. “It’s going to be a really uncomfortable situation, but you don’t have to just think, ‘I hate this, I hate this.’ Try to learn from it.”

Korea’s mandatory service is, by its nature, not a wide-open field full of opportunity. It is a monolithic imposition into the comfort of modern life that requires each person affected by it to think of themselves as a cog in the machine, and not as an individual. But even though the utopian image of universality and civic cohesion diminishes in the face of reality, there is still a conceptual and patriotic value to Korea’s mandatory service system, and there are small, individualistic ways which each conscript can make their experience their own.

Syrus Jin ‘19 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at jin.s@wustl.edu.