Now that we are living in Korea we wanted to do more research about the army. Joseph and I began asking our students about the army and how it works. Some students didn't know and some just didn't want to talk about it. Other students did give us some information but the real information came from a discussion 2 weeks ago between myself, 3 students (2 boys and 1 girl) and our school's director (vice principal [man]).
It is easier to do this in a list rather than paragraph form:
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| 2009 Armed Forces Day |
* only men are mandated to join the Korean army -- women may join but they have to specifically sign up and be accepted into the army
* there is a Korean law that says men must join the Korean army and serve a mandatory stay of 2 years until the age of 20 (or 22)
* men are not paid much while in the Korean army during the first 2 years: approximately $200 USD per month. Women, are paid almost 10 times this amount for volunteering to be in the army. That was the only reasons for the pay difference we discovered
* there is a high rate of death in the Korean army due to training: live ammunition is apparently the only type used
* men have been known to hurt their knees or their teeth to be excused from joining. This is no longer accepted as an excuse
* if an army recruit dies during their 2 years their families are not compensated because it is seen as a duty to their country
* if an army recruit decides to remain in the army after their 2 years they are paid more of a normal salary (approximately $2500 USD per month) and if they die during combat or training their families are more likely to receive compensation only from a combat death
* suicide is high during the first two years because a lot of Korean men do not want to serve in the army
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| S.K. combat exercise |
* if there is a combat situation any man age 40 or under is required by law to report at the closest army base. This is true for any South Korean living overseas as well whether visiting, going to school, working, living, etc. For example, a South Korean man could be age 35 living in California working as a bank CEO at Bank of America. South Korea goes into a 'situation' with whoever and that man, by Korean law, has to return to South Korea despite living and working in America. If he does not return to South Korea he is in violation of the Korean law and will have severe consequences. We were not able to discover what these consequences were to be, but from the looks on their faces it was scary.
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| S.K. winter exercise |
Interesting information isn't it? The opinions of the three students during this discussion was that they did not wish to join the army because they did not want to die. When asked about the duty to their country they stated that while they love South Korea they do not want to join because of the first 2 years of training. When speaking to our director who served his 2 years more than a decade ago said that he did not like being in the army and that he had a few friends die because of being shot while training and he had other people in his section that hung themselves because they did not want to be there. He did say he was glad he was over the age of 40 because now he can breathe a little easier no longer being required to fight.
Apparently a lot of the information we found before moving to Korea about serving in the Korean army was misleading. The most we found before we moved here was persons were required to serve 2 years. There was no distinction about age, sex or location.
Does this have any bearing on if we have a child while living in South Korea? No. Simply put, we are both American and our child would be American if we have our way about it.
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| South Korean Flag |
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