Recession got you down?
- Thread starter IronDuke
- Start date
Invader
Ancient Mariner
Quetzalcoatlus said:No, waking up at 6 you can avoid, it wouldn't be an army !
But you can always find ways not to do your duty and to go to sleep afterwards.
You'll see... I hope you'll be still here during your service. I would be very interesting to see how you'll go thought it.
I'm sure it's different from country to country, but some essential elements are the same :
Mandatory. No money. Far from home.
Sooner or later, during your service, you will 'react' inside you : And sleep shall be thy king
Maybe. But at least I can be braindead for a year and not have to think about studying. Or even think at all.
As for "far from home", I'm actually going to be stationed on an island on the Helsinki coast. I can get home (as in, to my front door) in about an hour, and about half the (maybe more) week-ends are off.
They always station you relatively near home here, because Finland's army is intended only for defence, not sending troops to the Middle East or other places. And since everyone has to do it, you really don't consider it so bad, because it's the same for everyone.
Invader
Ancient Mariner
Forostar said:
The awesome metal culture is made out to be bigger than it really is. And you really can't see "awesome" in this year's gig offering, half my favourite bands are touring Europe but ignoring Finland.
Shadow said:Finland isn't even a real country. It's just a part of Sweden that we've temporarily granted independence
If so, then from Russia, not Sweden. You can barely beat us in hockey, let alone rule us.
Invader said:If so, then from Russia, not Sweden. You can barely beat us in hockey, let alone rule us.
If we're going by hockey, then I win.
Canada
7 Olympic golds
18 World Championships
4 Canada Cups
1 World Cup
1 1972 Summit Series
7 Olympic golds
18 World Championships
4 Canada Cups
1 World Cup
1 1972 Summit Series
Doubtful, we're gonna get that gold in 2010!
Hozz
Invader
I served in the Danish army for a whopping 9 months, the typical time for a conscript "back then". It was fairly nicely set up, I got to choose where to serve (there's a base less than 30km from where I live), and we were paid ~€1500/month, which also went towards paying for meals etc. when at the base, but I most certainly wasn't skint in any way.
Out of those 9 months, 3 were basic field training and 6 were specific for the base you were stationed at. I spent 6 months in the back of a '70s era Mercedes GD, talking through a radio and encrypting stuff on ancient punch-hole strips. Oh, and I got to fire some really old weapons, like the H&K G3 and an MG42. I think those are still used for training in a few places. Add to that some serious explosives, like live hand grenades, and I'd say I had a blast *da-dum-tsch*. After the 9 months, we were offered permanent employment and/or stationing in Afghanistan/Iraq etc., with attractive payment schemes to match. I chose to opt out and get back to the real world.
Today, conscription has been cut to 4 months and is more of a survival/firefighting/general-purpose course, with proper military training reserved for those who volunteer. The rights of the conscripts have been vastly improved (depending on how you look at it), with strict 37 hour weeks, no physical punishment (not even a single push-up is allowed) etc.
I, for one, am glad I ended up serving those 9 months. I improved a lot personally, learned how to get up in the morning, take care of myself, and basically get my act together. I was heading in the "wrong" direction at that point in my life (I was 19 and basically didn't care about anything), and 9 months of discipline really did help me. It didn't turn me into a blind, obedient killing machine, but it did help me realise that I have a spine and it's there to keep me upright.
edit: just to be on-topic as well, the recession is all over the news here as well, and shops are having sales as if there's no tomorrow, but I don't quite feel it (yet). Working in a fancy restaurant, you'd think this would be one of the first luxuries to be cut from people's lives, but we haven't seen much of that. There's been some minor preemptive cuts in staff numbers, but nothing severe.
We've had our fair share of scandals involving banks lending huge amounts of money to moronic business ventures that were doomed to failure from day one, which *of course* has resulted in higher rates for us common folk, but that mostly hurts people who'd set themselves up with stupidly high mortgages in the first place. I'm in a situation where I could basically lose my job and live off social services and still not hurt that much, so I say bring on the recession!
Out of those 9 months, 3 were basic field training and 6 were specific for the base you were stationed at. I spent 6 months in the back of a '70s era Mercedes GD, talking through a radio and encrypting stuff on ancient punch-hole strips. Oh, and I got to fire some really old weapons, like the H&K G3 and an MG42. I think those are still used for training in a few places. Add to that some serious explosives, like live hand grenades, and I'd say I had a blast *da-dum-tsch*. After the 9 months, we were offered permanent employment and/or stationing in Afghanistan/Iraq etc., with attractive payment schemes to match. I chose to opt out and get back to the real world.
Today, conscription has been cut to 4 months and is more of a survival/firefighting/general-purpose course, with proper military training reserved for those who volunteer. The rights of the conscripts have been vastly improved (depending on how you look at it), with strict 37 hour weeks, no physical punishment (not even a single push-up is allowed) etc.
I, for one, am glad I ended up serving those 9 months. I improved a lot personally, learned how to get up in the morning, take care of myself, and basically get my act together. I was heading in the "wrong" direction at that point in my life (I was 19 and basically didn't care about anything), and 9 months of discipline really did help me. It didn't turn me into a blind, obedient killing machine, but it did help me realise that I have a spine and it's there to keep me upright.
edit: just to be on-topic as well, the recession is all over the news here as well, and shops are having sales as if there's no tomorrow, but I don't quite feel it (yet). Working in a fancy restaurant, you'd think this would be one of the first luxuries to be cut from people's lives, but we haven't seen much of that. There's been some minor preemptive cuts in staff numbers, but nothing severe.
We've had our fair share of scandals involving banks lending huge amounts of money to moronic business ventures that were doomed to failure from day one, which *of course* has resulted in higher rates for us common folk, but that mostly hurts people who'd set themselves up with stupidly high mortgages in the first place. I'm in a situation where I could basically lose my job and live off social services and still not hurt that much, so I say bring on the recession!