Yoo Seung-ho Completes Military Service

Yoo Seung-ho

Actor Yoo Seung-ho finished his military service on Thursday after 21 months of duty in an Army unit in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province.

Many fans at home and from abroad braved the cold to greet him in front of the unit.

Yoo said that he has many good memories from his service and took time to think deeply about his future. He thanked fans for waiting for and welcoming him although he was unable to say goodbye when he entered the military in March 2013.

He is not wasting any time getting back to work; there are already plans to appear in a romance film involving a magician and a princess in the Chosun period.

Yoo will meet fans here on Dec. 21 before going to Osaka on Dec. 24, Tokyo on Christmas and Shanghai on Dec. 27.

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Support for Compulsory Military Service on the Wane

More parents hope their sons can skip compulsory military service, which they consider a waste of precious years in their young lives.

According to a recent survey, seven out of 10 respondent or 70.2 percent, said they would encourage young men to "tough it out," but the percentage was much smaller among people under 50.

Some 40.2 percent whose sons are nearing conscription age said they would prefer them to be exempt if possible. The proportion was slightly bigger among mothers than fathers with 42.5 percent as against 37.9 percent.

In a similar survey by a high school in Busan in August, 38.1 percent of respondents said they want to avoid conscription if possible. Only 34.5 percent agreed that military service is inevitable at a time when the nation remains divided, and even fewer or 27.4 percent agreed that it is "natural and honorable" to serve in the military.

That suggests some 70 percent do not see the point.

Asked why they do not look forward to their military service, 39.5 percent cited the hard life in barracks, 32.3 percent violence and bullying, and 28.2 percent said it would be a waste of time.

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Author Tim O'Brien wins Pritzker award for military writing

(Reuters) - U.S. author Tim O'Brien was awarded the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, the first fiction writer to win the six-year-old prize, the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago said on Tuesday.

O'Brien, a Vietnam War veteran, is best known for his 1990 story collection "The Things They Carried" about a platoon of U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War.

"Tim O'Brien's fiction about Vietnam, which derives from his own experience as a soldier, is haunting, evocative and wonderfully inventive," historian Rick Atkinson, the 2011 award winner, said in a statement.

"Yet his writing transcends that particular war in that particular era to illuminate our sense of war universally," Atkinson added.

Minnesota native O'Brien, 66, also won the National Book Award for Fiction for his 1978 war novel, "Going After Cacciato."

The lifetime achievement award hands out a $100,000 cash prize annually. Past winners include U.S. Civil War historian James McPherson and British historian Max Hastings.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and David Gregorio)

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Author Tim O'Brien wins Pritzker award for military writing

(Reuters) - U.S. author Tim O'Brien was awarded the Pritzker Military Library Literature Award, the first fiction writer to win the six-year-old prize, the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago said on Tuesday.

O'Brien, a Vietnam War veteran, is best known for his 1990 story collection "The Things They Carried" about a platoon of U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War.

"Tim O'Brien's fiction about Vietnam, which derives from his own experience as a soldier, is haunting, evocative and wonderfully inventive," historian Rick Atkinson, the 2011 award winner, said in a statement.

"Yet his writing transcends that particular war in that particular era to illuminate our sense of war universally," Atkinson added.

Minnesota native O'Brien, 66, also won the National Book Award for Fiction for his 1978 war novel, "Going After Cacciato."

The lifetime achievement award hands out a $100,000 cash prize annually. Past winners include U.S. Civil War historian James McPherson and British historian Max Hastings.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and David Gregorio)

View the original article here