This question was inspired by a post on lemmy.zip about lowering the minimum age to purchase firearms in the US, and a lot of commeters brought up military service and training as a benchmark to normal civilians, and how if guns would be prevalent, then firearm training should be more common.
For reference, I live in the USA, where the minimum age to join the military is 18, but joining is, for the most part, optional. I also know some friends that have gone through the military, mostly for college benefits, and it has really messed them up. However, I have also met some friends from south korea, where I understand military service is mandatory before starting a more normal career. From what I’ve heard, military service was treated more as a trade school, because they were never deployed, in comparison to American troops.
I just wanted to know what the broader Lemmy community thought about mandatory military service is, especially from viewpoints outside the US.
If a country gets away with not having a mandatory military service, then it sholdn’t have one. Forcing people (usually just men) to spend a substancial amount of time in something, they might have zero motivation to, is unjust.
That being said, I absolutely support the fact that we do have a conscription based army here in Finland. There simply is an existential imperative for an army that is wastly larger than what could be achieved with volunteers. Maybe an initial fighting force could be mustered, but we would have problems refreshing it throug years of heavy attritional combat. Like Ukraine could most likely never maintain a fighting force through volunteer only.
That being said there is an option of civilian service here in Finland. I hold no grudge against anyone choosing that option. I agree that the system is fundamentally injust. I just see no alternative.
What does the conscription look like in daily life? Do people just naturally transition from military life to civilian life, same as going from school to working?
In my day you would start either in July or January. I wanted to go get it over with straight after secondary school in July They pushed my start date to January, because everyone wants to start in the summer between classes.
So I went to university for a year and got a six month exemption because studies. Then I did my conscription for one year and straight back to year 2 of uni. It worked out nicely time-wise, and I didn’t have to think about a summer job those two summers.
After two years of studies I was in a better place to get relevant work, anyway.