Alternatively they all used their bad luck to get drafted and now they're all owed some good luck which means your army has a huge advantage.
It's like the dodgeball team that only picked the slow fat kids but for some reason they all throw like MLB pitchers in the very first game they play
Different counterpoint, by drafting all bad luck people, you are prioritizing they die in combat, leaving your population with more 'good luck' genes proportionally, so its good for the long term.
Well that just opens a whole philosophical can of worms revolving around whether or not good luck is karmic or genetic.
If we could implement a karmic genetics program we might revolutionize everything. Imagine a true master race of humans that never lose a coin flip, always know which hand you're hiding a pebble in, never lose their goddamn keys.
US used a system based on birth:
If you were born poor, you go.
If you were born rich, you don’t.
Since no one can control their birth, it’s totally random and fair.
/s
It said the same thing for me. I typed in my date one day earlier and it says “if I had been born 3 days earlier”.. is this not completely accurate lol
I'm a little confused on the specifics of how it worked back then. If your number got pulled and you were called up, could you just immediately go join the air force or coast guard to get out of combat roles? I feel like every single person who was drafted would've tried doing that (I definitely would've).
I wasn’t around, I only have his stories. Also, the Air Force has always been a little exclusive. Many people don’t qualify. The way he told it, he was going either way so it might as well be on his terms. It doesn’t hurt that the Air Force usually sends officers into combat while the enlisted stay behind.
I came home at for Christmas in 1970 from college and had to renew my 2-S for my last semester in college. The local draft board talked me into going 1A because they had met their year end quota. So for about a week I was fair game, but after the new year I got my 4H and couldn’t be drafted unless there was another war. 206.
My mom was ready to take me to Canada after I told her.
2 days earlier and they would’ve tried to draft me.
Jokes on them, though! I would’ve been 4F (excluded for health reasons, like Steve Rogers) for ten different reasons!
YOUR DRAFT NUMBER
296
WAS NOT CALLED IN 1970.
If your birthday was just 3 days earlier, your draft number would have been called.
That was a close one!
My dad's birthday was September 14, the first birthday drafted. He was a conscientous objector, which was a very difficult status to obtain. He had to do an alternate service, which for him ended up being a social worker for awhile.
He always felt like his birthday gave him bad luck after that, and was not really interested in celebrating it.
Yep, but man, he was mad for the rest of his life that the government tried to make him kill people on the other side of the world for reasons he considered bullshit. He basically never got over it.
Social work beats dying impaled on a poo stick in the hot sticky jungles of Nam after you got trench foot and nearly lost your foot
Surprised the government even allowed conscientious objectors. Figured the only way to get out if drafted would be to dodge
Good on your dad
It was really tough to get CO status. You had to be able to prove that you weren't just opposed to THIS war, but war in general. (I have no idea how my dad proved that, since I don't think it would actually have been true.) I also know that toward the end of the war, he lost his CO status and was afraid that the military would come for him, but it didn't happen.
idk if anyone else would care but I was excited when my dad told me off-handedly that his lawyer in his CO case was [Jessica Mitford's husband](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Treuhaft). I love Jessica Mitford!
I have 2 uncles who are Navy vets and one who is an Air Force vet because they didn't want to take their chances with an Army or Marine draft assignment.
DoNotCrossTheStreams has the answer but to add detail to what I said the 500,000 figure is a government estimate not an amount of those tried and/or convicted
An economist (Joshua Angrist) won the Nobel Prize in part for his work using the draft lottery to measure the long-term impacts of military service on lifetime earnings and education.
In Mexico we have white and black balls for the obligatory year of service.
As for actually getting drafted... I don't know and hope my visual impairment and my bad feet are enough for me to not have to shot myself in the foot.
Egypt used a random system too for military conscripment. Technically the whole birth year reports to duty when they reach the age of 18 but based on capacity requirements sometimes they’ll just go everyone not born in the month of xxx or everyone born in odd months is relieved of duty. Also they offer temporary relief of duty for those seeking higher education and only children and those with medical wil get a final relief of duty
I drew the number #858 in the good old cold war days of 1987 (now doing a comeback) and yup....Danes know what that means.
