this is pretty old news mate, it's public knowledge here. i believe he's still officially in the army.
please merge it into this bigger thread http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64188&highlight=military
What's the big deal? Didn't Lee Yong Dae have to take time off badminton to do his mandatory service in Korea?
LYD is exempt from military service because of 2008 OP gold, it is Park Sung Hwan and Jung Jae Sung who took military service.
LD is on of the many 'products' of a covert military Weapon-X program. a joint venture between the now defunct communist USSR & Comm China. Since the coldwar blew over and everyone is a capitalist again... the Super Soilder program got scrapped (also after an inquiry about where all the tax payer monies went missing...) and so the specimens were then placed into the National Sports Department to hone and fight for national propaganda in the various International Sporting Stages such as badminton and weightlifting.
Exactly speaking, Any Olympic medalists, irrespective of the colors, are exempted from the whole military services, which take usually around two years. They only take 4-week training course. LYD, LJJ, HJM are such guys. JJS and PSH "are" now on their military services; but they belong to the Sports Division of the Army and their main duty is to play badminton; they represent for Korea in international tourneys and for their Army Team in national tourneys. That's why the haircut of JJS and PSH is so short.
look like some kind of publicity campaign to me. What is a mere 7 day of extra regimentation to these super-fit athletes? The badminton training they've gone through in the past have already been very regimental. I'm sure that even if it were a 7D6N outfield ex in full battle order, they'd have had the mental and physical attributes to breeze through it like a holiday camp.
He joins Team of China as a representative of PLA Team. He has been an army man for a long time and his weapon is a badminton racquet ^_^.