In Korea, every young man is obliged to serve the army unless otherwise disobliged. Thus, young people and their family members are greatly concerned about the safe armed services.
In order to relieve them of such a concern, our military authorities i...
In Korea, every young man is obliged to serve the army unless otherwise disobliged. Thus, young people and their family members are greatly concerned about the safe armed services.
In order to relieve them of such a concern, our military authorities including commanders and staff should be well informed of their soldiers' family background including financial and other conditions, and thereupon, they should continue to monitor soldiers' military camp life and its environment, keeping eyes on their adaptability to the military life.
With such basic conceptions in mind, the researcher as a military commander has long agonized how to help our soldiers live protected from various accidents and thereby, end their military life in a safe and healthy way. After all, the researcher has come to the conclusion that what our soldiers want from, worry about and need for their military life should be thoroughly reviewed and analyzed to be effectively resolved.
Thus, the researcher analyzed in depth the various environmental factors affecting our soldiers' some 2-year-long military life (such as their view of life, military staff, educational and training, services themselves, promotion of ranks, camp administration factors, etc.,), and thereupon, examined the interactions between such environmental factors and their emotional factors to analyze the effects of the environmental factors on their adaptation to the military life in the following three-fold ways. First, the descriptive statistical quantitative analysis was conducted to determine the differences of the six environmental factors affecting our soldiers' military life depending on the regions of military services. Second, the one-way ANOVA analysis was performed to determine the differences of 5 emotional factors affecting their adaptation to the military life: region of services (remote regions or not), rank, family backgrounds (normal or broken family), religion and lover. Third, the Pearson's correlation analysis was conducted to analyze the effects of other 7 personal emotional actors on our soldiers' adaptation to the military life: current emotional status, current health condition, concern about family condition, concern about family financial condition, sense of understanding, positive attitude and satisfaction with the military life.
As a result of the above analyses, it was found that the rank affected our soldiers' adaptation to the military life most among the six environmental factors, while view of life affected their adaptation to the military life least. Such a finding suggests that the physical environment for their military life needs to be improved for those serving in the remote areas. On the other hand, the region of services affected our soldiers' adaptation to the military life most, while rank affected it least. This finding suggests that our soldiers need to choose the regions of their services to be more adaptable to the military life.
As a result of the correlation analysis, positive attitude and satisfaction with the military life were found to affect our soldiers' adaptation to the military life most, while concern about family financial condition was least correlated with their adaptation to the military life. Such a finding suggests that it would be necessary to develop a standardized emotional and psychological analysis table where our soldiers' personal attributes could be analyzed in-depth for regular counselling for them. In addition, since our soldiers' pre-service view of the military tends to remain unchanged during their services, it is deemed necessary to take some measures to help them change such a negative view into a positive one.
Summing up, in order to help our soldiers adapt themselves more effectively to the military life, the following 7 policy alternatives were suggested for our military commanders;
First, it is necessary to identify the problems facing our soldiers through an open-minded dialogue. Second, it is essential to listen to them. Third, it is required to help them enhance the solidarity of comrades. Fourth, it is important to share pain and troubles with them. Fifth, our commanders are obliged to help their soldiers to finish their military services full of sense of mission and loyalty. Sixth, our soldiers are requested to live their military life with an active and positive view of the military services. Lastly, any environmental factor affecting our soldiers' adaptation to the military life should not fail to be improved. As Article 39 Section 2 of our Constitution declares, our military staff and commanders are obliged to help our soldiers finish their military services safely and return to their families without suffering any unfavorable loss.