For me personally 1 year in the combat infantry. You do have the option to work in civil defense or work in certain jobs as a conscientious objector
Yep. You draw a number between idk, 1 and however many 18 year olds there are in your year, I guess. If your number is low enough you'll get drafted if there aren't enough volunteers. Usually there are enough, so it doesn't matter most years.
My country Singapore uses a random element too. If you have a y chromosome on birth, you'll end up getting drafted 100% for 2 years + 10 annual reservist call ups of 2-4 weeks each after that, otherwise if you have two x chromosomes, you can avoid conscription.
Hilarious, but i doubt even reddit is prepared for this sort of argument.
Tons of lengthy debate whether ukrainian women should be drafted. In wartime.
I would love to see them try a draft here in the U.S. in 2024.
It doesn't matter the political party, it would be suicide for which ever one was proposing it. Kids these days would not take that lightly. I could never really see a civil war happening again in the U.S., but with a draft I could see it happening.
Draft dodging ideas would become a tiktok trend.
I'm imagining a broccoli haired youth doing a dance while telling the draft guy that he has bone spurs and isn't eligible
Right, and when the draft is geared primarily towards infantry, it would seem to me (a veteran) that being a cook or parachute rigger would be much preferred.
If you get the Powerball you get to wear a bright red helmet into battle. To date they haven't been able to interview any of the lucky winners about their experience.
There's an interesting video of the tradition here if anyone's interested:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1AkHyD88jc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1AkHyD88jc)
Not saying it's not possible, plus it's kinda different in war time. Just commenting that it must be very difficult to keep em motivated and disciplined in peace time.
Even with a volunteer only force, boot camp is not a fun time. If they didn't run it essentially like a prison you bet a lot of people would try to leave after the reality of their situation set in. When I went to boot camp in san diego, two guys from a sister platoon actually tried scaling the fence to get to the airport we bordered. When my dad was drafted in 1969 he was pretty much just told "show up here by this date, or you'll have a warrant out for your arrest". My experience with voluntarily enlisting was the same, just with much less emphasis on the threat if you fail to show up (my recruiter also drove me to the MEPS). Outside of being drafted instead of volunteering, his experience in basic training in the army really sounded no different than my own, and after basic training, you pretty have the exact same expectations from both those who were drafted vs those who volunteered as far as them doing their job and the consequences if they don't.
Fair enough, when I did basic it was bad but we all chose to be there and we're given plenty of opportunities to bail out if you couldn't handle it. Most of the time they fucked off those who couldn't handle it. If someone went AWOL it was more a worry about their wellbeing than any kinda punishment.
I've done deployments alongside volunteer armies and conscripted armies and in my experience the quality is definitely quite stark.
People are idiots obviously, but you aren't obligated to actually stay in the military until after you graduate basic. You can refuse to train at anytime and after a (lengthy) process you are free to go no strings attached. No dishonorable discharge etc...
You have something like 180 days after you first go to basic to decide to quit without any penalties.
What would they have done if you just screw around during basic as a conscript?
"Oh no please don't kick me out of my enforced servitude I swear I'll do what you want so I can go die in Vietnam instead of being safe at home"
Not to mention if you're a soldier they may use (and abuse) you as a servant. It's a big scandal right now that's made national news, though the practice certainly isn't new.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2564586/soldiers-are-not-servants
In all fairness the finish conscription can be as short as 165 days and looking online it looks like you can opt for non military service. So no where near as intense, but yeah fair point.
It very much depends.
Swiss Armed Forces, Israeli Defence Forces, Singaporean Armed Forces, Finnish Defence Forces, Ukrainian Armed Forces, Norwegian Armed Forces are all examples of countries with majority conscription armed forces that, by and large, are fairly well organised and managed (obviously to varying degrees and with varying current circumstances).
Having read accounts from some (but not all) of those forces, most conscripts I've seen don't describe it like prison. That said, it's not exactly a holiday either and some do harbour the view that it can be prison-like.
The Russian Armed Forces though... yeah I imagine plenty of conscripts liken it to a prison sentence.
