The central focus of this study is the increasing rate of suicide among officers in the Korean Army. Suicide is a serious social problem in Korean society at large now. South Korea leads the list of OECD1 countries with the highest suicide rate in its general public. As of 2009, the suicide rate of the Korean society was more than double the OECD average. The Korean Army has made a wide range of diverse efforts over the last three decades in order to prevent suicide among its rank-and-file members. These efforts have certainly paid off and drastically reduced suicide, making the Korean Army’s suicide rate one of the lowest in the advanced world. This is all the more remarkable, considering that suicide is such a pervasive malaise in the Korean society at large.
Yet the Korean Army has been unable to decrease the rate of suicide among its officers. Even though the suicide-prevention system targeting the rank and file is quite well-organized and enforced, many officers are excluded from its reach.
In recognition of this problem, I sought to test the feasibility of using a trial death education program as a means to help prevent suicide among the army officers. To this end, I designed and put to trial a program of death education especially for the officers within the Korean Army. The founding hypothesis of this study is that death education is capable of helping officers fight the suicidal urge by encouraging them to reflect on themselves and their lives better and more actively. Death education, in particular, appeared to be a well-suited instrument the military chaplains could use in performing religious services and suicide-preventing roles in the army. Death has been a central subject of philosophy and religion since the beginning of humanity. Religion cannot be safely left out of discussions concerning death.
Moreover, the military is the institution most susceptible to and conscious of death. Providing death education is a noble and natural part of running an institution whose members are always required to sacrifice their lives for their nation at any time when necessary. Preventing suicide, however, is not the final end of the death education outlined here; rather, it is to be achieved as a natural byproduct of death education. Death education for military officers could therefore serve both to strengthen their motivation for military service and to enhance their positive outlook on life so as to save them from suicidal temptations. The death education program this study designed was put into practice involving a select group of Korean Army officers to great end and feedbacks. I hope this dissertation would be of value to anyone interested in studying and developing better and more practical death education programs for members of the military.