This thread is so antimilitary and people think his service is bad. Here is my views as someone whose country has similiar conscription as South Korea. Sorry for bad grammar.

First of all you can have an influence when you go in. If you need to delay the start of service (due to school, carreer or medical reasons) it is fully possible to delay it up to 10 years from your original enlistment.

It is tradition. Most people in my country really think of the service as a thing you just do. My grandfather has done it, My father has done it, My older brother went through it, why wouldn't I? Polls show that if conscription was made non-mandatory, most people would still go and do it. Most people do it as a service to our country and to pay respect to our grandfathers and those who've fought for our independence. In polls around 80% of people would be willing to defend this country from an enemy.

You make friends for life. You make memories for life. You learn things you wouldn't anywhere else, and you get to experience things you wouldn't anywhere else. Sure it sucks for his carreer but it didn't seem from the stream that he was really against going.

Most of you propably are american and think of military service as going to war. No. It's conscription where people are assigned roles that they would fill in a case of a conflict or a war. They train to use the equipment and learn mandatory skills such as shooting a gun.

This is just my views as someone who did the maximum conscription. I wasn't forced to it, I chose to do it.