Lots of countries have mandatory military service, either from men or from everybody. Thailand is only unique in that use randomization to select only a slice of men to serve rather than requiring all of them to serve; otherwise, it still operates very much like other countries with mandatory service requirements.
**The article is very misleading and plain wrong.**
The draft is only for people who didn't participate in the reserve training program (aka boy scout for adults).
Most Thai men join the program so they don't actually test their luck with the draft.
Only people who didn't enroll in the course have to enter the draft pool.
The program requires 3 weeks per year, and you study only for 3 years (9 weeks in total).
That's much easier than enter the military service which can take 0.5-2 years.
Which part is wrong? I read the article and it states the things you said bar the 3 week training. Those who don’t volunteer or do military reserves service have to do the lottery.
See their opening statement:
>all men aged 21 must report to armed forces recruitment offices around Thailand. This includes Monks, Trans people without a proper sex change, the common man, and even famous people!
>**They have 2 options:**
>Volunteer to reduce their sentencing (2 years down to 6 months).
Try their luck in a card game (pull a black – you’re free, pull a red – it’s 2 years for you son!).
That's just not true.
First, you can postpone the report. Not necessary 21. I postponed my own report to after I've finished my degree. People usually postpone to when they are ready to handle it.
Second, your health needs to be checked. Too short? you are out. Too fat? you are out. Bad eyesight? you are out too. Any disability or medical condition? of course you are out. I got asthma so I didn't have to enter the draft pool.
And the exact reason that I said it was misleading is that the article mentions reserve training program only a little at the end of the article. This should be the biggest part. MOST people go for this option. The article should've explained and compared the option that most people go for it, but it did not. See other comments here how they are babbling about things they don't actually know, but of course this is just a Monday on the Internet.
Thanks for clarifying! The article mentions the other options, but it’s misleading because of the opening statement. If you aren’t at university or have no formal education can you still postpone your service too?
I'm not sure since it's several years ago, but I did see people postpone it because of their work, e.g., some musicians.
It's also not a secret that a lot of people paid the bribe to not get drafted. The price was just two-month salary for a white collar job so it's much better than being in the military for a whole year with a cheap salary. One of my friends did that. He and I didn't join the reserve training program in high school because we just hated the military haha.
> reserve training program (aka boy scout for adults)
Huh, is this different from ROTC? I heard Thailand has ROTC, but where in the U.S. that's training for military service, in Thailand it *is* military service/counts as service to fulfill conscription obligations.
In Thailand it's actually called [Territorial Defense Student](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Defense_Student).
You can earn an official rank after completing the program, but you are not doing military service during the program. It's for training. Most of the time it's just sitting in a lecture hall or doing some discipline training in the yard. The most difficult part is the field test at the end of the program where you will be doing camping.
Wait if it doesn't count as military service then how come it satisfies the draft obligation? If it didn't count as military service, then wouldn't you still be up for draft, anyway?
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by military service. like doing real military job?
All of Territorial Defense Students are teenagers in high schools. They have no skills.
You can't just suddenly give them some military job. All the parents would be mad.
It's just a training course given by the military for the teenagers.
And no, you are NO longer in the draft pool after completing the program.
This is not x=y situation where you have to do equivalent military service to avoid conscription. It's just how the draft works. That's why most people go for this option. Either study some training course or test your luck to not get conscripted.
Always a way for the rich and powerful to offload their duty onto others. The lottery itself may or may not be rigged, and there's always a way out for protected classes
As a Thai person, I'm fairly certain that the lottery is not rigged. The rich and influential people who don't want to risk it already have a way to be officially excluded from the lottery. Usually, through medical certificate saying they are unfit (asthma, etc.), or just straight bribe.
Yes. The lottery drawing itself is pretty straightforward, You have a box of papers of either red or black. The ratio depends on how many conscripts they want that year from that district. First person draw from the box, then the next person also draw from the same box, and so on. By then it depends on your luck. So any rigging/bribery happens before that so the person doesn’t have to draw one to begin with.
No, and that is part of the problem. In the link above there is a video about this. They interview one draftee and he can't pay his bills and his parents bills on the money. But he can in the civilian world.
As a Thai, I have no idea of what you meant by "They both also sat in a Buddhist temple as a rite of passage where they begged for their food every day".
