South Korea students gain weight 'to dodge military service' - Sensationalist Headlines

Yea, that's why US has this weird af respect for military, where servicemen and women get all sorts of discounts and shit here you get judged for wearing a uniform and taking a seat on the train

my idea of conscription was to be useful and helping young people and have that choice. also incorporate national service, like community service and healthcare. i don't know why people can't discuss this in a civil manner. it's like "mandatory scouts" with the choice to opt out if you don't want to go to become a soldier. the riot in this argument is that people forget there are countries that do have the capability to care about their own.

To be fair after reading this thread I think it's safe to say that scandinavian conscription is so vastly different then how it is in the rest of the world to the point where it can't be compared (I should've realized that sooner before arguing) simply because there's so many things that don't apply to Israel, Singapore, Greece, etc. Like, for starters (again, Sweden, don't know if it's the same in Norway/Finland) we don't have collective punishment anymore. We have collective rewarding instead (PT if you finish a task too quickly), everyone's in the official military union and the overall environment has transitioned from being some nightmare you need to endure to a "office"-environment where everyone are colleagues. Honestly, again, I'm sorry if I offended anyone.

I'm intrigued - in a system such as your own, what can a person do if they feel they are mistreated by a commander, especially if said commander is a buddy with all other people in positions of power who will take his side? What stops authority cliques? In addition, is it possible to ask to be transferred to either another base or another position without going through a great ordeal of either exaggerating your mental illness (or faking one) or sitting in military prison to prove them you really do not want to stay where you are? Because here, they'll just go and tell you "you're a soldier now, man up" which conveniently absolves them from doing anything.

There's no authority cliques because if someone misbehaves they get the hammer and boot (or axe if you will) at the same time. If you feel mistreated by a commander or battlebuddy you go one tier up and report it there- the SAF takes these things very seriously and since this is Sweden there's alot of focus on the public view. Yes, you can ask to be transferred to another unit or base if it's not enough to report the issue and have the people responsible moved. When it comes to mental illness you're basically unfit for service the moment you even imply you may be depressed, suicidal etc. Back in the day we had a guy called Flink who snapped after his girlfriend broke up so he climbed up into a watchtower and gunned down a bunch of people with his rifle. After that the tests got tougher and if a CO suspects you're unfit you get sent home unless proven healthy. Then there's of course the lack of colelctive punishment. The SAF studied how other nations went about with military service and how they treated their soldiers which eventually lead to the dismantling of the system because the quality of the soldiers fluctuate. It's just not worth it in the long run.

Doesn't sound very mandatory to me, because if any hint of suicidal thoughts is enough to disqualify people from enlistment there is absolutely nothing stopping people from easily faking it, no? The way you describe it makes it sound voluntary in all but name, given the wide array of control you have over where you're posted and the little effort required to not be conscripted. In such a case, sure, I'm all for that type of (de facto voluntary) conscription.

I hate to be that guy, but I have questions for the non-Nordic Conscripts. How much are you over-inflating your own stories? I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I've known people first hand to have lied about their conditions while they were in bootcamp, or exaggerated what happen to them, or just straight up lied about actions that were forced upon other recruits or themselves. These tend to be people that dropped from training or quit all together before a certain point. When I was in boot we had someone lie about being abused, literally said that a DI had put hands on him and phsyically harmed him, that wasn't the case however as we were there to witness what actually occurred and it was literally the DI getting in his personal space and the dude just leaned back against the rack. I'm not saying what anyone of you have had happen never occurred but it seems to me that a few things mentioned such: Being degraded - I don't know any military that doesn't have a stressful basic training. That's the exact intent of basic training, to stress you out for a period of time while training you to be as effective as you can be in that potential situation.Ya know insults,name calling, singling you our or just yelling.(Actual hazing is unacceptable) Crazy Rules or Regulations - IGNHelper made take a double look at his post when he highlighted several things such as people smoking after lights out then forcing people to dump their shit. Were these conscripts suppose to have cigarettes? Similar incident happened where one of Squad Leaders took candy for an MRE after being told to toss it into a pile, guess what happened? We were forced into doing three-count push ups for two hours, with the DI's restarting the count because they did something they knew they weren't suppose to do.. Other times we had actual white space in the schedule where they just chose to make us do buddy carries for 3 hours. Then brining up recruits pointing guns at other people and gear go missing. These are kinda big deals everywhere because loosing you weapon is a big fucking no-no and more often than not it's the instructors head that'll roll for something like a rifle going missing. By no means am I expect all countries in the world with conscription or mandatory service to be remotely squeaky clean. But I have feeling there is some disingenuous information being used at the moment.

