this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2023
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I'll speak from the perspective of Greece, which has mandatory military service for all males >= 18yo that lasts a full year.
It makes sense that the country needs conscripts and a population that knows how to fight, since we have a neighbor that doesn't play so nice with their surrounding countries.
However the way it's implemented is pure bullshit:
The actual training happens in the first few months, after that it's just free manual labour.
You get to deal with so much BS from the permanent staff, they have a huge superiority complex that you have to accept and play by in order to not have penalties or military prison.
You can't go home, can't see your loved ones, your life is basically shit except the days that you're given leave, which is around a month or so in total.
You get no sleep and work all day, it's a common phenomenon to sleep 3 hours every day.
It's unpaid. (it's actually 8.5 euro a month which is arguably worse than unpaid, it's like getting spat on the face)
You pay for lots of things, travelling to/from the base, buying food outside etc.
It's corrupt as fuck. There are so many people that know someone in the military or meet someone inside, and get very special treatment while the rest have to work twice as hard to cover up for them.
It is extremely hard to avoid it completely, there are parents with little kids that are missing from home for months because of it, there are poor people that can't afford not to be working but still have to go, there are mentally ill people that aren't given a full exclusion.
And it used to be much worse than this, we're the ones that "have it good"..