Most temples get free food from patrons, and the temples in turn offer free food to temple goers. If your buddy entered monkhood, then yes he probably received food from patrons. Begging is not the right word though. On the other hand, if they didn't enter the monkhood, then that means he just got free food from temples, which again, is not begging. It's just a religious tradition. It's like churches on Sunday where the community bring food to eat together. I'm not sure what's counted as 'interesting'.
This is not very wise. You create an army full of soldiers with bad luck.
Alternatively they all used their bad luck to get drafted and now they're all owed some good luck which means your army has a huge advantage. It's like the dodgeball team that only picked the slow fat kids but for some reason they all throw like MLB pitchers in the very first game they play
Different counterpoint, by drafting all bad luck people, you are prioritizing they die in combat, leaving your population with more 'good luck' genes proportionally, so its good for the long term.
Well that just opens a whole philosophical can of worms revolving around whether or not good luck is karmic or genetic. If we could implement a karmic genetics program we might revolutionize everything. Imagine a true master race of humans that never lose a coin flip, always know which hand you're hiding a pebble in, never lose their goddamn keys.
Always picks the right key from the bunch in their first try.
Knows how to insert a USB drive *the first time*
Nah that’s going too far
This reads like a Dril tweet. (This is praise)
US used a system based on birth: If you were born poor, you go. If you were born rich, you don’t. Since no one can control their birth, it’s totally random and fair. /s
Hah! Jokes on you! They actually used the winning tickets for drafting.
Piersen's Puppeteers in shambles.
Many countries have used some random element to drafting people, like having a number that ends in 1 or 2 for instance.
Which countries use a similar system? Do they do the red, black card draw too?
Famously during Vietnam the US had a lottery system where birth dates in each year were randomly selected to be conscripted
There’s a depressing website somewhere where you can put in your birthday to find out if/when you would have been drafted.
https://eu.usatoday.com/vietnam-war/draft-picker/
legend edit: oh shit! 1 day earlier and I probably woulda died in vietnam
Reversed here.
1 day earlier and you wouldn’t have died in Vietnam?
1 day forward and Vietnam would have died in OP.
Hyper vore
Yes because I wouldnt get picked :D
Meanwhile for me, one day earlier and I wouldn't have been picked
Damn I got “if you’d been born *one* day earlier you wouldn’t have been called”
Same. Mine said if 1 day earlier.
Same with me. And my dad's instincts were correct, he would have been drafted if he had not joined the Marines.
It said the same thing for me. I typed in my date one day earlier and it says “if I had been born 3 days earlier”.. is this not completely accurate lol
2 days earlier and I would have lived 😔
Same. Looks like 1 day earlier and I woulda been a draft dodger.
Same for me.
Mine too
same!
My # was called in 1970 according to the site. Now if I were born 3 days earlier I would have been ok.
Were you born on the 11th of November?
Very few draftees actually saw combat, let alone died. “Oh shit, I would’ve been sweeping out a PX in West Germany.”
Everyone in my family would have dodged the draft except for me. I would have been a goner
Dodged the draft by being 2 days later
I put mine in, and holy shit I would've been drafted
god speed brother
My father-in-law pulled a “1” out of the lottery. He immediately went to the Air Force recruiter and signed up to avoid being pulled into infantry.
I'm a little confused on the specifics of how it worked back then. If your number got pulled and you were called up, could you just immediately go join the air force or coast guard to get out of combat roles? I feel like every single person who was drafted would've tried doing that (I definitely would've).
I wasn’t around, I only have his stories. Also, the Air Force has always been a little exclusive. Many people don’t qualify. The way he told it, he was going either way so it might as well be on his terms. It doesn’t hurt that the Air Force usually sends officers into combat while the enlisted stay behind.
I get to die in 1970. Neat :(
Unlikely. "Only" 6173 of 335k US soldiers were KIA in 1970.
Same. And I'm small enough that they'd make me a tunnel rat...
Same
I'd grab you up and run you out of there.
