(; ) is the rank usually held by enlisted personnel in some East Asian militaries. The ranks are used in both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China on Taiwan, and both North and South Korea. The rank name is based on one of the four ancient occupations.
The Sino-Korean word component "" means "soldier" literally, used in a wide variety of words related with soldiers, like in (; Hanja: , ), but rarely (usually in technical context in armed forces) per se.
s, who work closely with their US military counterparts, are frequently addressed as "sergeant" or the equivalent E-5 term in English by the U.S. military. This varies however by unit. In a similar vein, some US E-5s are called hasa by the ROKA members, as their status is one of an NCO.
The various ranks of are denoted by stripes worn laterally on a service member's left sleeve. An even lower rank, that of mudeungbyeong (; Hanja: , ), also known as hullyeonbyeong (; Hanja: , ), is usually believed to be held by enlisted recruits in basic training, and those recruits are not allowed to have any insignia on their uniform until they finish the training course, but they are actually regarded to be ideungbyeong (the lowest byeong rank) officially.
In most comparative military scales, a is considered the equivalent of a non-commissioned officer equal to a sergeant. The South Korean military, however, does not generally grant NCO powers to a service member until obtaining the rank of hasa. Still, in South Korea is exceptionally considered as an NCO when holding the squad leader position.
The word byeong (soldier) has a natural context that personnel in those ranks are not in commanding responsibilities, thus not NCOs at all. They are strictly distinguished from the ranks above in many respects. Personnel with ranks of hasa or above are called ganbu (; Hanja: , ), as an antonym of byeong. South Korea's South Korean military are retained by the conscription system. If a person is enlisted to an armed force and has not applied for NCO or officer, then his highest rank until he finishes the mandatory service term (21 months in case of the ROK Army, as of 2012) is to be the highest rank of byeong (i.e. ).
The same rank names are used for all services, prefixed by () or ().
Mudeungbyeong (literally "rank-less soldier") is a term describing the lowest possible military rank in the armed forces of South Korea. It is the combined equivalent of an army recruit or seaman recruit in other militaries of the world. The official name is jangjeong (ìÂ¥ì Â), which refers to enlistees before they have been assigned a rank. A jangjeong wears no insignia and the rank is typically only held by those attending initial basic training. The term hullyeonbyeong (ÃÂÂë ¨ë³Â), meaning "trainee," is also sometimes used for those still in boot camp. The North Korean Korean People's Army does not maintain an equivalent position.
Ranks used in Chinese character-using countries