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| Yellow Card Winner |
"I've always admired the Air Force, because my father once served there." said Kim, who added "I will try to help our Air Force, which – like me – is an attacking midfielder in the national defense."
Kim is hoping that his honorary service will deflect any future portrayal of Korea's football players as a group of playboy cowards who would do anything to avoid actually facing danger while pretending that they are heroes facing mortal danger on the football field, especially after their notably riotous celebrations following the game that would see them avoid military duty.
Posing heroically in an Air Force uniform, Kim told reporters "In the last war, I faced 11 Japanese zeroes charging towards me but somehow beat them off to tell the heroic story of my survival. If war breaks out I will do my duty by posing heroically in an Air Force uniform to convince young men to risk their life in the defense of our country as I have done." Kim maintained that he fought bravely and even earned a Yellow Card, one of Korean football's highest honors.
When asked if he would actually consider joining the Air Force in order to fight the Japanese, the FC Datsburg player said he had already fought the Japanese in the air having won a significant number of headers over them, and would be glad to pass on his aerial combat experience to recruits from his apartment in the exclusive Gangnam district of Seoul, when he wasn't busy fighting for Korea elsewhere.
Some overseas football pundits have openly questioned why it is that Korean players over the years often disappoint for their club sidea, but do remarkably well for the national team when they stand to win freedom from their otherwise mandatory military service. And even in Korea, there has been criticism of the scheme, partly because it completely contradicts Lee Myung-bak's claim to want to create a 'Fair Society', but mostly because everyone knows that the Korea's national football team will never play as well again until it is made up of a new generation of players who need to avoid doing their national military service.
The football team's exemption is part of a wider 'natural selection' scheme which discretely ensures that only the unprivileged actually have to fight and die in the event of a war or bullying in the barracks. So while a number of high-profile non-athletic celebrities who fight in Korea's culture wars are still expected to serve their national service, it is usually in a comfortable public relations position where the only daily danger they face is of being recognized without their makeup on.
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