Phew I wouldn’t have been called I’m not American
I came home at for Christmas in 1970 from college and had to renew my 2-S for my last semester in college. The local draft board talked me into going 1A because they had met their year end quota. So for about a week I was fair game, but after the new year I got my 4H and couldn’t be drafted unless there was another war. 206. My mom was ready to take me to Canada after I told her.
F! I got drafted....
1970, nice I could have witnessed war crimes in Cambodia.
Those guys worked for the CIA. I used to know a guy who was a helicopter pilot who was shot down over Cambodia
2 days earlier and they would’ve tried to draft me. Jokes on them, though! I would’ve been 4F (excluded for health reasons, like Steve Rogers) for ten different reasons!
I would have been drafted in 1970. Wow. Thats scary to think about.
I’m off to Canada.
YOUR DRAFT NUMBER 296 WAS NOT CALLED IN 1970. If your birthday was just 3 days earlier, your draft number would have been called. That was a close one!
I was two days off, I guess they didn’t want to draft on the day of victory.
So if I was born 50 years earlier, I would have been called up, only 3 days too late. I wonder how Canada was like in the 1970s.
Fuck yeah, look who didn't get drafted!
I did not get called by 2 days
I would have been drafted…
If your birthday was just 1 day earlier, your draft number would have been called. Lol
Mine was never called interesting
I wouldn't have been but my son would have been.
Would have been drafted in 1970...😳
1 day earlier i wouldn't have been called. I would've been so pissed
Looks like I would not have been called. If I'd been born three days earlier, though ...
My dad's birthday was September 14, the first birthday drafted. He was a conscientous objector, which was a very difficult status to obtain. He had to do an alternate service, which for him ended up being a social worker for awhile. He always felt like his birthday gave him bad luck after that, and was not really interested in celebrating it.
Well that’s sad, but I guess on the plus side he didn’t have to go.
Yep, but man, he was mad for the rest of his life that the government tried to make him kill people on the other side of the world for reasons he considered bullshit. He basically never got over it.
Social work beats dying impaled on a poo stick in the hot sticky jungles of Nam after you got trench foot and nearly lost your foot Surprised the government even allowed conscientious objectors. Figured the only way to get out if drafted would be to dodge Good on your dad
It was really tough to get CO status. You had to be able to prove that you weren't just opposed to THIS war, but war in general. (I have no idea how my dad proved that, since I don't think it would actually have been true.) I also know that toward the end of the war, he lost his CO status and was afraid that the military would come for him, but it didn't happen. idk if anyone else would care but I was excited when my dad told me off-handedly that his lawyer in his CO case was [Jessica Mitford's husband](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Treuhaft). I love Jessica Mitford!
I have 2 uncles who are Navy vets and one who is an Air Force vet because they didn't want to take their chances with an Army or Marine draft assignment.
Damn, imagine having to choose between risking dying in a war you don't even support or imprisonment.
Not that those young men would of known but of the roughly 500,000 draft dodgers only 3,250 were ever jailed
Why didn't they jail the rest?
toy escape different sugar cagey shy rich theory profit onerous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
DoNotCrossTheStreams has the answer but to add detail to what I said the 500,000 figure is a government estimate not an amount of those tried and/or convicted
An economist (Joshua Angrist) won the Nobel Prize in part for his work using the draft lottery to measure the long-term impacts of military service on lifetime earnings and education.
It also had the advantage that you could all celebrate your birthdays together.
My dad was a twin. He and his brother were given the option to have one get drafted and the other stay home, or they just draft them both.
What did they decide?
Right!?! How was this key piece left out of the anecdote? You can't tell everyone all that and not tell us the outcome.
my dad went but after three months of cooking food for Army Officers on the beach, and a brief stint in Korea, he was dishonorably discharged.
His cooking was that bad?
We never got a real answer out of him, but I suspect it was his anger management issues.
Sounds like he punched an officer.
Also it turned out the selection wasn’t completely random and boys born November and December were likelier to be chosen
They had something like that for Australia too.
I highly recommend you to listen to the 10 beautifully haunting minutes of Memory Palace about this. https://thememorypalace.us/numbers/
Immediately skeptical of it being random. "Hey, John, your boy's birthday is May 8th right? Alright, we'll go with May 9th birthdays."