Over inflating what? You'll notice my story has very little specific details because it is not a story about what I went through but a story about how what I went through affected me. Degredation is standard in bootcamp, I agree, or at least, that is the only time the degradation is both overt and explicitly intended. However, there were very small but persistent details about everyday life in the base that were degrading (commanders forcing us to clean up their mess constantly, commanders setting up specific times for things and not bothering to either show up or tell us about a change, commanders pressuring people to donate blood whenever it was available by threatening to treat them at the bare minimum of what they are required by military law, officers deciding that something someone said was an insult and talking back and punishing them for it when nothing of the sort was intended) that never sat right with me and slowly chipped away at my sanity.

I mean yeah, you could fake it but then again there's the fact that after the physical and medical tests they just straight up ask if you want to serve/think you can handle it and if you say no you're off the hook. Our military is not what it once was, its golden days were during the Cold War. The budget can't equip, feed and train people who don't want to serve. So yeah in a sense it's basically not conscription in terms of anything by the name.

Over inflating lol, if you really want to find out, I can transfer you to actual servicemen who suffered. Or just head over to reddit singapore and read first hand accounts for yourself. My previous OC was reprimanded because he made a recruit carry rocks in his field packs. Our company got the most punishment in the cohort. Punishments have to be made as a lesson, its to tell the recruit 'DON'T FUCK UP, BECAUSE IN WAR, YOU GOTTA HANDLE EVEN WORST' And not 'hey fuck you, fuck you, and fuck all of you, knock it down, for the other guy's fault because his toothbrush was slightly out of place in the locker during inspection' and then good luck, because your whole bunk will hate that one guy, and you can bet your ass the hazing is gonna get worst.

Over in this part of the lands of Scandi what you do is you fill out a mandatory form when you turn 18 that basically just asks you if everything is alright. Nothing is stopping people from faking it (and I even know a few people that has) but it would be pointless since getting forced to do military service over here is really unlikely. You draw a number to see weather or not you have to, and if you don't they ask you if you want. And if I remember what the guy I should have drawn a number from said, then they don't even force you if you get a low number.

Yeah, I find it baffling that Facepunch rejects personal anecdotes if it doesn’t support their views but readily do so if it does. Fucking hypocritical assholes.

If the claim is "mandatory military service is fit for everyone" then a single counter-example suffice to disprove it. That's basic fucking logic. If a claim is "not everything is X" and someone brings up something that is X, it doesn't disprove the claim. That's a fallacy and it's what people reject here. If a claim is "everything is X" and someone brings up something that is not X, it disproves the claim. It's a logical deduction.

Yeah well it’s still inaccurate to claim ”mandatory military service is not suited for everyone” just from that.

that's not the argument here. the point is that it's not for EVERYONE, and that the choice to join should be up to the individual, not the state

Mandatory military service is bad because of the mandatory part. Military training can be great for some people, but it simply doesn't suit some others. To force them to endure it regardless is bad.

