South Korea: Declining but Persistent Military Heroism

With the growth of democracy promoting respect for human rights, military heroism has been declining in South Korea. Neither the commanders nor the citizens are willing to put their soldiers at risk of death. This study assumes that conformity to the Soldier’s Creed is a good indicator of the extent to which service members embrace military heroism because the Creed includes military values constituting military heroism. Based on this, survey data on 530 South Korean active service members were analyzed to identify promoters of military heroism. Major findings go as follows. First, the Army is moving away from the Modern military model in which heroic combat leaders are admired, indicating that the attitude towards military heroism will never be the same as it used to be. Second, military heroism is not changing into a different form. Traditional military values such as masculinity, institutional bonding, and military professionalism are positively associated with conformity to the Creed. In other words, individuals who align with traditional military values will adhere more closely to the heroic mindset. Finally, collective memories and experiences of female service members and army civilians impede military heroism from being cultivated into them, as relatively lower conformity scores for them showed.