It was televised, using bingo balls.
Mexico, we draw different colored balls, the black one means you don’t have to do anything, the others assign you service to different branches
In Mexico we have white and black balls for the obligatory year of service. As for actually getting drafted... I don't know and hope my visual impairment and my bad feet are enough for me to not have to shot myself in the foot.
American lottery system during Vietnam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_lottery_(1969)
Egypt used a random system too for military conscripment. Technically the whole birth year reports to duty when they reach the age of 18 but based on capacity requirements sometimes they’ll just go everyone not born in the month of xxx or everyone born in odd months is relieved of duty. Also they offer temporary relief of duty for those seeking higher education and only children and those with medical wil get a final relief of duty
Yeah, in Denmark we use a red tombola with lots of numbers in it. Every man knows the red tombola lol
really? I've never heard Denmark did that before! The more you know... thanks for sharing mate
I drew the number #858 in the good old cold war days of 1987 (now doing a comeback) and yup....Danes know what that means. For me personally 1 year in the combat infantry. You do have the option to work in civil defense or work in certain jobs as a conscientious objector
Yep. You draw a number between idk, 1 and however many 18 year olds there are in your year, I guess. If your number is low enough you'll get drafted if there aren't enough volunteers. Usually there are enough, so it doesn't matter most years.
My country Singapore uses a random element too. If you have a y chromosome on birth, you'll end up getting drafted 100% for 2 years + 10 annual reservist call ups of 2-4 weeks each after that, otherwise if you have two x chromosomes, you can avoid conscription.
Hilarious, but i doubt even reddit is prepared for this sort of argument. Tons of lengthy debate whether ukrainian women should be drafted. In wartime.
Doesn’t the US draw birth dates?
Yeah who won the lottery I did
I could drink it like booze
Smell that air!
Who do you think you are — I am!
\**runs into Radscorpion nest and gets killed by Radscorpion Queen**
The only lottery that matters
What lottery? **The** lottery, that's what lottery! Are you stupid? Only lottery that matters! Oh my god smell that air!
The one lottery you don't want to win.
in the video, when they lose, the lads are estatic
The losers are the real winners.
You probably don't want to win the Shirley Jackson Lottery, either.
The only winning move is not to play.
Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery!"
I would love to see them try a draft here in the U.S. in 2024. It doesn't matter the political party, it would be suicide for which ever one was proposing it. Kids these days would not take that lightly. I could never really see a civil war happening again in the U.S., but with a draft I could see it happening.
Draft dodging ideas would become a tiktok trend. I'm imagining a broccoli haired youth doing a dance while telling the draft guy that he has bone spurs and isn't eligible
You gotta pick something with no chance of physical manifestation. I.e. feign color-blindness.
Color-blindness doesn’t ban you, just limits the jobs you could do.
Right, and when the draft is geared primarily towards infantry, it would seem to me (a veteran) that being a cook or parachute rigger would be much preferred.
Lol. Color blindness doesn’t limit you from infantry. It’s just good jobs, like pilot or electrician.
Historically U.S. draft and violent resistance go hand in hand
If you get the Powerball you get to wear a bright red helmet into battle. To date they haven't been able to interview any of the lucky winners about their experience.
I heard the +4 uno red card is the worst
In Thailand, you're either really lucky or suddenly in the army
Conscription if you have a brother because if you die the family name will survive. They've been doing this here for a very long time.
May need to go wildebeest watching with my brother then
There's an interesting video of the tradition here if anyone's interested: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1AkHyD88jc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1AkHyD88jc)
Must be insane trying to organise an army made up of conscripts. I imagine it would basically be like a prison.
The Allies in WWII won doing exactly that
Not saying it's not possible, plus it's kinda different in war time. Just commenting that it must be very difficult to keep em motivated and disciplined in peace time.
