Are celebrities more likely to fall ill? Why are celebrities granted more days off than the other soldiers in the military? KBS investigated the issue with Kim Byung Kee of the Democratic Party of Korea.
A recent report revealed non-celebrity soldiers who were discharged this year requested an average of 2.9 days off during their service. On the contrary, that of celebrity soldiers was 17 days. Jinwoon requested additional 46 days off, Onew asked for 37 days, Eunkwang took 30 days, and Junhyung who is yet to be discharged took 33 days off to date.
According to the military's vacation policy, anyone can request a day off if he feels extremely unwell. Indeed, it's his right to request time off if he needs additional care outside of the military. But this alarming discrepency makes people raise their eyebrows.
The Ministry of National Defense stated "all requests by celebrities were legal and processed through appropriate procedures", however, the department refused to officially address the issue of the differences.
What do you think?
SHARE
Ughhh. I hate this kind of half-assed reporting. As someone who actually served in the military, I can tell you vacation days vary a lot depending on the position you serve in. It's normal. You can't compare to the average but to people serving a similar position. You also need to look into why they were given any extra days. Also, what counts as vacation? For example, my brother served in military headquarters and worked basically a normal 9-5 job five days a week. I served what we called 10-4: 10 days on base, 4 days at home. Of those 4 days, 2 were of course weekdays, so they are listed as a special vacation. Over my 21 months of service, that adds up to a lot. So did I got an unfair amount of extra vacation days relative to my brother? Of course not, we got the exact same amount, just his were normal weekends so don't count as vacation. Also, towards the end of my service I got an "outstanding soldier" award that got me an extra vacation day every two weeks until the end of my service. So yeah, I did get some extra vacation, but I earned it. I feel pretty sure that most of these extra vacations the celebrities have are similar things. Because they are serving in things like military band, or doing musicals for the military or working as basic training instructors - all jobs that would require them to work weekends.