Singer and performer Suga from the popular South Korean band BTS has officially begun mandatory military service from September 22.
The singer will not be actually serving in the military, but is working as a social service agent.
The social service branch provides an alternative offer for people who cannot complete military duty because of physical or mental health issues, and revolves around working in welfare centers, community service or post office but it is still a requirement to complete three weeks of basic military service.
Suga gave an update to fans on Weverse, writing: “I’ll faithfully serve and come back … Please stay healthy and let’s meet all again in 2025.”
Suga is the third member of the band to begin mandatory military duty, with Jin and J-Hope already performing active service on army bases.
BTS announced a hiatus in 2022 in a pre-taped special with all seven members of the band, Jin, Jimin, RM, J-Hope, Suga, V, and Jungkook.
Jimin spoke about the group’s “rough patch” as they try to “find our identity, and that’s an exhausting and long process.”
Suga said “The hardest thing is writing lyrics… I have to talk about something that I really feel, but right now, I’m just squeezing it out because we have to satisfy people’s wants and the listeners. It’s so painful, but that’s just how this job goes.”
Jungkook said the group was taking some time apart in order to focus on individual music: “We’re each going to take some time to have fun and experience lots of things. We promise we will return someday even more mature than we are now.”
Since then, the group members have released individual music, with Jungkook releasing his new single ‘3D’ which featured Jack Harlow, and ‘Seven’ in 2023 which featured Latto, and went to debut at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2020, Suga had released his mixtape D-2 which peaked at number 11 on the Billboard 200.