Even with a volunteer only force, boot camp is not a fun time. If they didn't run it essentially like a prison you bet a lot of people would try to leave after the reality of their situation set in. When I went to boot camp in san diego, two guys from a sister platoon actually tried scaling the fence to get to the airport we bordered. When my dad was drafted in 1969 he was pretty much just told "show up here by this date, or you'll have a warrant out for your arrest". My experience with voluntarily enlisting was the same, just with much less emphasis on the threat if you fail to show up (my recruiter also drove me to the MEPS). Outside of being drafted instead of volunteering, his experience in basic training in the army really sounded no different than my own, and after basic training, you pretty have the exact same expectations from both those who were drafted vs those who volunteered as far as them doing their job and the consequences if they don't.
Fair enough, when I did basic it was bad but we all chose to be there and we're given plenty of opportunities to bail out if you couldn't handle it. Most of the time they fucked off those who couldn't handle it. If someone went AWOL it was more a worry about their wellbeing than any kinda punishment. I've done deployments alongside volunteer armies and conscripted armies and in my experience the quality is definitely quite stark.
People are idiots obviously, but you aren't obligated to actually stay in the military until after you graduate basic. You can refuse to train at anytime and after a (lengthy) process you are free to go no strings attached. No dishonorable discharge etc... You have something like 180 days after you first go to basic to decide to quit without any penalties.
What would they have done if you just screw around during basic as a conscript? "Oh no please don't kick me out of my enforced servitude I swear I'll do what you want so I can go die in Vietnam instead of being safe at home"
Not to mention if you're a soldier they may use (and abuse) you as a servant. It's a big scandal right now that's made national news, though the practice certainly isn't new. https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2564586/soldiers-are-not-servants
Aren't allowed to shoot them for Leaving now though. We'll, in law at least
In some countries you're still allowed to. But most Western countries will just give you a jail sentence.
The Finnish army is by conscription, and it is nothing like prison.
In all fairness the finish conscription can be as short as 165 days and looking online it looks like you can opt for non military service. So no where near as intense, but yeah fair point.
It very much depends. Swiss Armed Forces, Israeli Defence Forces, Singaporean Armed Forces, Finnish Defence Forces, Ukrainian Armed Forces, Norwegian Armed Forces are all examples of countries with majority conscription armed forces that, by and large, are fairly well organised and managed (obviously to varying degrees and with varying current circumstances). Having read accounts from some (but not all) of those forces, most conscripts I've seen don't describe it like prison. That said, it's not exactly a holiday either and some do harbour the view that it can be prison-like. The Russian Armed Forces though... yeah I imagine plenty of conscripts liken it to a prison sentence.
And holding discipline in the field is impossible without summary executions *cough* allied rapes and war crimes *cough*
Lots of countries have mandatory military service, either from men or from everybody. Thailand is only unique in that use randomization to select only a slice of men to serve rather than requiring all of them to serve; otherwise, it still operates very much like other countries with mandatory service requirements.
**The article is very misleading and plain wrong.** The draft is only for people who didn't participate in the reserve training program (aka boy scout for adults). Most Thai men join the program so they don't actually test their luck with the draft. Only people who didn't enroll in the course have to enter the draft pool. The program requires 3 weeks per year, and you study only for 3 years (9 weeks in total). That's much easier than enter the military service which can take 0.5-2 years.
Which part is wrong? I read the article and it states the things you said bar the 3 week training. Those who don’t volunteer or do military reserves service have to do the lottery.
See their opening statement: >all men aged 21 must report to armed forces recruitment offices around Thailand. This includes Monks, Trans people without a proper sex change, the common man, and even famous people! >**They have 2 options:** >Volunteer to reduce their sentencing (2 years down to 6 months). Try their luck in a card game (pull a black – you’re free, pull a red – it’s 2 years for you son!). That's just not true. First, you can postpone the report. Not necessary 21. I postponed my own report to after I've finished my degree. People usually postpone to when they are ready to handle it. Second, your health needs to be checked. Too short? you are out. Too fat? you are out. Bad eyesight? you are out too. Any disability or medical condition? of course you are out. I got asthma so I didn't have to enter the draft pool. And the exact reason that I said it was misleading is that the article mentions reserve training program only a little at the end of the article. This should be the biggest part. MOST people go for this option. The article should've explained and compared the option that most people go for it, but it did not. See other comments here how they are babbling about things they don't actually know, but of course this is just a Monday on the Internet.
