this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)
Europe
8484 readers
1 users here now
News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe ๐ช๐บ
(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, ๐ฉ๐ช ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures
Rules
(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)
- Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
- No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
- No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.
Also check out [email protected]
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Yep, I was one of only roughly 15% of men in my cohort that had to do conscription or civilian service after leaving high school. The rest did gap years or did go to university directly. This was generally considered to be unfair. This is why now a "Allgemeine Dienstpflicht" is discussed by politicians, where everyone has to do some service to society for a year, but can freely decide whether it is military os civilian service.
I served in civil defence and can say that that's definitely a good idea as civil defence relies on a large reserve. While getting volunteers once shit hits the fan is absurdly easy, practically none of them can be taken on, at least not for tasks more complex than forming a human chain to move sandbags, because there's no time to train them. When the draft was still active there was a steady trickle of conscious objectors, and even if they don't serve in the active reserve they're still people you can integrate quickly. It hasn't been that long since the draft got suspended so readiness isn't in dire straits but if it goes on, it very well could be.
A couple of months on how to operate a radio, structure and organisation of the services, some theory about dikes and floods or avalanches or whatever might be applicable, qualification as a low-rank paramedic, knowing how to evacuate a city and build a tent city and operate goulash cannons never hurt anyone. Heck, half of that is a summer camp. A year would be a bit much I think, six months would be adequate, but there's nothing stopping different services from requiring longer service. Civil defence is a good place to put people who can't be arsed to choose though, I think, and it'd be cheap and easy to expand training capacity to cover a complete cohort. We do have a fuckton of tents and goulash cannons, wouldn't hurt to actually use them.
Also, just like back in my days, don't require people to do the service in one continuous block, mine amounted to an average of a weekend per month for five years.