Mandatory military service

I wish you the same military service I had.

I was at the military orchestra for one year and I pretty nothing to do besides playing the Baritone and having some concerts and so.

And I got money aswell (1.000€/month in the last months)

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Melissa_GGG wrote:

Never quite understood mandatory military service.

mandatory military service has the background that citicens understand it as a "people's army".

if you build your army from professional killers (err, mercenaries) it's a shortcut to invading other countries (err, taking international responsibility and doing peace missions).

The only time people should be forced to go to war is when it's at their doorstep. There may be occasions when such folk regret not going to war sooner, but it should be their own decision in any place calling itself a free country.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

Not a day goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars where and when I was born. Some of my older relatives and their friends went through Vietnam with the 'draft' and that'd be just horrifying. Some folks are cut out for war; some have uses elsewhere.

Unfortunately there is always a need for cannon fodder, no matter where you deploy or what you defend. Simple.

Poutsos, when is this disaster supposed to happen? Maybe it's time to rethink staying in Greece, while you're still in EU as it exists. It's better to waste time on unplanned degree or something than polishing floors in the army.

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JohnGrammaticus wrote:

Poutsos, when is this disaster supposed to happen? Maybe it's time to rethink staying in Greece, while you're still in EU as it exists. It's better to waste time on unplanned degree or something than polishing floors in the army.

In January. Going abroad is not an option.
Wherever i return i would still need to surve. Plus they only give you extra time(until you are 30) after 27 years old ONLY for PhD, no matter if you do it here or abroad. Otherwise you are considered a deserter, and you are allowed only 15-30 days in Greek soil per year. I could in theory live abroad until i am 35, and then come back and buy off the conscript (7-8K Euros, plus fines for deserting), but this requires alot of planning, and i should make sure that i would have the money by then. So all in all, not an option.

As Wagi said, military orchestra is a good option for me, if they take me(and they should. I do not think they have many university graduates in music), but orchestra here does not mean that you just play music and rehearse. You still have to live in military camps 500KM away from your home, and you still swap floors. Just less.

A little bit of an update here. My service has started. I went for one month of basic military training. It was both better and worse than i imagined.

It was(still is) very hard for me to accept that you have to OBEY orders no matter what. That there is no democracy(legally there is not, according to military law) and your superior really IS your superior in this enviroment. You have to be dressed exactly as they want you to, you have to be exactly where they want you to be and do exactly what they want you to do, and there is no complaining or you will be punished. The toilets were(which of course were cleaned by us) were terrible, and is only to be expected. No matter how much you clean, when there are 15 toilets for 400 people to shit, things will get dirty. The food was terrible at times. Even though the materials were high quality it was usually cooked several hours before lunch/dinner time, so you imagine.

However i was kinda lucky. The other guys in my chamber were pretty decent, and our lieutenants(who were younger than me BTW) were also pretty good and helpful. Our captain was pretty strict and was yelling all the time, but in one on one meetings with him he was OK as well. I guess it is in his job description to be strict when he shows up in the morning for military reports.

Now my service ends at October 19th. As of what is going to happen now, i was both lucky and unlucky. The good news are that since i am a master degree musician, they took me on the military music department in my town, which means that monday-friday i will be there from 7am-1pm and then go home, except one day where i will have to stay in the camp to do patrols. Weekends are off, except 2 sundays per month where we will have to go and play for about an hour. So all that is pretty good.

The bad news are that i have to go through my second and final training cycle wich starts tommorow. This will take 3 weeks and after that i will be on the music department for the rest of my service. This alone would not be as bad, but since i scored 20/20 on the physical test, the training will be on the special forces. Green berrets, department of counter terrorism and unconventional warfare :S. I can theoritically refuse and do normal training, but it is hinted that i might lose my position at the music department. Not only the training will be exhausting physically and more important psycologically, but also i will have relearn how to use the gun, because on the green berrets we use the M4 instead of the German H&K G3, and i fucking hate guns. We will also have to do a 50KM walk within 2 days(sleepover will be on a tent in the mountains) with 20kg of equipment on us. We will have to get off a helicopter with a rope, we will have to learn how to shoot grenades, we will play live counter strike(lol) among other things, none of which interest me remotely, or even like it in the least.

Anyway, it's just 3 weeks i guess(even though in the army, every minute seems like an hour. Really).

Your best option and I'm being serious is to start applying for US citizenship. Stop fucking wasting time and come on over...

Hi,

don´t you have any alternative/community service ? I used to work in a hospital for 20 months instead of going to the army, when Germany still had a mandatory service. By that time one of my friends went out of the military service into community service some months after he had started. I have no idea, if that´s possible in Greece now. I´m not a 100% pacifist, I just had to tell people who had to decide - idiotic politics is not my fault.

You never know who is giving the orders in the future and if you can think of your own, I believe you should not be forced to take orders from others. It might not have big consequences now, but things might change (When I look at some current developments I´m pessimistic).

However, always remind yourself who you are as an individual, it probably helps, if you have some friendly people around, hopefully there is still time for some senseless fun...