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.
I like it for the unifying experience it is. We all do it, it becomes part of our education and gives us the feel of all being Swiss besides our different cultures and languages.
But seeing every votes results (Röstigraben, cities vs countryside) proves that it is not a huge success 😅
One thing I don’t like at all is that in order to climb high hierarchy in some companies, you have to be a former military officer, preferably Swiss-German (bonus point if you’ve done a shit economy school).
When I started learning my job we could do our military service AT work as it was considered to be an essential nation wide security job. I did not profit from this but the deal was to go to work in military uniform, getting your salary paid by the military while continuing to work for your boss. Definitely a win for the company and a huge financial loss for the confederation. They stopped that when they realized it was dumb to pay salaries to people not actually working for you.