My army life in Korea

By Jung

In Korea, most of male have to go to the military, because of their liability for military service. In general, men go to army between 19 and 28 years old and they can choose one of military type, the air force, the navy, the army and the marine. And in the military, we have to spend about 2 years and we can go out of the army only in vacation which is totally between 35 and 50 days. There are 4 grades, each of them about 6 months. I finished the army, so I want to talk about my army life which I have never forgotten
I went to the army November 27th in 2006 and finished November 10th in 2008, almost 715 days which include vacations. I never forget the day when I went to an army recruit training center. I went to there with my parents, younger brother and girl friend. It was raining a lot. It was too difficult to leave them and my mother’s eyes were with tears, so we parted in tears. After that I entered an army recruit training center and I spent 4 weeks in there to train, throwing a hand grenade, marksmanship for shooting, marching and various basic training. After this training period, I went to my unit. It was real beginning of my army life. There were many leading members and senior members who came to the army faster than me, higher in ranks than me. Many Korean guys who finished army said living with senior members was the most difficult thing in army life. Because they could order to me and I had to obey them. At first time it was difficult to adjust the army but fortunately I could adapt to army life and lived well. Sometimes I got a vacation and I could go to my home and meet friends, many soldiers could stand their life because of vacation and they concentrated on how to get more vacations. But time goes fly, I could finish my army very well.
Many people ask me how was the army life? And I always said that at once is good but not more. I could learn and experience many things such as military society which was kind of real society, an independent spirit, self confidence, good habits, pride, how to live and how to deal with lower grade people. And above all I felt about my parents’ love and importance, so I decided to be a good son to my parents. If you want to know about army, please ask to me