The US and Canada both have professional armies and no compulsory service. In many European countries, kids must complete some sort of military duty for a set length of time, or else substitute when allowed with civil service.

This blog is written by a young Finnish man who is currently doing one year of compulsory military service.

Excerpts from his first post:

Friday, July 8th, 2005
You're in the Army now

Next monday, around 1100 (GMT -2), I will be leaving to join the army. I don't want to, but I really don't have a choice- every man in Finland has to serve for 6-12 months at some point, and I chose to do it now, before carrying on with my studies. It's not that bad really, as I don't have ANY life whatsoever that could suffer from my service, and I do get weekends off every now and then.....

Here's what I know about what I'm about to go through:
I'm joining the Karelian Brigade at Vekaranjärvi, Kouvola, Finland. I have no idea what my job description is going to be- the military originally gave me the job of a truck driver, but I have also applied for armored vehicle training. Both assignments are 12 month long, which is okay as long as I enjoy it at least a bit, but I'm also looking into the option of becoming a regular rifleman and getting away with 6 months. I have also heard of people who served their 12 months in a military research facility, and as a chemistry student I'd LOVE that option, but somehow I think they won't give me that assignment if I don't have at least a Master's degree. Which I don't.

Nothing is certain before the 2-month basic training period is over. Until then everyone is considered a rifleman and is given the same training. After the first two months there will be a evaluation and an interview with the training officer, and based on these, some rookies will be chosen to be trained as officers. This is also when everyone's line of duty is decided for good, so basically I still have two months to figure out what I want to do.

That's it for now. Wish me luck. Oh, and if you have Google Earth, you can check the coordinates 61°06'50"N 26°59'00"E to see the military base. It's not extremely accurate, but you can tell it's there.


Tanhald's army blog
http://tanhald.livejournal.com/