BTS V Reveals the Letter That Got Him Through Military Service

In a wide-ranging YouTube appearance that has left BTS fans emotional and deeply moved, V (Kim Taehyung) revealed what truly helped him get through his mandatory military service — and it came from an unlikely source. On March 28, 2026, BTS V and RM appeared on the popular Korean YouTube channel 빠더너스 (BDNS), hosted by comedian and writer Moon Sang-hoon (문상훈), in an episode titled "Waiting for the Jangchung-dong Jokbal That Never Comes with BTS RM and V." What followed was one of the most candid, emotionally resonant BTS conversations in recent memory.

The casual format — the hosts and guests ostensibly killing time waiting for a pork trotter delivery that never quite arrives — gave the conversation room to breathe. And breathe it did.

The Letter That Found V in the Military

Moon Sang-hoon is best known in Korean entertainment for his heartfelt handwritten letters, often delivered to guests or colleagues in moments that catch them completely off guard. He appeared on shows like You Quiz on the Block with Yoo Jae-seok, where one such letter he wrote became widely shared online. It was that specific letter — Moon's deeply personal writing to Yoo Jae-seok — that found its way to V during his military service.

V served in the Special Duty Team (SDT) of the Military Police and was discharged in June 2025. During that period, he came across Moon Sang-hoon's letter and was, by his own account, profoundly moved. He described it as bringing him genuine comfort during one of the mentally and physically demanding stretches of his service.

The portion of the letter that fans have since translated and shared widely reads, in part: "Every time I try to ease my mind with the excuse that I can't be a good person to everyone, I find myself thinking of you, hyung. I've always had doubts about the saying 'The kindest people are the strongest'..." — a meditation on decency and the difficulty of maintaining it that, for V, landed with unexpected force.

"I read it and it stayed with me. It gave me a lot of comfort during that time."

What happened next is the detail ARMY has not stopped talking about since.

The DM That Started a Friendship

At some point during or after his service, V reached out to Moon Sang-hoon directly — via Instagram DM — to tell him how much the writing had meant. Moon replied. And then, in a move that V described as warmly unexpected, Moon gave V his personal phone number. A one-way admiration had become a two-way connection.

That connection eventually led to Saturday's 빠더너스 appearance. V showing up on a relatively niche Korean YouTube comedy channel — alongside RM, no less — is the kind of move that makes more sense once you know the origin. This wasn't a calculated promotional stop. It was a visit to someone whose words had mattered.

The revelation drew immediate, emotional responses from ARMY. Many fans described the detail as quintessentially Taehyung — his literary sensitivity, his tendency to reach out when something genuinely affects him, and the way he builds friendships across unexpected spaces. "He's so precious," became a refrain across fan communities. "Only he would DM a comedian because a letter moved him."

RM on LA, Living Together, and 100 Songs

V's story wasn't the only revelation on 빠더너스. RM used the appearance to share what happened after all seven BTS members completed their military service — which concluded in June 2025 with the remaining members' discharge.

Rather than immediately resuming their separate lives, RM proposed that the group go to Los Angeles together for an intensive two-month recording session. It was, he noted, the first time in roughly seven years that all seven members had lived under one roof. BTS had begun living independently around 2018 or 2019 — a natural development as adult lives expand in different directions — but for those two months in LA, they were back to something that resembled the early years.

The schedule was structured but alive. Mornings were spent exercising together. From 1 PM to 8 PM, they made music. Over the course of the two months, they archived more than 100 songs. From those, they chose 14 tracks that became ARIRANG — the album BTS released on March 20, 2026, to mark their full group return. RM called it "truly wonderful."

He also reflected on the group's longer arc. "Fourteen years," he said, "with no member ever leaving. The members are genuinely kind and deeply considerate of each other." He called it, simply, a miracle — and given everything the K-pop industry has seen over those same fourteen years, it is difficult to argue with that word.

V's First Soju and the Joy of Being Together Again

Not everything on 빠더너스 was heavy. V revealed that during the LA sessions, he drank soju for the first time — a detail that sent the room into laughter and fans into a gentle spiral of delight. The image of seven of the most famous musicians in the world, reunited in a house in Los Angeles, eating and drinking together while making an album, has a warmth to it that even the most polished promotional messaging cannot manufacture.

It is the kind of story BTS has always been able to tell — not because their lives are ordinary, but because the affection between the members remains, somehow, completely legible.

A Comeback Framed by Candor

The 빠더너스 appearance is one of several informal YouTube visits BTS members have made since the ARIRANG comeback. Jin appeared on Gian84's channel. Jimin sat down with comedian Lee Soo-ji. RM and Suga visited Epik High's channel. V appeared separately on singer-songwriter Jung Jae Hyung's fairyjaehyung on March 20, 2026. In each of these appearances, the members have been notably unguarded — choosing settings that feel chosen rather than scheduled.

빠더너스, in that sense, is a perfect fit for V. Moon Sang-hoon's brand of sincerity — emotional, literary, sometimes disarming in its directness — maps naturally onto what V has always valued. The letter comforted him in the military. The DM became a friendship. The friendship became a YouTube video that made millions of fans cry on a Saturday night.

It is, in its own small way, exactly the kind of story BTS has always been made of.