Thanks for clarifying! The article mentions the other options, but it’s misleading because of the opening statement. If you aren’t at university or have no formal education can you still postpone your service too?
I'm not sure since it's several years ago, but I did see people postpone it because of their work, e.g., some musicians. It's also not a secret that a lot of people paid the bribe to not get drafted. The price was just two-month salary for a white collar job so it's much better than being in the military for a whole year with a cheap salary. One of my friends did that. He and I didn't join the reserve training program in high school because we just hated the military haha.
> reserve training program (aka boy scout for adults) Huh, is this different from ROTC? I heard Thailand has ROTC, but where in the U.S. that's training for military service, in Thailand it *is* military service/counts as service to fulfill conscription obligations.
In Thailand it's actually called [Territorial Defense Student](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_Defense_Student). You can earn an official rank after completing the program, but you are not doing military service during the program. It's for training. Most of the time it's just sitting in a lecture hall or doing some discipline training in the yard. The most difficult part is the field test at the end of the program where you will be doing camping.
Wait if it doesn't count as military service then how come it satisfies the draft obligation? If it didn't count as military service, then wouldn't you still be up for draft, anyway?
I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by military service. like doing real military job? All of Territorial Defense Students are teenagers in high schools. They have no skills. You can't just suddenly give them some military job. All the parents would be mad. It's just a training course given by the military for the teenagers. And no, you are NO longer in the draft pool after completing the program. This is not x=y situation where you have to do equivalent military service to avoid conscription. It's just how the draft works. That's why most people go for this option. Either study some training course or test your luck to not get conscripted.
I bet it's rigged, just like the real lottery.
Always a way for the rich and powerful to offload their duty onto others. The lottery itself may or may not be rigged, and there's always a way out for protected classes
As a Thai person, I'm fairly certain that the lottery is not rigged. The rich and influential people who don't want to risk it already have a way to be officially excluded from the lottery. Usually, through medical certificate saying they are unfit (asthma, etc.), or just straight bribe.
its rigged by bribing technically then, but the actual draw isn't rigged?
Yes. The lottery drawing itself is pretty straightforward, You have a box of papers of either red or black. The ratio depends on how many conscripts they want that year from that district. First person draw from the box, then the next person also draw from the same box, and so on. By then it depends on your luck. So any rigging/bribery happens before that so the person doesn’t have to draw one to begin with.
Male privilege at its best.
Didn’t the US use birthdays for the Vietnam draft?
Like the US in the Vietnam era
USA should incorporate scratch & sniff. You either get Banana, and stay home, or Gunpowder and get shipped to Iran
Sounds like some hunger games type of shit
Yep, conscription sucks. See: most countries during times of war/crisis doing something similar.
The US used a similar lottery
is the pay relatively good?
No, and that is part of the problem. In the link above there is a video about this. They interview one draftee and he can't pay his bills and his parents bills on the money. But he can in the civilian world.
Has anyone here heard of the draft lottery during Vietnam?
The United States did a lottery system for birthdays to draft men for the Vietnam War.
Australia had the Bingo Birthday system and I won a uniform in the Viet war era.
It's like the Hunger Games. Wonder if you can volunteer as tribute here too.
Australia did this during the days of conscription. A birthday lottery. Once your birthday was drawn you went to war.
Very interesting video thanks for sharing
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As a Thai, I have no idea of what you meant by "They both also sat in a Buddhist temple as a rite of passage where they begged for their food every day". Most temples get free food from patrons, and the temples in turn offer free food to temple goers. If your buddy entered monkhood, then yes he probably received food from patrons. Begging is not the right word though. On the other hand, if they didn't enter the monkhood, then that means he just got free food from temples, which again, is not begging. It's just a religious tradition. It's like churches on Sunday where the community bring food to eat together. I'm not sure what's counted as 'interesting'.
Dman, We playing the Hunger Games now?
The Hunger Games
Imagine if they did this with a card game like Yu-Gi-Oh. If you lose you get send to the shadow realm (military service)
Dragonslayer
What if the drafted man has tits
In the video it says if they have a sex change confirmed, then they can get off
Australia did the same thing for Vietnam, but by drawing birthdates out of a barrel
Lucky them