Posted by Evanthia on April 09, 2002 at 16:57:41:
In Reply to: Re: Having your cake and eating it too posted by Tony on April 09, 2002 at 00:04:23:
I'm not a military scientist but I am an administrator by profession so I feel qualified to comment that the 'chopping up' of military service into handy bite-size pieces would be an administrative nightmare, and I think you know this. As for national service's purpose being to character-build and provide a pool of men who can handle arms - what's wrong with that? Pacifism is a fine luxury to have as long as you don't have a militaristic Turkey as your next-door neighbour. Also, if you've been keeping abreast of political and military developments in Greece, you would be aware of the government announcement about a month ago to refocus Greece's military conscription to a professional volunteer force. Concurrent with that there will be a reduction in the amount of time of conscription, in some cases a reduction of many months, for those who are called up to do national service.