My experience in the Korean military

For most of my 20s, it was an experience that I had to affirm, although the aftertaste was not very pleasant.

I served in two institutions for 7 years. The first is Agency for Defense Development (ADD), which is the primary research center of Korean defense research, and the second is the Cyber Operations Command. ADD is a research institute that researches a wide variety of weapons systems. Conventional weapons such as rifles, tanks, and missiles, the headquarters where I worked was a place to research cyber weapons systems.

First of all, I was able to meet many precious relationships at ADD. There was not much I could do because it was too much to work at the research institute after just graduating from the undergraduate school. Yet, I was able to grow a lot there as a researcher. There were two main factors, the first was because I met good senior researchers who led me to help with research in various ways. I still have good relations with the researchers. The second was my will to research and the admission of a graduate Ph.D. program. I wasn’t allowed to go to graduate school in the first year because my military administrator did not allow me to because there was no case that the second lieutenant enters a graduate school in the history of Korean military (indeed, this was an improper order), but from the second year as the first lieutenant, I started research at the School of Cybersecurity at Korea University after work everyday. By the time I finished my career at ADD, I had grown to the level of a master’s degree. For example, I presented my own research at the INFOCOM workshop in 2019.

After completing my service at ADD, I started a new job as captain until the point of completing 7 years of duty at the Cyber Operations Command through allocation according to application. At that time, the Cyber Operations Command still looked cluttered after the comment unit scandal. It is difficult to reveal my specific affiliation, but I mostly carried out R&D work except for some other participation. The R&D work here was very different from that at ADD. Rather than looking far away, the major task was to develop and distribute technologies that could be used immediately in the operation. However, the biggest problem was that there was no people capable of R&D. In order to carry out R&D, personnel with R&D experience and senior researchers capable of leading research projects are required (I believe). It is difficult to describe in detail, but all were absent. This is not to criticize the level of people there, but I would like to criticize the person who designed this structure of organizations. Most of the military guys do not exist to carry out R&D, and R&D is fundamentally impossible with manpower allocated through circular work. If R&D is possible through an order, I would like to ask why the graduate school system exists.

Be that as it may, I finished my military service with a smile like the picture below.