I made a post here that uses neither argument and which so far nobody has addressed. In South Korea, 'I want to decide whether or not I serve' is as valid as 'I want to decide whether or not I pay taxes'. It's not a choice, it's a social obligation. I don't like the idea of conscription, I consider it a violation of personal freedom, I would rather see a voluntary system that rewards participation in communal defense rather than making it mandatory. But I have yet to see an argument in this thread for what a country like South Korea can viably use to be prepared for the possibility of a North Korean invasion, because their volunteer military isn't enough and their allies aren't willing to shoulder all the weight. Rand did an analysis of the South Korean military back in '06. There's a section specifically on the topic of eliminating conscription: Is an “All-Volunteer Force” Possible? If the ROK would need to have 8.7 percent volunteers from the age cohort to produce a force with 40 percent volunteers among active-duty personnel, then it would need over 20 percent of the age cohort to volunteer in 2020 before it could eliminate the draft. By 2024 or so, this fraction would increase to 30 percent because of the further decline in the size of the age cohort. It seems extraordinarily unlikely that the ROK could get this high a percentage of officer and NCO volunteers. In addition, many of the volunteers today are “draft induced”: individuals who choose to become an officer or an NCO because they view that alternative as better than being a draftee. While the percentage of officers and NCOs may have risen a little bit in recent years, it may well decrease in the coming years with an improving economy along with the decline in perception that North Korea is a threat. In addition, if the draft were terminated, draft-induced volunteers would be lost. At the current level of salaries, the ROK military may be able to obtain only 3 to 4 percent of the age cohort as volunteers under such circumstances, well short of what would be needed, and perhaps only sufficient to support a force of 100,000 or so in 2020, and much less by 2025. In short, the draft will remain essential to the ROK military throughout the foreseeable future. For the overwhelming majority of human history (really, up until the end of the 20th century), it was widely accepted that being prepared to contribute to the common defense was the price of participating in society. All-volunteer militaries are a modern luxury of countries with strong standing armies or peaceful neighbors, and South Korea has neither. As a democratic society, they have the ability to eliminate conscription if or when they feel that there is no longer a need for it, but in the meantime that's not a realistic option.

I'm assuming you didn't go SAF?

I don't support conscription/the draft, I don't think it makes sense to use in any pragmatic way in most modern nations if not all. But what I don't get, is people saying they "wouldn't fight to defend their country" no matter. That to me, doesn't seem like a very well thought out position. I don't want to leave my country to go to war, but if anyone's homeland is being invaded or destroyed, would you not stand up to fight for that?

This is for you https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/131/18ac3139-998c-4759-b2c3-e2b13f9a5aed/image.png You'll need this for how high you're riding your stupid horse.

I'd just like to add on a couple of things here if I may. National Service (NS) in Singapore is not purely military conscription. Besides being conscripted into the Army, Navy and Air Force, men are also conscripted into the police force and civil defence force. Personally, I was conscripted into the police force, later specialising as a police coast guard officer. My NS experience was very fruitful and I consider myself lucky that I was posted to the police rather than the army/navy/air force. Although I recognise the need for a standing army, I feel my time was better spent in the police. While my peers were 'lounging' about in their army bunks and camps, I was on patrol at sea arresting people. While they had to stay in their army camps from Monday to Friday, I was on shift-work day and night. Conscripts perform a myriad of roles in the police, famously our transport police is made up almost entirely of conscripts. Elsewhere in the police, various units that deal with event security and the protection of key-installations (oil refineries, public utilities, etc.) are also composed of conscripts and reservists. In the civil defence force, conscripts serve as firefighters, medics, search and rescue dog handlers, and medical orderlies. In times of national emergency or war, conscripts and reservists are mobilised to man and prepare our bomb shelters. In my opinion, I do not think national service is entirely useless and meaningless. It would be good if NS could be expanded to other services.

You assume that because I live in Portugal I have any wish at all to protect it in case the Spaniards try to invade again. I don't. I'd flee the country and that's that. There is absolutely no patriotism in me, and why? Because I didn't exactly choose to be born here, I just was.

what about friends, family, and loved ones?