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Two German experiences, briefly: My Dad did the mandatory 18-month hitch with the GDR's NVA (Nationale Volksarmee). This was the whole enchilada, drill, weapons training, weekend passes. They pulled him at 27, seeing as he got a deferment due to studying at university. The whole time didn't add up to much for him and he was glad to be out and back on career track afterwards. I served 9 months in 2003 with the Luftwaffe. After our first day of basic let out, we went to the base Mannschaftsheim (literally Enlisteds' Club, basically a little bistro/shop thing open to just about everyone on base), got a couple of lovely cheeseburgers and had a couple of beers, to the point where one of my roomies got in trouble for not having sobered up 'til morning. They tried to teach us to be good little soldiers in basic, they really did, but there was an extremely German "We're all just doing our jobs here" energy to it all that made it hard to take anything too seriously. I went home every weekend but one (where I volunteered to bus some officer's going away party) and spent the six months of 'real' duty after basic in the POGest possible office job, where I only ever touched guns again when I came up on rotation for guard duty, which was basically two hours standing post out in the night, four hours watching movies on some dude's laptop/eating pizza/catching up on Zs. We got paid what was an inordinate amount of money for fresh-out-of-high-school me, directly financing my first laptop, the beginning of my DVD collection and several purchases even more regrettable than that. The hardest part literally was the commute - riding trains frequently sitting in the hallways every weekend was not my idea of fun. In conclusion, German national service was a land of contrasts.
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Feb 27, 2021 07:19
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 13:50 |
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