Mental illness: Young male celebs struggle with military service

By Dong Sun-hwa

Young male celebrities are struggling to finish mandatory military service.

Often their early discharge or removal from active duty raises suspicions they are pretending to be too ill to serve.

After all, they are often at the peak of their careers and their mandatory service may bring disruptions they are unable to recover from.

Singer-actor Lee Joon, 30, a member of now-disbanded K-pop boy band MBLAQ, enlisted as an active-duty Army soldier in October 2017. But in February he was downgraded to reserve status. He has been suffering from panic disorder.

His agency, Prain TPC, said the star has received treatment but showed little improvement. It denied a rumor about Lee's suicide attempt and that he was in the special care “green camp” for problematic soldiers.

Korean rapper Swings, 32, who joined the Army in 2014, raised eyebrows for his early discharge in 2015. Swings defended it on Facebook, saying the medicine he took for mental illness had serious side effects that made continuing his military service impossible.

Actor Jang Keun-suk, 31, has been a bipolar disorder patient since 2011. For that, Jang has been given alternative service rather than military duty.

His agency said the actor was disqualified from active duty after repeated physical examinations. Some suspect Jang received special treatment.

Jang will join boot camp on July 16.

Some actors and singers feign illnesses to be exempted from mandatory service or assigned an easier alternative.

In 2015, singer Kim Woo-joo, 33, was sentenced to a year in prison for his attempt to be exempted by pretending he was mentally ill after delaying his conscription as long as he could.