Conscription in South Korea
The basis for military conscription in South Korea is the Constitution of the Republic of Korea, which was promulgated on July 17, 1948. The constitution states in Article 39, "All citizens shall have the duty of national defense under the conditions as prescribed by Act." The Military Service Act of 1949, which was implemented in 1957, specified that compulsory military service is required for men ages 19 or older. Conscription is managed by the Military Manpower Administration, which was created in 1948.
Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598)
Officers in the Joseon army came exclusively from the aristocracy, but unlike the highly militarist Japanese aristocracy trained to be soldiers from their youth onward, for the Joseon aristocracy scholarship was valued and war was disparaged as something unworthy of a Confucian gentleman-scholar. The quality of Korean generalship was very variable with some Korean officers being able and others being men who had not devoted much time to the study of war, preferring archery, writing, practicing their calligraphy, and reading Confucian classics. Korean infantrymen wore a Chinese-style hat, but no armor. The standard Korean sword was Hwando a curved sword commonly used by Joseon soldiers during peace time that is shorter, but lighter than Japanese counterpart. A uniquely Korean weapon was the flail, a -long hardwood stick, painted red, acting as the handle for a chain attached to a shaft with iron nails. Joseon infantrymen often fought as archers, and a Japanese source from 1592 commented Koreans were superior as soldiers to the Japanese only as archers because their bows had a range of against the of Japanese archers.